Welcome to your Confidence Catalyst newsletter, helping you speak up, step up and stand out.

A couple of years before I left my corporate career, I had a Post-it note stuck to the mirror where I got ready every morning.

It said:

Leave my job and build a successful coaching business.

Every day I looked at it.

Some days it felt exciting.

Some days it felt impossible.

At the time, I often felt trapped.

Trapped in the financial package.

Trapped by responsibilities.

Trapped because my boundaries weren’t always as strong as they needed to be.

I didn’t know exactly how I would make the leap, but I knew where I wanted to go.

That Post-it note became a reminder that even when progress felt slow, I was moving towards something that mattered.

Fast forward a few years and the Post-it note has gone, but my screen saver is now a picture of the sea.

For a long time, one of our goals has been to live by the coast.

In fact, until recently, we thought we were moving to Norfolk.

We found a house we loved.

Made an offer.

Started imagining our future there.

Then came the survey.

All 109 pages of it, a lot of it red!

Needless to say, it wasn’t the outcome we were hoping for.

After much deliberation, we withdrew our offer.

Was I disappointed? Absolutely.

But on reflection

Whilst Norfolk disappeared, the goal didn’t.

The goal was never Norfolk.

The goal was the sea.

And now we’re counting down the days until we exchange on a house in Cornwall.

A different location.

A different route.

The same dream.

Possibly an even better version of it.

What I’ve realised is

I think many of us become attached to the route rather than the destination.

We decide the promotion has to happen this year.

The opportunity has to come from that company.

The business has to grow in a particular way.

The move has to happen in a specific place.

And when life takes a different turn, we assume we’re moving away from what we want.

Sometimes we’re not.

Sometimes we’re still heading exactly where we wanted to go.

Just not in the way we expected.

When you know what matters most, you can be flexible about how you get there. You don’t have to force things to be a certain way.

And often life has a funny way of delivering something better than the version you originally planned.

So my question is

Where might you be confusing the route with the destination?

Have a great week ahead,

Kirsteen

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