Hearing the call is one thing. Answering it is another.

From my observations, there are three main reasons—see also: excuses—that someone will never accept the call or will delay for far too long, therefore keeping them stuck and small and frustrated. We’re going to talk about what these three specific reasons are in this episode, and also talk about how we can break through them.

You’ve heard the call. You’ve recognized the discomfort, the patterns, the signs that something needs to change. But here’s what happens next, and it’s far more challenging than hearing the call in the first place: building the courage to take some sort of action.

After ten years of working with clients and observing patterns across hundreds of conversations, what becomes clear is this—even though every single one of us is completely unique, we’re also not unique at all. Our challenges and obstacles have their own blueprints. But underneath all of that, when we peel back the layers, we get to these universal patterns that are built into us. The things that really mean we are all so alike.

And when it comes to accepting the call? There are three specific patterns that show up over and over again as what can seem like perfectly logical and rational reasons to not take action. But here’s the truth: these are the ego freaking out about any sign of change. They are excuses to keep you stuck.

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🎧 Listen to Episode 2

To hear the deep dive on breaking these patterns and how to activate the Warrior Archetype, hit play below.

The Cliff’s Notes

Core Themes:

• Three universal patterns keep people from accepting the call: waiting to feel ready, needing perfect conditions, and requiring total clarity before taking action
• The line between legitimate reasons and excuses requires discernment and self-honesty
• Knowledge without embodiment creates overwhelm rather than readiness
• We cannot plan every detail of our lives—clarity comes moment to moment, not as a complete roadmap
• The warrior archetype activates courage by connecting to something worth fighting for

Key Takeaways:

1. You will never feel fully ready: No one truly feels ready. Even ten years into a journey, there are always more things to learn and new areas where you’re a beginner.
2. Discern between legitimate survival seasons and excuse-making: If you’re truly in crisis mode with an dysregulated nervous system, focus on resourcing yourself first. But if you’re stable and waiting for “perfect” conditions, you’re stuck in a loop.
3. Surrender the need for certainty: Reflect on your life ten years ago—you had no detailed plan for where you are now, yet here you are. The best things often happen without plans.
4. Activate the warrior archetype: Connect to something bigger than your fear—a fight worth fighting, an injustice that makes you sick, or a vision that lights you up.
5. Take imperfect action: Manifestation requires intention, commitment, and action. Show the universe you mean business so it can meet you halfway.

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Want a personalized Mythic Map of your own hero’s journey? That’s why I created Mythic Journey.

Your Gene Keys profile reimagined as a literal map that will reveal your most challenging internal obstacles to overcome, protective patterns to disrupt, and the gifts that are waiting for you on the other side. Over the course of 75+ minutes (in a pre-recorded video you can watch over and over again), I’ll operate as your very own guide as we weave the new narrative for what you’re being called to and how to step into your full potential.

Intrigued and want to know more? Click here for all the deets!

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The Three Patterns That Keep You Stuck

Before we dive in, an important note: this podcast is designed as a doorway to deeper inquiry. What’s being shared here are universal patterns observed across years of client work—patterns that show up over and over again. The hope is that you can listen and walk away with something tangible and helpful for you.

But this is just the beginning. If you find yourself struggling to see what your specific patterns are, or how to break out of them in your unique situation, that’s where more personalized work comes in. For now, have your notebook handy. Journal after this episode. Let these patterns reveal where you might be stuck.

Pattern One: Waiting to Feel Ready

This is perhaps the most relatable pattern, and it’s deceptively simple. You’re waiting to take action because you think there’s a point where you’ll feel a certain level of readiness in yourself to then go do the thing.

This comes up most often when working with people who are wanting to launch businesses, step out as thought leaders, or publish their work creatively. It often involves having to do something that would imply they’re an expert in some way, so they’re waiting to feel like an expert, waiting to feel worthy of attention and praise before they do the thing.

Here’s the problem: no one ever truly feels this way.

Ten years into self-employment, every single year brings awareness of all the things still unknown. The bar keeps moving for what’s expected in terms of showing up in the world. Every time a new system or modality is discovered and learned, there’s the whole process of beginner’s mind and learning this new thing, which can mess with self-perception as a whole. On one hand, there’s mastery of other things. On another hand, there’s being a beginner again.

There is a permanent issue built into needing to feel ready because we never really will.

The Line One Challenge: The Quest for Expertise

This pattern shows up especially strongly in people with certain personality configurations. In the Gene Keys or Human Design system, those with a line one in their profile are here to be experts. The line one absolutely loves knowledge and understanding. Having a certain depth of understanding gives them a sense of security and a foundation being laid, which is what they need to move forward.

But here’s where a line needs to be drawn: there’s a certain amount of learning that can be done from books, from taking courses, from trying to get that next certification. But until that knowledge has been truly integrated and embodied—as in, walking the talk, experimenting with it, actually working with clients or putting it into practice—more and more knowledge can actually make you feel less and less capable. It can be really overwhelming until it’s truly embodied.

The bar keeps moving. If you’re someone who’s always looking for that next course or certification in order to get this sense of having arrived, of having tangible evidence of how good you are, you’ll always find a new thing you need to do next. Because the more you learn, the more you realize you don’t know.

The journey for these profiles—or for anyone who recognizes this pattern—is to learn to discern the difference between genuinely having massive knowledge and skills gaps, and having some sort of imposter syndrome symptom showing up that keeps telling you that you need to do more things.

At some point, you might need a loving kick in the butt to just take action and share your gifts with the world.

A Practical Hack: The Gradual Integration Path

Here’s one approach that works: if you don’t believe you’ve fully integrated and embodied that knowledge, if you don’t believe you’ve proven to yourself that you have value as some sort of practitioner or service provider, then charging might not be the right move yet. It could actually mess with your head even worse.

This is where working your way up becomes powerful. Take on some pro bono clients while integrating a new skill. Gift your services for a short period of time for a certain number of people that help you get that practice in without the pressure. Obviously, do this with the right people, where you feel safe to do that.

Then take on three clients who pay for this, but at a lower rate. Gather testimonials and evidence of expertise. That will give you more confidence and integrity to charge higher rates.

There’s a process that can be used to get through this. And here’s the reality: we’re working in a material world, and certain rules apply. Often blocks can be tackled from multiple angles. Sometimes they need to be strategic and very practical. Sometimes there’s deeper work that needs to be done—like a visibility block rooted in a core wound of rejection from childhood.

The Line Two Challenge: Not Recognizing Your Natural Gifts

The line two challenge is different but equally paralyzing. Line twos are known as “the natural,” and often what they’re really good at, what they’re skilled at, and what is truly valuable to other people comes so easily and naturally to them that they never really had to work hard at it. They don’t actually recognize it as a gift that’s valuable.

It doesn’t feel tangible, and it can feel wrong to charge for something where the thought is, “Oh, but this is easy. Isn’t this easy for everyone?”

The answer? No. It’s actually not. The stuff you take for granted? Other people are tearing their hair out, wishing they had the ability to do these things the way that you do them.

For the line two, they may also put off taking action and think they need certifications and extra courses so that their gifts become more tangible. But that never really helps, because those gifts were already inbuilt.

The Core Question

So the question becomes: Is there anything you’re putting off because you don’t feel ready? Can you drill down into the specifics of what that readiness really is about? Is it something you can get before taking action? Or do you need to be brutally honest with yourself and realize that the only way you’ll ever get that evidence, the only way you’ll ever get validation that what you do is helpful and valuable, is going to come from you just putting it out there in the world and having to feel uncomfortable for a while?

Because here’s what it all comes down to: most of us just feel so uncomfortable having to be vulnerable and to be some sort of beginner and be at the beginning stages of a journey. It’s not fun. And yet, it can be fun when you give yourself permission.

For instance, the pro bono work hack completely changed everything. It accelerated progress. As someone who constantly learns new things, there was starting to be more and more overwhelm about how to bring that into the business. So there was sitting for a couple of years doing nothing about it, trying to imagine how to integrate all of these new skills and knowledge and modalities into the work, but not getting any answers because there hadn’t been any trying. There hadn’t been interaction with clients to see how it works.

Once those free sessions started and immediate feedback came in, it was fun because there were no expectations. They weren’t paying. It was a gift. Everybody wins. The sessions were filling things back up—”Oh my gosh, this works. This is awesome. I love working in this way.” And they were getting sessions for free. It was so simple.

And yet one of the issues with the online space is these rules about how, the second you put yourself out there, you’d better be charging high ticket rates or the world is going to end.

When those rules were thrown out the window and there was actually listening to intuition—what do I actually need?—and allowing for experimentation and figuring it out along the way, the amount of freedom that opened up was wild.

Pattern Two: Waiting for the Perfect Conditions

This pattern needs to be approached with discernment, gentleness, and contemplation, because it can be a straight-out excuse, or it could be a very legitimate reason. You’re going to know the difference if you really trust yourself.

This is about waiting until fill in the blank. Waiting until you have a certain amount of time, a certain amount of money, until something else has happened. Waiting until the Christmas break so you can finally have some time to think.

And look, fair enough. You don’t have time right now. But here’s what can be forgotten: one of the reasons time doesn’t exist now, one of the reasons the conditions of life feel so less than appealing, is because none of the changes that are supposed to be made have been made yet.

The trap of this particular excuse—when it is an excuse and not a legitimate reason—is that you just go round and round the roundabout. You keep doing the same thing where you wait until you have a moment, but then you’re scared to make a big change. So you kind of go back to what you were doing before, but it’s just slightly different. And off you go and another year of chaos ensues and you’re living Groundhog Day.

Be Do Have vs. Have Do Be

Here’s the concept that’s most helpful to remember: be do have versus have do be.

When waiting to have life be a certain way, to have all of these perfect conditions around you before starting to take the action needed to get where you want to go and be who you want to be, what you’re doing is waiting to have the thing so that you can do the thing and then become the thing.

But the way change happens is this: first, embody the person, the future self. That future self then unlocks the ability to take the actions that will help achieve the thing that’s wanted. Once those actions are being taken, it’s a natural byproduct that the results and the conditions being sought will come.

Ask yourself right now: Is there any aspect of being a have-do-be-er? Or are you really in the be-do-have group?

It’s not easy to tap into that future version of yourself when you’re feeling like the past version of yourself. It’s not easy to show up at the gym when unfit and unhappy with the aesthetics of your body right now, to look in the mirror and think, “That’s not a fit person,” and do the exercises and struggle through them, or know that you can’t do what you used to do. But to keep showing up because you know that the only way to get there, the only way to get the fitness and those aesthetics, is if you actually show up as a fit person. Eventually those results will come.

But if the thought is, “Oh, I’m just gonna wait until I’m feeling a little bit better in my body before I go to the gym because it’s a little bit exposing,” then you’re have-do-being.

The Legitimate Exception: Survival Seasons

Here’s the critical exception, and this is really important. Develop discernment around this.

It is not always a good time in life to make drastic changes.

If you are in a season of survival where something major is going on, or multiple major things, but you are in a state of instability and your nervous system is activated and you’re feeling quite unsafe and really worked up, and it’s just hard to do anything other than just focus on surviving each day—that is not a time to make major changes like further upheaval.

This is a time where what’s needed is a season of resourcing yourself to get back into a place of internal stability. At least knowing that externally we can’t always control that. But once there’s internal stability—which means being able to regulate the nervous system, emotions not running you but being very aware of them and knowing how to manage them—when there’s a state of not feeling like a victim of circumstances and able to take responsibility for what’s going on, that’s when change becomes possible.

Taking responsibility for how you show up in life and the way you perceive everything. Having the choice to decide: Is life attacking me? Trying to get me down? Or is life giving me opportunities to rise up and rise above whatever is going on?

If you’re in a state where you can be in self-responsibility and self-sovereignty, believe that you actually have the power to make change, and you’re not letting other people influence whether or not you do that. If you are grounded and calm in yourself, have tools to be able to handle whatever life throws your way—knowing that stuff can land on your lap at any given day and it can feel catastrophic, but you can receive that, take it in stride, know the steps to take next—then you’re ready.

Another form of resourcing is having the right people around you. Maybe you need to make sure you’ve got a partner or some really close friends or a family member who you can lean on to provide extra support during this time. If not, then look for professional support.

If you’re in the state of things being absolutely crazy, this is not calling you out. Look after yourself. But that does not mean do nothing.

Looking after yourself doesn’t need to look like taking drastic action and launching into a new project or quitting your job. What it should look like is: Okay, where am I lacking resources? Where am I lacking internal resources, and where do I have a weak external support system? What can I do about it?

Take the steps at your own pace and get to a place where you’re feeling so much more secure and stable that even though craziness is still ensuing externally, flying around you, you are calm in the eye of the storm. You can just watch it, observe it, even appreciate it and go, “Wow, isn’t life crazy?” And you are there in stillness.

That is when you know you’re able to start moving from this survival season into an “okay, I’m going on an adventure” season.

The goal here is never to point fingers, to prescribe specific things, or to call you out. The goal is for you to activate—really reactivate—your own inner authority. Don’t take anyone else’s opinions as having more weight than your own.

One core philosophy: At the center of your being, you know who you are, and you know what you want.

Pattern Three: Waiting for Total Clarity and a Detailed Plan

This is about waiting for clarity and the ability to make a very detailed plan before taking action. And this gets to the root of one of the most challenging things about being human: we inherently do not enjoy uncertainty or ambiguity.

It is not fun, and it can be really scary if you haven’t yet learned to love it. Because here’s what’s true: you can learn to love it. It’s actually one of the most beautiful things about life—the fact that we don’t know.

But our fear-based mind and all of that wounding, all the shadows that haven’t been faced yet, they convince us that anything that is uncertain is dangerous and bad.

Breaking the Logic of the Fear-Based Mind

Here’s how to break the logic of that voice: Go back ten years and ask yourself to explain exactly what the plan was to get to today. To have achieved all the things achieved so far and be living where you are and having the skills you have and the friends you have. What was the plan?

Of course, there couldn’t be an answer to that question. You did not know. Maybe you were someone who had a really clear vision and that helped, and you’re very much where you wanted to be ten years ago. Maybe you had a totally different vision and ended up in a way different position than you thought you would be. Or maybe you had no vision and you’ve just been kind of cruising along.

Regardless, you got here without a specific plan.

We cannot plan every single detail of our lives.

When reflecting on life, most of the best things that ever happened—the things that were most exciting, biggest achievements, greatest joys, the things that make the heart swell the most—there were no plans for any of them. Often, they happened as a result of other plans falling through. Lots of disappointment and heartbreak and sometimes humiliation. And eventually that led to something so much better. But there wouldn’t have been a clue how to get there.

This comes back to the original point: our minds have very limited ability to truly vision and goal set, because it’s always based on what we’ve already seen. And add to that, it’s not just what we’ve already seen—it’s what we believe is possible for ourselves.

This is where the shadow work and the inner work come in, because under the surface, there are likely a whole bunch of beliefs that limit what’s thought to be possible for life. Therefore, the ability to dream is really capped with that inner operating system currently running.

The Creative Void: Where All Potential Exists

If you are waiting for this exact clarity and your ability to put together a plan, well, firstly, you’ll never be able to put together this perfect plan. Or you can spend weeks putting together an incredibly detailed plan and then three days into it realize, “Oh my gosh, this was unrealistic. This doesn’t feel good. It feels rigid and heavy and I don’t like it.”

What we need to touch on here is a really crucial, non-negotiable stage of your journey: the void. The creative void. Also known as just being in the dark.

In this creative void, all potential exists. It’s the most exciting stage of a journey because we could literally go in any direction and anything could come to be.

But obviously, our fear-based minds go, “Oh my God, I’m in the dark, I need light, I need to know where I’m going.” So we try and rush out of it as quickly as possible. And when we do that, we grab for logical, mind-based certainty. We try and look for guarantees, and often that shows up in the form of looking for some sort of coach or course or book that will allow us to follow a step-by-step, rigid plan that tries to force this next phase of life into being.

Clarity vs. Certainty

There’s a big difference between clarity and certainty. If we think we’re certain about something—especially if it has to do with anything in the future—we are usually wrong. Our minds convince us that things are certain, but they’re doing that to try and cling on and grab onto control of something we don’t have control over.

Clarity comes from in-the-moment knowing about what’s needed right now and what the next step is to take.

For the last two years, there was living in a creative void for too long, because there was thinking that ten steps ahead needed to be seen, and an entire plan was required for how the business was going to evolve. So there was sitting, being invisible, quietly working with some clients but not putting anything out there in the world, waiting for this moment where suddenly the heavens open up and the entire plan is visible, with a pathway five years into the future guaranteeing where everything is going.

That never came.

So there was just going around in circles, getting way too fixated on plans and caught up in all these tiny little details. So much money was wasted buying new website templates, setting up a new website and then tearing it down again, thinking of launching an offer and then not launching the offer, creating YouTube videos and then realizing YouTube wasn’t right. Stuck in this loop of chasing certainty that was not coming.

Then came the decision to finally surrender. Okay, what if there’s just admission that there’s no knowing where this is going? The only thing that’s known is wanting to make a greater impact. Wanting work to feel more creative and exciting. Wanting life to feel like an adventure. A mythic adventure.

What if there’s just a North Star—these things that are known to be true—and then asking the universe to start providing guidance, relying on clarity in the moment to help show what the next step is?

What happened then was opening up to synchronicity. There was being guided to all of these things. Here’s the next book that’s meant to be read. Here’s this person who’s going to inspire and show something new that’s possible. Here’s the realization that a healing journey needs to happen now, focusing on this because a root belief about what’s not possible is coming from here.

Eventually, there was a major download about the mythic journey. Because there was receptiveness and readiness to just go anywhere, so detached from where things were trying to go, something really exciting was given that fueled and activated creativity. And there was just throwing into it, still not knowing where it was going, but every single step taken revealed more of the path.

Eventually it brought things back to this podcast—which had been given up a couple of years ago with no knowing if podcasting would happen again—yet it became the next natural step. Step by step by step. This whole new evolution, this chapter of business and life, was just unfolding naturally without forcing it.

Vision Without Rigid Plans

One of the things that really needs to happen, if you’re that kind of person who needs the plan, is to make sure you at least have a clear vision and that you’re connected to what you’re actually wanting to work towards. Know what’s important to you. Then separate goals and plans and put them in different categories.

We can have plans for little pieces of the journey. Once we’re clear on the next thing we need to work on, maybe a plan is required so that we follow through with that particular project in an efficient way. But we cannot plan to achieve our vision. That’s just not how it works.

We need to break it down and really tune into this moment-to-moment clarity.

What to Do When You Can Never Be Fully Ready

So we’ve covered the gamut of these three really common reasons that keep us in place despite hearing the call. You may find that you resonate with all three or two or one or none.

But here’s what we need to talk about now: What do we do then?

What do we do if we will never have the perfect conditions until we make changes? If we will never feel ready until we start taking action? And if we’ll never be able to create this perfect plan, and all we can do is have moment-to-moment clarity?

How do we proceed?

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Want a personalized Mythic Map of your own hero’s journey? That’s why I created Mythic Journey.

Your Gene Keys profile reimagined as a literal map that will reveal your most challenging internal obstacles to overcome, protective patterns to disrupt, and the gifts that are waiting for you on the other side. Over the course of 75+ minutes (in a pre-recorded video you can watch over and over again), I’ll operate as your very own guide as we weave the new narrative for what you’re being called to and how to step into your full potential.

Intrigued and want to know more? Click here for all the deets!

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Activation & Contemplation

Your Next Archetype to Activate: The Warrior

This is quite different from the hunter. The hunter is out there looking for something really specific. It’s on a mission, but it’s got blinkers on and it’s not seeing anything else.

The warrior is very different. The warrior is ready for battle, but it’s because they have connected to a fight that is worth fighting. A warrior is fighting for something or against something. They have a bigger calling that allows them to activate a special kind of courage. Despite facing potentially impossible odds or something that’s really terrifying, it doesn’t matter, because the thing they’re fighting for is so important to them that they are going to just go out there and do it.

This is the key to everything. If you do not have something that is so big and so exciting that you’re working towards, something that really activates that creative spark in you, and you can feel your heart start to come online—just something—and it doesn’t have to be something very specific, it doesn’t have to be about a job or an exact thing that’s going to be achieved, but it’s like a feeling. Like sensing that a different kind of freedom is possible for life. Imagining just being able to make an impact while traveling the world. Or imagining one day having people message to say, “Oh my goodness, your book changed my life.”

Whatever that thing is, we need something that big to override the fear, because the fear is loud. We need something that is louder.

If you have been in this state of really struggling to overcome these particular blocks to getting started, it could be that right now the fear is just that loud and there’s not really a sense of purpose yet.

It’s incredible what happens, how we can rally our internal troops when we know there is something we need to rise up and fight for.

Human beings are built this way. It’s amazing what happens often in the face of disaster. When really terrible things happen in the world, certain people will activate this new kind of courage and heroism and step up and do things they never thought they would be able to do, because it’s in their spirit.

We were built with fighting spirits. But the point is, we need to stop fighting ourselves, and we need to find something that is worth fighting for.

Contemplation Prompts

If you’re struggling with the vision piece and it needs to be something else right now, trust that the vision will come to you. But what is the injustice that you see in the world that makes you sick? Where do you hate to see people suffer? What frustrates you about your industry or your workplace? Where do you wish that people knew about something that would make their lives easier?

Maybe there was something that transformed you and you’re thinking, “Oh my gosh, fewer people would be suffering in the world if they knew this thing.”

Find something. See if you can connect to it. Try it on for size. It doesn’t have to be the thing that sticks with you forever. Maybe you’ll then call in something even bigger and more exciting, but it’s just a start.

Your Symbol: The Sword

The sword represents decisiveness. The sword is about making, if possible, one swing and making that the only cut you ever need to make. You don’t want to keep hacking away at something. The point is, it’s permanent. We’ve swung the sword and boom, it’s done.

Get out of your head now and make a choice. Make a choice to take some sort of action. Take the next step.

The thing that’s important to understand about manifestation—manifesting something into material life, a vision to bringing it to life—is that it requires intention. So that’s what we’re talking about with the warrior. Then it requires commitment. And the third step, the most important step, is you take some sort of action.

It does not need to be perfect action. It doesn’t need to be even the right action. We don’t always know what that is. It’s more about taking a step and showing the universe that you mean business, that you are in this game for real, so that the universe can then meet you halfway and start providing additional guidance so that you will get clearer on what the next step is, and then the next step.

Your Activation Prompt

What is the decision you’re going to make, and what is the first step you’re going to take?

Try and make this difficult for you to get out of. Create some radical accountability. Is there someone you can share this commitment with? Do you want to actually announce it to the world so that you can’t back out of it? Create that accountability and then just do something.

The announcement could be something, but then also do something else. Don’t get too comfortable just yet.

This is the thing that’s going to help get over those first three excuses, if they are excuses. And we’re going to move on and we are going to truly have begun this journey.

If you want the radical accountability to come from me, feel free to send a DM on Instagram. Tell me what you’re gonna do. What you’re accepting the call for.

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Want a personalized Mythic Map of your own hero’s journey? That’s why I created Mythic Journey.

Your Gene Keys profile reimagined as a literal map that will reveal your most challenging internal obstacles to overcome, protective patterns to disrupt, and the gifts that are waiting for you on the other side. Over the course of 75+ minutes (in a pre-recorded video you can watch over and over again), I’ll operate as your very own guide as we weave the new narrative for what you’re being called to and how to step into your full potential.

Intrigued and want to know more? Click here for all the deets!