Create your impact (Pt 3): The You You’re Becoming Matters

You try to picture the woman you're becoming, and somehow she feels like a stranger.

Calmer than you. Braver. Further down the road, living a life that looks good to you. She just doesn't look much like the woman standing in your kitchen in your fuzzy slippers before anyone else is up, drinking coffee and looking at a list that never seems to end.

So you do the math. That woman sounds lovely. She's just not you.

And you quietly set the picture aside, maybe even feeling a little foolish for imagining it in the first place.

I understand why.

When someone tells you to imagine your future self, it can feel like you're being asked to picture a woman you'll never actually become. The one you wish you could be. 

You look across all that distance between where you are and where she is, and instead of seeing possibility, you see the hard, cold facts. Secretly, you may even hear yourself say, “Ain’t ever going to happen.”

All you see is the women on stage, the women teaching the webinars, the women getting the millions of followers or all the promotions. 

You wish. But, again, secretly, it’s never going to be you.A

Now stop for one breath. What if you’re dismissing her too soon?

What if you’re just measuring in the wrong direction?

Turn the other way

That distance between your picture of who you wish you could be and the woman in the fuzzy slippers is called the gap. I like to see it as a deep chasm.

But forget all of that for now. Try this: instead of focusing ahead, try looking back instead.

Somewhere behind you is a woman you used to be who could never have pictured the woman you are today. Isn’t that an amazing thought?

She couldn't have imagined this job. This life. This table you're sitting at. The way you can walk into a room today and handle something that would have flattened her ten years ago.

Things she was terrified of, you probably do now without thinking twice.

You have already become someone she couldn't see coming.

Really think about that. You've crossed a distance this wide before. You were probably just too busy living your life to notice that was what you were doing.

The bridge I'd already crossed

I discovered this about myself almost by accident.

I felt like I was slogging through mud, trying to build something I kept telling myself a woman like me couldn't possibly build.

And suddenly I realized: I've been here before.

Years earlier, heartbroken, divorce behind me. I was just as convinced that real love was something other women got to have. Not me.

So I took the advice of the coach I followed and pictured myself there. In that love. Even though I didn’t believe it yet.

I started practicing being her. Standing like she would stand. Going on a date like she would. Being present in a conversation like she would do.

She was the woman I wanted to be. And little by little, I began living like her.

What happened? She was already there long before my Knight, Rod, ever pulled up beside me in a parking lot and offered me booster cables.

And now, I’m seeing that the bridge I was so sure I couldn't cross in 2026 is the same kind of bridge I'd already crossed then in 2011.

Same fear. (“Ain’t gonna happen”)

Same voice saying, Women like you don't get to do things like this.

I simply hadn't understood the first time that I was crossing a bridge. Believing in myself wasn't what got me onto it. 

Belief came from walking it.

The voice that wants to keep you safe

So what’s your inside voice saying? That part of your brain that remembers all those times you were disappointed or made to feel as if you couldn’t do something. 

You weren’t enough. Didn’t belong. Didn’t have what it takes. 

At Tiny Brave Steps, we take fear out of our heads and give it a name. We call him Fred.

In my mind, he's a short Disney-type dragon who's lost most of his fire. He's more like a very worried companion who never leaves you and who has appointed himself head of security for your life.

When you reach for something new, he knows what could happen and is sure to pull out an old file of a similar time and read it to you. 

So when you begin imagining a bigger version of your life, that’s what happens.

He's neglected to include a reminder that the woman behind you — the one who couldn't have imagined you standing where you are today — is part of the answer.

That’s not his job. That’s yours. 

She's closer than she looks

Yes, there's a distance between who you are today and who you're meant to become. And it does feel like a chasm.

But that chasm can be crossed on a bridge that you build. One Tiny Brave Step after another. You don’t have to leap across. 

Three years from now only comes one year, one month, one day at a time. What matters is what you do each day so the days add up to  months and the months add up to years of progress.

That’s how you’ve become who you are today.

Your future self is simply you 3 years from now. She isn't some polished stranger living a completely different life.

She's you.

A few brave steps further along.

She's the you who has grown your strengths, your gifts, what matters to you, what you want, and the impact you're here to make.

You can try her on now like I did when I wanted to find love again.

You can ask, “If that’s who I want to become, then what would I do now, what would I say, how would I respond so that I am so used to being like that, it’s who I become?” 

It’s adjusting an attitude. Taking an action. Lifting your shoulders and your chin and being brave in an ordinary moment that grows you into her.

One step at a time, you practice living as her before you completely believe you are her.

Your next plank

Start with proof. Think back to the woman you used to be who would be amazed by something about you today.

Name one thing you can do now that she once thought was impossible.

Maybe it's

• A conversation you can have.

• A decision you can make.

• Something you've survived.

• A boundary you've learned to hold.

• A room you can walk into.

• A life you've learned how to manage.

Don't rush past it. See it from a place of wonder. 

Use it as evidence. Evidence that you can become someone you cannot yet fully picture.

Then turn around and look forward again with fresh eyes. Who are you becoming next?

You don't need to describe her whole life. Have fun with it.

• Give her one true detail.

• One thing she does.

• One way she carries herself.

• One thing she no longer apologizes for wanting.

Then try her on somewhere small today.

• The way you say something in an email.

• The way you smile and answer someone with a confident tone in your voice.

• Make a decision as if you were her and she was you right now. One decision.

Start asking yourself: What would she do here?

And do that. Choose a Tiny Brave Step. Even ninety seconds of living as her counts.

Walking it together

This September, inside Courageous Leadership Spaces, we're walking the whole bridge together. Eight planks from Not Enough to Brave Enough, one Tiny Brave Step at a time, alongside women who are doing the same brave work in their own lives and businesses.

Picturing the woman you're becoming is one of those planks.

If you're thinking it’s taking way too long to build the impact you want to build, to reach the other side of that chasm, start here.

It can feel as if you’re standing all alone over here on this side but you’re not alone. We get it. But we’re making progress so we invite you to join us.

And, if you want some very special AI help,  if she still won't quite come into focus, the Tiny Brave Steps Generator is free and ready.

Tell it: Help me describe the woman I'm becoming as if she's already real, then ask me what she'd do next.

Because here's what I want you to remember: you've crossed a bridge like this before. You just didn't know that's what you were doing.