2023->2024 Reflection
My inspiration for 2023 was “More Ambition, Less Doubt.” I was feeling stuck, like really stuck. Here I am living the dream, great family, amazing friends and a business I was truly proud of and loved working at. Yet still, something was missing. BUT WHAT?! I could feel my ambition slipping away, my confidence depleting and my self doubt taking over in almost every area of my life. Something needed to change. My goal starting January of 2023 was to figure out where my drive comes from to be ambitious and take on new challenges, and where this self doubt was coming from. Depression sunk in, my husband started to worry and my performance as a business partner, friend and wife began to suffer. I had had enough. This feeling of not being myself and struggling to be happy when everything in my life told me I should be thriving was no longer the life I wanted to live.
I booked more therapy sessions, started working with a professional coach and had HARD conversations with my husband and business partner. It took time, it took work and it took a ton of self reflection to realize that even though the business start up went well and everything was running smoothly, something was still missing for me. My business partner was thriving and inspired and fulfilling her dreams and I still felt stuck. Although being a business owner was always my goal and the fitness industry has become more than a passion for me over the past 10 years, it still felt like I was helping others achieve their dreams and mine were getting lost in the shuffle. More time, more therapy, more hard conversations ensued and we made the incredibly hard decision for me to leave the business. Immediately my business partner and I hugged and cried as I think we both knew this was the best outcome for both of us to continue to grow and be successful.
In life there are many twists and turns. You can plan and you can dream but you never truly know how things will turn out. This is the 10,389,398,749,573,489th time that I have had a “plan” for my life and it didn’t turn out the way I had originally hoped. And guess what…. I couldn’t be happier. Sometimes I wonder why we put these predictions on ourselves, why we try to assume we know what the “best” outcome will be. This was never the plan, yet here I am feeling better, stronger and more inline with my true self than ever before. So how could that be bad? As I think about this, I realize that in every one of those bazillion situations that didn’t turn out the way I had originally hoped, it made me stronger. They made me better and truly those situations are what made me and will continue to make me who I am.
Being open minded to change, being able to adapt and move forward with honesty and reflection is what has led me to find ambition again. It has allowed me to trust my gut and reduce self doubt. Helping my partner start a brick and mortar studio was truly one of the most educational and influential experiences of my life. We both learned so much from one another and without that experience I would have never been able to find this path I’m on now. I am forever grateful.
As 2023 comes to an end we reflect even more. So many things have changed this year and instead of feeling overwhelmed or scared I feel empowered and rejuvenated to take on whatever lies ahead. In the last two years I have grown in more ways than I could have ever imagined and so for 2024 I want to truly embrace that curiosity mentality, I want to grow more, learn more and push myself outside my comfort zone to see just what else I am capable of. In every facet of life I want to grow: As a wife, as a dog mom, as a professional, as a friend and as a human.
Cheers to whatever comes next. May we forever be astounded and amazed by what we are capable of.
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