What If I Don’t Want to Be Transformational Today?
Let’s talk about what the rah-rah gurus won’t: some days, we’d rather ghost our own growth than gaze into another mirror.
You know the feeling: the gurus say, “Look within,” and we say, “Hard pass.”
Not because we’re burned out. (Though honestly? Sometimes we are.)
Not because we don’t care. (We care too much, that’s the problem.)
It’s because we are so tired from being the mirror for others.
The ‘Git ‘er done” crowd will tell you to just push through: Show up. Get over yourself. Don’t stop or you’re a slacker…How dare you not show up for someone else, it’s your calling.
Ah, yeah…the shaming of the hustle culture. It gets to be a bit much.
It’s not that we dislike transformation. We chose this work to provide awakening.
We love the quiet “a-ha” moments. We live for the breath that deepens after a client connects a dot they didn’t know existed. We cry (in a professional, held-space kind of way) when someone forgives themselves.
But some mornings, we just want to show up average.
You know:
No sage wisdom.
No deep presence.
No intuitive hits.
And when we say "average," we don’t mean unskilled. We mean human: Raw. Flawed. Finite.
This is the version of ourselves that doesn’t make it to our coaching bios. The one that says "I don’t have it today" and still dares to show up.
The Myth of the Ever-On Coach
There is a certain mythology around coaches. That we wake up aligned. That our relationships are deeply conscious. That we float to our desks in tunics and essential oils and sip from mugs labeled "Hold Space." That we always, always want to be transformational.
The reality?
Sometimes we’re happy when a client cancels at the last minute and we get an hour of our lives back.
Sometimes we want to scream because the rest of the world just doesn’t seem to get it.
Sometimes we want to clear our calendar, find a cave, and create our own silent, solitary nature retreat for a week.
There’s a tension here: the part of us that wants to show up clear, present, embodied, and the part of us that just wants to go offline, eat some comfort carbs, and not self-reflect for a year or two.
We often override that desire because our culture (and this profession) rewards The Revelation. It rewards The Breakthrough. It rewards The One Who Knows.
But we don’t always know. And on the days we pretend to, it costs us something real.
We become narrators instead of participants in our own lives.
We trade being for doing…unintentional, distracted doing. AKA: busywork.
We exchange presence for performance, and then wonder why we feel disconnected.
When Transformation Becomes a Performance
Here’s a weird thing we’ve noticed: the deeper you go in this work, the more pressure there is to always find meaning. In everything.
Flat day? Must be integration.
Lost your words? Mercury must be in retrograde
Don’t want to coach? Your shadow is rising.
You’ve seen the Instagram posts: Every shrug becomes a signal, every pause becomes a portal, every missed text is now an invitation to heal your attachment style.
Repeat after us: “Blah, blah, blah…”
Let us be the ones to say it: Not everything has to be turned into growth.
Some things can just be... boring.
And you? You can just be a person today.
In fact, it might be the most honest, present thing you offer your clients all week.
Even boredom has texture. Even apathy has something to teach. But not if we rush to transcend it before we’ve sat inside it.
A Little Permission Slip
Here, let’s make it formal. Feel free to print, laminate, and tape it to your forehead:
We even made it backwards for you, so you can read it when you look in the mirror.
You are allowed to:
Show up underwhelmed
Forget what you were saying mid-session
Say, "That’s a great question" just to buy time
Use your client’s breakthrough as your own reminder
Not want to do this today
Let a session end without a bow
Say, "I don’t know," and mean it
You are still a coach.
You are still good at this.
You are still sacred. Even if your energy is not.
And maybe that’s the new bar: Not performance. Not polish. But presence, even when it’s quiet.
We spend so much time trying to earn the seat, we forget we already have it.
And what if sitting in that chair, unremarkably, honestly, and imperfectly, is the most radical thing we can do?
A Tiny Rebellion: Do Less
Here’s your interactive moment, but we promise it won’t make you journal unless you want to.
Ask yourself this:
What if nothing had to shift today?
Not your mindset. Not your morning routine. Not your business strategy. Not your aura….NOTHING, NADA, ZIP, ZILCH.
What if you could still belong here without evolving a single inch?
Hold that question. Let it get a little awkward. That discomfort you feel? That might just be freedom knocking.
Better yet, answer it out loud. Say to yourself or a friend: "Nothing has to shift today.”
Notice how your body responds. And if there’s a sigh of relief? Good. That’s the sound of you reclaiming your own rhythm.
We don’t always need a practice. Sometimes we need a pause. A full stop. A blank page we refuse to fill just yet.
Even the Moon Takes a Few Days Off
We have this internal rhythm, a tide that pulls us between depth and surface, insight, and inertia.
Ignoring that cycle makes us brittle. Numb. Overly articulate and deeply disconnected.
Some days your coaching is a slow dance.
Some days it’s a limp handshake.
Both are valid…as long as you don’t judge them and compare them to your ‘better’ days or the Instagram highlights of other coach’s work.
Your clients don’t need your transcendence. They need your truth.
And truth, bless her, is not always eloquent.
Sometimes she shows up late, in sweatpants, holding a coffee she microwaved three times.
Let her in anyway.
And if the only person who gets coached today is you, in the softest way possible, let that be enough.
Even rest is a form of resistance.
Even silence holds shape.
Even nothing counts.
Our Favorite (Possibly Burned Out) Quote
“You are not required to set yourself on fire to keep others warm.”
—Anonymous
We talk about boundaries, but sometimes the real boundary is with your own internal pressure to deliver.
Let yourself off the hook.
Take the sacred nap.
Put down the mirror.
Eat the bagel.
Scroll without guilt.
Say no because it’s a Tuesday.
Say yes to being completely unimpressive and beautifully human.
And maybe, just maybe, watch yourself soften into the version of coaching that doesn’t have to prove anything.
A Tool for Your Day Off
The best bosses we ever had when we were doing our 9-5, M-F corporate gigs were the ones who knew when to tell us to take a break. They could tell we were running on fumes, even if we were ignoring what our bodies were telling us.
“You look like you need a mental health day,” was code for “take the day off today or tomorrow and just call it a sick day.”
Most employers we worked for held grudges against the idea of sick days because they expected the worst out of people. “If we give them sick days, they’ll just take them.”
In their minds, ‘sick days’ were reserved for severe flu, pneumonia, or final rites…the idea of being burned out didn’t fall into their worldview. (Maybe because they were burning out their employees instead of themselves.)
Good bosses know.
Now…as an entrepreneur, what kind of boss are you going to be to yourself? A taskmaster who grinds until you have nothing left, or a self-aware boss who gives yourself permission to recover so you can show up with more energy tomorrow?
For those of you who choose the latter, here are permission slips for you to download to your phone or computer to remind yourself when you take a ‘mental health day.’
Click on either link below to get your permission slip. They’re free.
You’re welcome.
Finally, a Prompt You Don’t Have to Answer (But Might Want To)
What’s one thing you’re not doing today, on purpose?
Let it be your declaration. Let it be sacred. Honor it, for yourself and for those you serve.
We’ll be over here, doing absolutely nothing about it.
With zero pressure and maximum presence.
