Memorial Day weekend just passed. A long weekend. Slow mornings. The kind of evening light that makes you want to stay outside for one more minute. The chance to notice what happens when you actually have time — and when you let yourself be still enough to feel it.
I have a blog post I wrote a while back called “How I Built A Joy-Filled Life One Small Choice At A Time.”
I wrote it half in a journal, half in a coffee shop, without any plan for where it would go. I was just telling the truth about how my life changed — not through some dramatic, earth-shattering pivot, but through a thousand small yeses.
A yes to Disneyland passes. A yes to sleeping in on Sunday. A yes to buying the book that caught my eye. A yes to the conversation that scared me. A yes to taking an hour just for me. A yes to saying no when I didn’t want something.
Small yeses.
But here’s the thing about small yeses: They compound.
You say yes to one good thing, and suddenly you start believing you deserve good things. You say no to one draining situation, and suddenly you have energy for things that matter. You spend one morning doing something that brings you joy, and suddenly you’re rearranging your schedule to create more mornings like that.
It’s not like you wake up one day and your life is completely different. It’s like you wake up one day and realize: “Oh. I actually built this. This is a life I chose. One small yes at a time.”
And that’s when you stop waiting for someone to give you permission. That’s when you realize you’ve had permission all along. You just never used it.
The women I work with ask me all the time: “How do I get to where you are? How do I build a life that actually feels like mine?”
And the honest answer is: You start small. You name one thing. You say yes to it. You let yourself have it. You notice how that feels. And then you say yes to something else.
Yes. It actually can.
I’m not going to tell you that building a life you love is effortless. There’s work. There’s discomfort. There’s the part where you have to face your own beliefs about whether you deserve it. There’s the part where people might judge you for choosing yourself. There’s the part where you have to sit with guilt and keep going anyway.
But the actual architecture of change? It’s surprisingly simple. It’s: Name it. Claim it. Do it. Notice what shifts. Do it again.
Small yeses. One at a time.
That’s not nothing. That’s everything.
Because by the time you look back — and you will look back, eventually, and be amazed — you won’t be able to point to one moment where everything changed. You’ll just see a whole life that’s different. A life that’s yours. A life that makes you feel alive.
And it got there one small yes at a time.
So this week, take a minute outside. Not on your phone. Not planning next week. Just you and the sky and whatever gratitude wants to surface. Look at where you were four weeks ago. And look at where you are now. Let yourself feel thankful — not the obligatory kind, but the kind that rises up when you realize I did something brave this month.
And then — pass the permission slip. The woman next to you — your sister, your friend, the coworker who's holding it all together — she might need someone to tell her what you heard this month. That wanting isn't selfish. That her desires matter. That she's allowed to build a life she actually loves. Send her a podcast that moved you. Text her a quote that stuck. Share this newsletter. When you pour from fullness into someone else's life, that's not sacrifice — that's purpose. That's your spirit work extending beyond yourself.
So your job this week isn’t to overhaul your existence. Your job is to say yes to one thing. Just one. And then notice what that feels like.
Everything else builds from there.
If this month has felt like permission — I built a room for that. The Intentional Life is a community of women saying yes to themselves, together. Our May window is open.
"You don't build a joy-filled life all at once. You build it one small yes at a time. And then you look back and realize — you actually did this."
Pivot Prompt: What's one small yes you could say this week that would feel like choosing yourself?
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🧡 This month was permission. Next month is practice. The Intentional Life is where women take these ideas and actually live them — workshops, live Q&As, therapy guides, and a room full of women doing the same work. Use code MAY75 for $75 off — $222/year. Join before June.
✨ Not sure what your next step is? Take the free quiz: Which Part of Your Life Is Quietly Asking for Attention? — it might help you decide.
