Over the past two months, I’ve had to pivot…several times. And I want to be honest about that instead of just showing up here like everything went according to plan, because it didn’t.
I’d been training literally all year for the regional powerlifting championships, trying to qualify for nationals, and then in July, I tore my calf. It was a big deal because I’d trained so hard and carefully all year and this was something I couldn’t really prevent. If anything, it highlighted an area that had always been weak for me, my Achilles and calf. But it made me pause and also interrupted my workout routine for several months.
Around the same time, something similar happened with Rooted Anywhere. I was all ready to go and start the program and we'd done a lot of marketing for it. But, when it came down to it, I didn't have enough people signed up to make the program work as I had designed it, so I had to push back the launch of the program. The same thing happened with a four week Burnout Group that I was planning on launching with my co-facilitator. I thought to myself, “there’s no way that people don’t need a burnout group!” Burnout is a subject I hear and see a lot about on social media and around me when people talk about navigating life, their jobs, and our sociopolitical climate.
I had to tell and remind myself that these groups not launching when I wanted them to is not a failure, it may just be that they need more time for people to learn about them. Maybe the ramp up between marketing and start time was too soon, or maybe I needed more time to tell people this program and group existed in this area that was seemingly new to my networks, but had always been part of my story and experience. Either way, I just didn’t have enough people yet to fill the cohorts.
What the extra time actually gave me
What I didn’t expect was that needing more time actually gave me more time and space to breathe. In the background of my life, sequential big events and unexpected losses followed in August and September, and sometimes they even happened on the same day! I couldn’t believe it, but also I had to navigate it. I never could have expected the allostatic load of multiple losses and stressors coming up in a short period of time. I soon realized I needed the space to launch these programs when my energy stores weren’t spread thin and to focus on developing the curriculum a bit more and rethink my marketing strategy.
That’s kind of the whole job when you’re an entrepreneur, isn’t it? You navigate the professional and personal as a whole human and you also manage the unexpected that shows up along the way. You learn as you go, even when the lesson shows up as a delay you didn’t ask for.
With the calf injury it felt similar because I was strengthening a part of me that had been weak for a long time, and it forced a pause in my training that I probably needed anyway, so I could focus on that gradually. In both of these circumstances (the injury and the pushed-back program launch dates), I ended up leaning into one of my words for 2026: balance. I realized I’d been putting so much pressure on myself to launch on specific timelines, in a way that honestly wasn’t balanced at all. Giving myself more space and more time actually helped me align more closely to that word instead of just practicing it as an idea.
I went on a retreat at the turn of summer to autumn, and it gave me the space to reflect and really sit with all of this. What I landed on is that things may take more time when you’re starting something new…and that’s okay! It might even take additional time for more people to hear about this program and this group to see if it interests them in joining and fits what they want to discuss and work through more.
Why Rooted Anywhere, really
So I know Rooted Anywhere might look differently from what I usually put out there. But the throughline is me, someone who grew up in her formative years abroad, subsequently lived abroad in shorter stints and has been through a lot of different life experiences, worked with transient refugee and immigrant communities, and done quite a bit of grief work along the way.
As it relates to my grief content, while there is a lot of novelty, discovery, and joy in moving abroad, there can also be quite a bit of grief in relocating too. It’s a specific kind of grief and one that doesn’t always get named as grief because it’s tangled up with so much excitement and is viewed as something you chose. When you move somewhere new, there are exciting parts to look forward to like exploring new places and sites, connecting with new people you meet, and adjusting to the new aspects of your identity that you get to explore. But underneath all that, there’s also a lot of change that you adjust to, like familiar routines, new cultural norms, and the proximity to people you love. You’re navigating both gaining possibly an amazing experience while also adapting to changes and the feelings of loss that come with that.
I think that’s the real connection I feel to Rooted Anywhere and why I’m so passionate about it. Through my own academic and professional experience guiding people through major life changes, coupled with my lived experience in navigating multiple relocations and grief, I see the gains and opportunities with the challenges and loss all happening at once and that type of grief needs to be named and given the space it needs to be processed and explored. It’s something you keep learning how to hold, time and time again as you live abroad and learn what it means to stay rooted.
So that’s where things are right now. We’re still moving forward, just on a different timeline than I originally planned. And I’m okay with that.
This is your invitation to learn for yourself what it means to be okay with shifting timelines and plans, and pivoting when things just didn’t go the way you hoped. May you find balance in the midst of it, and take a moment to see what lesson(s) life is trying to show you in that moment. 💖
FYI: Rooted Anywhere and the Burnout Group are happening in early 2027, so share this, tell your people, and join the waitlists today!