women waking up—to wanting more, less and different

Women Waking UpTO WANTING MORE, LESS AND DIFFERENT

jennifer bailey grace street group

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What does it mean to wake up?

What does it mean to suddenly or slowly realize how much of your life is being lived from anotherʼs point of view? To experience the daily ache of exhaustion from trying to keep in the air all those balls being juggled—only to realize how many are “shoulds” and “have tos”. To feel bruised from brushing up against what you thought your life was going to be when your world is nothing as you imagined.

What does it mean to wake up to a life not truly lived? A life squandered on to-do lists, mundane tasks, and just getting through the day. A life frittered away on worries, attempting perfection, a persistent sense of not being good enough, and trying to please everyone else before yourself?

What does it mean to wake up to dreams deferred? To a life spent drowning in a sea of Monday through Thursdays, coming up for air only on the weekends. To the realization that you no longer daydream because youʼve given up hope of your life ever being different. To the absence of meaning…you once had envisioned a purpose-filled life, but that now seems laughably lofty and impossibly grandiose given the daily grind.


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“I’d always dreamed of a different way to live. Then one day I started questioning why it could only be a dream.”

Waking up is as personal and unique as our fingerprints, yet we see many of the same swirls and patterns among all those who awake. In my years of working with women who are waking up, there is uniqueness and commonality. Some of the common themes I hear among waking women are:

“I cared so much about what people thought of me and wanted them to like me, but was so seldom true to myself that Iʼm not sure who they really liked.”

“Life suddenly seemed so very short. I couldnʼt bear wasting another day living someone elseʼs life.”

“Everything in my life was about performance and getting ahead. Suddenly I just wanted to live. I didnʼt want so much pressure.”

“It was this little nagging voice in my head asking quietly, “Is this really what you want?” The answer was ʻnoʼ for a long time before I admitted it.”“Iʼd lived so cautiously, so predictably. Done everything just as expected. Iʼd made my world so small and comfortable that it was suffocating. What did I fear?”

“Everything around me—career, big house, spending my free time shopping and acquiring more stuff—over time held less and less appeal. I didnʼt seem to want the things Iʼd once thought were so important.”


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“I had this superwoman thing going—career, husband, kids, perfect home...but I was so worn out, irritable, and unhappy that every area of my life suffered.”

“Once I turned 40, I gradually began to care less and less about who I was supposed to be.”

“My boss undervalued and undermined my contribution to the company; why was I letting someone else validate me? I knew my worth, but then continued to stay in a toxic environment that made me question my value.”

“I just couldnʼt continue living only for the weekends. Twenty days a month of my life were spent in a depressing cube doing work I hated. I wanted more than that for my work life.”

“I had all these things I wanted to do with my life, and I just kept putting them off. I really started to wonder, ʻIf not now, when?ʼ.”

“My corporate life had become an existence, nothing more. I was ready to see what life outside the 9-5 box was like.”

“There was such a disconnect between my life and what I really wanted. I got so fed up and angry that I just had to figure out how to make some changes.”

Do any of these statements resonate with you? Do you see yourself in any of these women? If so, are you ready to wake up to the gap that exists between your present-day reality and the attainment of your best life?


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Do you find yourself asking, “Is this all there is?” If so, there’s a part of your soul that knows you’re asleep.

This book takes you on the journey of waking up to that gap and then bridging it to get to the other side. Itʼs about casting off a willingness to live small and declaring that youʼre ready to go from merely surviving to joyfully thriving.

Do you have the courage to wake up and live life on purpose? What would it take to quiet the voices of everyone but yourself and follow your own lead? What would it mean to reinvent yourself in your own image this time?

I work with countless women who are waking up to what I call “the more, less, and different.” They want more of some things in their lives, less of others, and for some to be altogether different.

Phyllis, a 48-year old pharmaceutical sales representative, describes waking up as a coming to terms with how she could live with less money and fewer material possessions in order to have more of a life. On the road three weeks of every month, Phyllisʼ financial health was great, but the rest of her life had suffered.

She says, “Iʼd sacrificed so much in terms of relationships and my physical health. Waking up meant facing the reality of the choices I was making and how much Iʼd let earning a big paycheck take priority over so much else.”


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Many women are asleep at some deep level of Self.

They have filled their days with to-do lists and the belief that getting things done is where their worth lies. They believe that striving for perfection is a worthy goal. That merely getting through the day on a regular basis is good enough.

We must wake up to the realization that we have but one life to live and this very day is not a dress rehearsal for something to come. This—right now—is life.

Waking up requires a high degree of self-love.

Because itʼs only through loving and valuing ourselves that weʼre able to feel worthy enough to recognize our own needs and acknowledge our own wants.

When we shed the misguided burden thatʼs inherent in living someone elseʼs life, we metamorphize into the strong women we were meant to be—and, in reality, really are.


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What have you given up even attempting that you really wanted to do because it was too impractical?

How much of your life today, right this very minute, is about pleasing others? Are you living up to some ideal—the origin of which you arenʼt even sure?

How much time do you spend (i.e., waste) caring what others think about your choices?

How much time is squandered in the lonely, sinking trap of attempting perfection?

How many decisions do you make based on whatʼs expected?

Or perhaps even more maddening, you have no clue what it is you really want to do because youʼve never taken the time to hear your own voice. Instead, listening to the voices of everyone around you—friends, family, co-workers, the media, even society at large—has become the easier, softer way.

But itʼs an illusion.


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Many women are masters at the business of life, but not of living and thriving.

While on the surface it may appear to be the easier, softer way to do whatʼs expected and go along to get along, the price you pay is dear and deadening. You pay with yourself. It may not be a pound of flesh each time you veer from your authentic Self, but it is a pound of your soul.

Itʼs all too easy to live a lifetime never allowing yourself to hear your calling, to honor your purpose, to pursue your passion, to hear the sound of the universe speaking directly to you. You, in turn, speaking back, participating in the conversation—loudly and clearly, with confidence and conviction.

When asleep at the wheel of life, many women tell me that it has become only about the business of life—of getting through a day of work, marking tasks off a to-do list, of satisfying and making others happy, of keeping the peace, of going along to get along.

These women echo a common theme—feeling as if their lives can be boiled down to a reduced state of working, taking care of others, paying the bills, buying groceries, cooking, cleaning, laundry, carpooling…


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Let’s wake up to the sweetness of a life truly lived.

Letʼs wake up!

Each of us is unique and when we default to a life that doesnʼt celebrate that uniqueness on a daily basis, we lose the opportunity to bring ourselves fully into the world. The light thatʼs uniquely our own never truly shines.

Letʼs grow into ourselves and each of us find the path thatʼs ours alone to walk. Let us silence every voice that says we canʼt. We shouldnʼt. That says weʼre not good enough. That weʼll look silly or stupid. Or that itʼs too difficult or weʼre too old. That says how dare we. That talks us out of our dream before itʼs seen the light of day. Let us quiet the part of ourselves that says we donʼt deserve more. That says we should count our blessings and be content with the life we have.

That voice that keeps us small and inside ourselves and living from fear.


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It’s so easy to be afraid—of failing, of rocking the boat, of what others will think, of living a big life.

But that fear keeps us rooted in our smaller selves. It keeps us from wanting more and attaining it.

It keeps us blind to the possibilities that are right in front of us and cut off from the dreams in our hearts that we dare not share with others.

It keeps us from charting our own course, instead keeping us firmly rooted in following the rules and othersʼ lead, and living small and scared.

One of the first steps of waking up is not caring what others think more than we care about our own thoughts and opinions.

When did we quiet our own voices and hand our very compass for living over to others? When did that happen for you? Was it as a young child growing up in a household where your thoughts and feelings werenʼt allowed to be expressed or werenʼt important in comparison to those of others?

Was it later in life when you gave yourself away in a misguided attempt to keep a relationship from going sour?

Was it gradual as you went along to get along and began to hone your people pleasing skills, now razor sharp?


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For most of us it started in our earliest years, but we can trace the slow dying of ourselves throughout an entire lifetime.

All the occasions when we kept silent instead of speaking up. All the times we rehearsed in our heads what we would say a dozen times because we didnʼt trust ourselves to speak from the heart and gut.

All the times we abdicated what we really wanted for the needs and wants of others.

All the times we felt a glimmer of something meaningful to us that we wanted to pursue, but reasoned with ourselves to be practical and avoid causing trouble or drawing unnecessary attention.

We kill ourselves slowly when we live this way. It happens every time we talk ourselves out of what we really want and who we really are.

All the while missing the fact that when we subvert ourselves, we create an artificial Self that smoothers us. That masks who we really are and keeps us hidden from the world.


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They may be pleased with the artificial Self we’ve constructed, but they don’t truly know us. They don’t know our secret hopes and the would-be Bigness that lurks within us.

What does it really mean if those around us are happy with our choices and what we say and do? What does it mean if theyʼre pleased with us—when the “us” they see isnʼt real?When we rock the boat of our artificial Self and begin to reinvent ourselves and live authentically, there may be those who vigorously and negatively react. This generally happens because they feel threatened by what our new way of life will mean for them.

Or perhaps our desire to wake up, reinvent ourselves, and live our best life calls into question their own sleeping Self; out of fear and a desire to maintain the status quo, they react defensively to protect what is. We can be aware of these reactions and the underlying causes, but I encourage you to keep your empathy in check.

Youʼve spent too long caring far too much about the opinions and reactions of others. Now is the time, particularly in the early stages of waking up, to be strong in the knowledge that your best chance of thriving is to put your own needs first for a change rather than merely getting through life.

Waking up doesnʼt mean we become uncaring or selfish, but it does mean we can no longer tolerate putting everyone else and their preferences, pleasure, or purpose before our own.


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It’s time to recognize that we deserve more.

Each of us is unique and that alone gives us the right and bestows the responsibility to fully realize ourselves and our potential.

When our life is half lived, weʼve squandered our most precious gift. Waking up is the outset of recharting our course, a process that necessarily means weʼve come to realize the way weʼre living is not working.

We can exceed the vision we have for our lives, but first we must have the vision and honor it by clearing the debris from our path that prevents us from realizing and actualizing our true Self.

Those who wake up often see with sudden and great clarity the degree to which their past choices donʼt align with who they really are today.

A great example of this is Shelly, a 42-year former stay-at-home Mom, whoʼs come to realize that sheʼs no longer the same woman who made decisions about her life some twenty years before.

“I was a stay-at-home Mom, and I cherish all the time I spent with my kids. Theyʼre grown now and the nest is empty, and suddenly I want to go back to school to study anthropology. I was never interested in academic things before, but I am now. Iʼm not the same person I was two decades ago.”


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I’ll say it again: we make ourselves and our worlds so incredibly small.

We do it day after day with small choices and even smaller dreams.

We talk ourselves out of who we are and what we want to the point that weʼre lost in the nothingness and no light shines.

Itʼs like walking through a house where nothing is familiar; none of the furnishings reflect our tastes; none of what we see belongs to us.

And yet, the home is ourselves. Itʼs the artificial Self weʼve created. We live in it day after day, but itʼs false and disconnected from our authentic Self—the who we are really.

When we wake up to see that we havenʼt fashioned a life that honors our true Self, we grieve a little.

But weʼre so very lucky to wake up at all! Some women never do.

Rather than be mired in days of regret, I encourage you to bask in the grace of waking up to the possibility of your best life. An unstoppable life where this new vision of yourself is an oasis; you can drink aplenty from the well of possibility.


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All that is born from staying asleep through your life is more of what you have now.

Waking up is like taking off a suit of armor thatʼs been such a burden to wear, but we've been doing it so long that we have become accustomed to the weight of others' expectancy and our internalization of how others see us.

When we take off that heavy burden, we stand straighter. We can breathe, perhaps for the first real time.

We come to realize how much weʼve shouldered that wasnʼt ours to carry. How many burdens we stretched out our hands for that werenʼt ours to take. How often weʼve struggled because the plans and goals that occupied our days were not truly our own.

Waking up is the promised land.

Yes, it takes a leap of faith to leave your sleeping Self behind. It takes courage to let go.

I invite you to wake up. To go with me on a journey that begins with where you are, discovers who you really are and where you want to be, and bridges that gap to create your best life.


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Because when we wake up, things initially tend to get very complicated.

For some, the waking is gradual, a gentle unfolding. For others, itʼs a jolt upright, just as if waking from a troubled sleep.

There is no gentleness; instead, thereʼs this sudden, stark realization that you canʼt go on as you have. Nothing is ever the same after that realization settles in to stay. Thereʼs a chasm; itʼs as if yesterday is permanently and fundamentally disconnected from tomorrow.

Itʼs frightening and exciting, and not even altogether welcome. There is, somewhere inside us, this desire to go back to the way it was. To something seemingly, at least on the surface, simpler.

We donʼt always know in those initial stages of awakening how pervasive the change is going to be, and we feel wary as it begins to seep through our lives. Perhaps our view of work is fundamentally changed. Or maybe we come to realize that some of the roles in our lives—wife, mother, daughter, friend—are out of sync.

Or the dreams weʼd given up on surface and the “hole” created feels unbearably empty and saddens us. Or we finally face the health and vitality that are missing from our lives.


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It’s vital to be open and present to the process of waking up so that this becomes the proverbial line in the sand.

Whatever waking up means to you—whether itʼs a self-contained wakening or so widespread that the very underpinnings of your life seem up for debate; itʼs important to remember that itʼs a process. And that the waking up part is at the very outset of that process.

While so much comes after the awakening that gives us hope, grounds us, and moves us confidently forward, the initial upheaval of thoughts and feelings inherent in waking up can feel overwhelming.

Women have many ways for describing the process of waking up, some of the more challenging viewpoints include “emotionally draining”, “the most frightening time in my life”, “too much all at once”, “being buffeted about with no solid footing”, “a feeling of loss that brought sadness and anger”.

Clearly, then, waking up brings with it the possibility of pain and discomfort. Rather than skipping past this critical phase of waking up and the discomfiture and uneasiness that may accompany it, trust in the process. Your openness and awareness delineates life before waking up and life after waking up, which becomes a powerful marker as you begin to move forward in creating your best life.


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While there’s the potential for great regret over wasted years, I encourage you to start from where you are.

Better to wake up now than to waste another turn of the calendar page—even another precious hour—asleep at the wheel of your life.

During this process of waking up, exhilaration and power kicks in unannounced and unexpected when it dawns on us that we have something to celebrate—ourselves.

That despite past decisions and external factors, whatever they may be, we are most often what holds us back. That the fear we believe exists as a reality outside ourselves is false.

Waking up is truly a celebration of Self.

Itʼs a fundamental understanding that each of us is unique and that we owe it to ourselves to bring the full potential of who we are

into the world. In fact, not only do we owe it to ourselves, but we owe it to the world around us.


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I recall very clearly the moment I woke up.

It was three months after selling the company I had co-founded seven years earlier. The acquisition meant leaving Chicago, which had been my home for twelve years, relocating to another state, and working for the acquiring company to provide strategic direction and leadership during the transition of services.

Selling the company was supposed to be liberating—an exclamation point at the end of seven entrepreneurial years of long hours and hard work.

Instead, I was working harder than ever post-acquisition, with the added burden of being uprooted from friends and familiar surroundings, working for a new boss, and navigating a corporate environment—the confines of which I had left behind seven years before.

My significant other, Hans, and I were feeling a palpable strain on our relationship, and were disconnected from each other in a way that stalled communication and denied each of us support. This was brought on by the stress of the relocation, my 15+ hour workdays, and seeing each other only for brief evening meals before I settled in with my laptop for the long evening that comprised the second half of my workday.

To say it was stressful and exhausting doesnʼt begin to capture the chronic strain of that time.


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And in that moment, there was clarity so sharp that I felt my body completely still.

Back to my own waking up: it was nearly midnight one evening, and I was still hard at work—so exhausted that at one point I put my head in my hands and gave myself permission to cry for five minutes before returning to the report I was writing. I was reminded of that scene in Broadcast News where Holly Hunterʼs character has a brief, controlled morning cry as preparation for starting each harried, stressful workday. I could relate!

My five minutes up, I wiped my face, and tried to refocus my bleary eyes on the laptop screen.

The words moved in and out of focus, seeming to dribble on the edges of every letter. I looked at the clock and started calculating backwards, thinking: I need to get at least four hours of sleep to function, which means I have two hours left to try to get as much done as possible on this project due to a client the next afternoon.


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I was stilled in a way that a person consumed with doing and busyness rarely is.

I sat rigid and fully upright. I could hear a voice and knew it was my own, but that I wasnʼt speaking aloud.

It was a quiet voice, barely above a whisper, but so certain and firm that I knew it came from some deep, buried wisdom.

“This is not the way itʼs supposed to be. You are doing this to yourself. Itʼs time to wake up and let go of all this. It will be the end—and the beginning.”

I canʼt say in that moment, or even now, that I find those words to be particularly awe-inspiring. There are certainly more clever ways to express it. Fancier words. Maybe even wiser sentiments. But I was struck to my core.

It was the certainty of the words. The simple truth of them. The challenge of them. The heartbreak of them. The possibility of them.

The life I was leading was not how it was supposed to be.


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The irony is from the outside, my life probably appeared ideal to many.

I was 42 years old, had co-founded and sold a successful company, was making a very comfortable six-figure salary, was debt-free with money in the bank, had over a decade of experience working in a field in which I was a nationally recognized expert…

What more could there be? What more could I want? What about all that was “not the way itʼs supposed to be”?

Yet in the depths of me I knew what that voice meant. There was no purpose, no passion, no pleasure. The power of those three “P”s!

I was empty of fulfillment. My career no longer engaged me, which meant other than a paycheck, there was no purpose; I was competent, but not called to what I did for a living. While my corporate job offered more security than my entrepreneurial pursuits, the passion was not the same. I was not stirred when thinking about my chosen field or the corporate environment in which I worked.

And pleasure?

The days were unending, it seemed, because work that was not doable in a week was due in a day. There was getting up, dressing, driving to the office, working and working and working, driving home, eating dinner, working and working and working, undressing, falling into bed.

Pleasure did not enter into the daily equation.


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I was on autopilot—a sure sign that I needed to wake up.

Oddly enough, I didnʼt really question the situation I found myself in.

I soldiered on, putting one foot in front of another, too stressed and chronically exhausted to take a rational look at my life. If asked about my willingness to overwork, I had a number of “reasons” that I could rely on: I thought I should be able to handle it. I thought I had to. I had something to prove. It was expected. It was the martyr in me and the workaholic. I had no choice. It would get better if I could just hang on. I wanted to live up to something. I wanted to please. I was the only one who could do it.

I had an endless supply of reasons to explain living small and subsisting on going through the motions.

Looking back, none of those reasons make sense now, but at the time, they were unquestioned.


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What life would you live if it were your best life?

Thereʼs a great quote, “What would you attempt if you could not fail?” Applied to waking up, it becomes two questions: “Are you living the life you desire of all those you could?” If not, “What life would you live if it were your best life?”

Keep in mind that you may have so internalized the shoulds and have tos that you donʼt even realize youʼre living someone elseʼs life. Come along with me on a journey of more, less, and different, and letʼs discover that best life. Your best life.

If you, in your heart and gut, would not change a thing, then this is not for you.

On the other hand, if youʼre living for the weekend and hanging on for dear life Monday through Thursday, then waking up is called for. If youʼre in a job that you loathe, but are afraid to leave behind the security for the unknown, itʼs time to wake up.

If youʼre postponing your dreams until the day you have the time or resources and that day never seems to come, itʼs time to wake up.

The bottom line is, if you are not living your best life, itʼs time to awaken from fear, inertia, busyness, denial, and deferred dreams. Itʼs time to bridge the gap between the here and now (your present reality) and the there and then (your best life).


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But first, we have to wake up to the realities of that gap.

We have to acknowledge that somewhere deep down we want our life to be more, less, or different. Or perhaps all three at the same time.

For instance, Amy, a 39-year old office manager woke up to realize she wants more creativity, less overhead to support, and a different career. That is often the way.

We are craving more in some areas of our lives—more time, more freedom, more creativity, more peace of mind, more organization, more connection, more vitality, more community, more meaning, more financial reserves…the list goes on and on.

At the same time, other parts are overflowing with excess and clutter that no longer serve or reflect us, and we long to simplify.

To cast off the old habits, excessive material possessions, physical clutter, draining baggage, and damaging mindsets that hold us back, keep us small, and get in the way of our best life.


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They’re tired of being defined by choices made years in the past.

And then there is “different.” So many women want something different. They want to pursue meaningful work rather than settle for a job that only pays the bills.

They want to have a connected, passionate relationship with their spouse rather than being so exhausted by all the daily to-dos that leave the thought of intimacy or meaningful conversation as just one more task to check off their list.

They yearn to be vital and healthy, but daily turn to food for emotional comfort, get too little sleep, and put off exercise because thereʼs “no time”.

They dream of starting their own business, but have internalized all the naysayers who proclaim itʼs too risky. They dream of downsizing and simplifying their lives, but feel so accustomed to keeping up with the Joneses that they lose their courage to enter the unchartered territory of having less.


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For some, waking up comes suddenly. For others, a new awareness or discontent begins to take hold, grows, spreads, and deepens its roots.

We are too often asleep…sleepwalking through our days as if they are infinite in number. As if some day, some elusive day, we will suddenly have the time, space, and wherewithal to turn things around and live our best life.

What does waking up mean? It means becoming aware of and acknowledging that there is a gap between your present life and your best life. It means acknowledging that the time is now to bridge that gap.

Some, like me, try to stuff that awareness back down.

I initially denied it. I reasoned with myself for months after the initial awakening. I questioned the practicality. I feared the upheaval. I dreaded the change in financial position. I worried how Hans would react. I underestimated my own resourcefulness. I listened to all the reasons not to. I lost sleep. I debated with myself and played devilʼs advocate. In short, Iʼd tried to go back to sleep.

But I found it was very much the genie being out of the bottle. Once she was out, there was no amount of reasoning that would get her back in the bottle so I could put the cap in place.

She sometimes lingered nearby, teasing and deceiving me into thinking sheʼd hop back in; but ultimately all my naysaying, logic-based thinking, and pretense that things were the same would all fall away into a simple fact: I was awake to a new and different possibility.


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I could not unknow what I knew. I couldn’t unring the bell.

All the energy spent trying to talk myself out of hearing the authentic voice speaking up for the first time was exhausting, not to mention unhealthy.

Two realities that were diametrically opposed began to take shape. One was my present Self—aka my current reality. The other was my authentic Self, the possibility of a future aligned with the real me of today. Not the me of a year ago or ten years ago. Not the façade of me. Not the me that others expected, but the real me.

There was a battle being waged—a tug of war between the me that Iʼd been and the me I was beginning to acknowledge.

“Authentic” became a loaded word. Had I been so false? Wasnʼt I honest? Iʼd prided myself on being a “what-you-see-is-what-you-get” kind of woman. I wanted to believe in that mythology about myself, but I was waking up to an awareness that it was just that—a myth, a fabrication.

I was constructed on a series of events and a set of beliefs that no longer fit. I wasnʼt a liar or a cheat, but I was dishonest at my very core.

I was in a career for which I felt no affinity. I went to an office five days a week and stifled and stuffed and sold out my creativity, my passion, my purpose, and any real sense of pleasure. My real Self had to stay in the background 70 working hours a week and was not allowed to be. Not allowed to be. Could there be anything less desirable?


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I was high functioning, but unhappy. Competent, but cut off from my true Self.

Who was I those long hours?

I wasnʼt playing a role. I was simply operating at the most superficial, impersonal, and distant level of myself. Imagine the many layers of a person—the many aspects of their being that make up the whole of them. I brought the initial layer or two to work each day; the rest lay dormant.

It felt false and unfulfilling, but when I weighed the risk of truly being me, it meant upheaval. It meant going against the grain. It meant career change. In fact, it meant calling, not career. It meant a loss of financial security—at least initially. It meant possible relocation. It meant loss of status. It meant disappointing some and worrying others.

In short, it would be change on a scale of significant proportion. Change that would be like flicking over the first domino and watching an entire row fall one after another.There would be few areas of my life, if any, that would remain untouched if I left my career and followed the voice directing me to “let go of all this”.


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Some days were easy to get through, but that was just it: it was about getting through, not living joyfully.

So for the next many months I kept putting one foot in front of another. Getting up each day, going to work, living up to all the expected responsibilities.

I wished—sometimes even prayed—that it could be enough. I donʼt want to imply that it was a bad life. I was grateful for all I had, but was no longer content with the Who I had become.

I knew there was more, less, and different waiting for me out there. More of some things, less of others, and a different path altogether.

Waking up for me has made all the difference.

It has expanded my capacity for joy and happiness. It has allowed me to be present and truly show up in my own life. It has opened me to possibilities beyond even those I originally dared to dream.

For me, the outcome of waking is more purpose and passion, greater fulfillment and creativity; there is less clutter, artifice, and stress. There is an altogether different career, which is really a calling that has resulted in an entirely different way of life.


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Waking Up Exercises

Regardless of whether youʼre just beginning to feel the stirrings of waking up or have already experienced an awakening, these questions—and your answers—are a critical step in moving forward to create your best life.

• Have you been asleep at the wheel of your life? How?• What would waking up mean to you?• What adjectives would you use to describe your process of waking up?• What do you want more of?• What do you want less of?• What do you want to be different?• What is your biggest fear with regard to waking up?• When you think of waking up, what is most enticing and exciting?• Imagine youʼre talking to a dear, trusted friend. Describe to her your thoughts and feelings

about what waking up is going to mean to your life.• Create a simple slogan that reflects your view of waking up. (For example, “Money isnʼt

everything”, “The time is now”, or “Dream big, Live big!”.)


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Connect with me.

Are you waking up? Already awake? Whatʼs your experience? I would love to hear from you. Connect with me:Email: [email protected]: www.GraceStreetGroup.comTwitter: http://twitter.com/JenniferGSGLinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferbailey

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mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.GraceStreetGroup.com/

http://www.GraceStreetGroup.com/

http://twitter.com/JenniferGSG

http://twitter.com/JenniferGSG

http://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferbailey

http://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferbailey

http://www.gracestreetgroup.com/newsletter

http://www.gracestreetgroup.com/newsletter

women waking up—to wanting more, less and different

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