You’re not living up to your potential.
If you’re a self-aware overachiever, your inner critic plays that phrase on repeat like it’s the latest Lizzo bop.
It would surprise most people in your life to hear that you feel stuck. To them, you’re #goals. You’re the friend always has something ✨sparkly✨ to share. A career announcement. A passion project. A resource from the self-help book you just devoured. A timely piece of advice.
They come to you because it looks like you’ve got it all figured out.
But there’s a disconnect between what they see and what you feel.
Where they see achievements and accolades, you’ve got a secret mental folder of all the ways you’ve fallen short and an increasing pressure to level up.
So you keep searching for guidance on how to be better. You listen to the podcasts. You read the books. You take the self-paced courses, checking off as many boxes as you can on your never-ending self-improvement to do list. You’re doing all the “right” things (and making it look easy), but that voice still lingers.
You’re not living up to your potential.
For most of us, that voice is more of a mashup. It’s a healthy dose of capitalist conditioning with a dash of your well-meaning teacher, a sprinkle of that self-help author you follow, hints of your toxic ex (friend, lover, or boss), and a dollop of the part of you that believes you’re here to bring some good into the world.
And when you sort through all the internal ruckus, you’ll find a statement that cuts to the heart of what you crave: I want to feel like I'm enough.
I want to feel like I'm enough.
You know what happens when that statement is a reality in your life?
You stop rushing and start savoring
False urgency fades away when you no longer believe that your next accomplishment will be the one that makes you worthy. Instead of racing towards a better life that exists somewhere off in the distance, you experience the beauty of your life in the now.
You do less with more impact
Freed of the need to prove yourself by overstuffing your calendar, you’re intentional with your commitments. You spend your days with the projects and the people that fill your cup and further your impact rather than the ones that look good on paper.
You consume less and embody more
No more desperately devouring content looking for the formula that will change everything. You’re tuned into your inner wisdom. You trust yourself fully. The learner in you still loves to gain new knowledge, but it’s supplemental now instead of gospel.
You invite more joy into your life
Instead of worrying about living up to someone else’s arbitrary idea of your potential, you’re just living it up! You realize you don’t have to take yourself super seriously in order to create genuine change in the world. Instead, you play, you experiment, and you let life be fun.
That sense of enoughness is achievable, but it feels just out of reach for most recovering strong friends who fall into at least one of these four traps.
(tbh, I overachieved in this area and fell into all four 🙈)
Four traps that keep strong friends stuck
🛠️ The DIY Approach
When you’ve built your whole identity around being the person who gets things done, the idea of bringing in outside support for your inner work feels borderline blasphemous. You lean into your independent streak and weave together a self-help syllabus, crossing your fingers that it will get you where you want to go.
👥 "They Know Best" Mindset
External validation is an overachiever’s drug of choice.This urge for validation goes deeper than seeking a shout out from your boss and seeps into your personal development journey. It’s comforting to follow an expert’s framework. Knowing you’re doing their version of what’s right gives you that validation you’re trained to seek.
🕶 Blind Spots
You’re more self-aware than the average person, and that can be deceiving. You’ve taken the assessments and done the journaling prompts. You feel like you know everything there is to know about yourself. But the fact is, you can only see yourself from one perspective—yours. No human can see themselves fully without a little extra support.
⏰ Time
Your to do list is a mile long. You block off time for inner work, but you’ve built a habit of nixing it whenever someone else needs you.There’s a sweet dopamine hit when you complete a task that someone else can see, but personal development is a slow burn. You put it on the back burner, saying you’ll invest the time later. Honestly, later rarely comes.
I’m Taylor. Coach and creator of Inner Workout.This is the spot where I’m supposed to tell you about my story.
I wanted to skip this part. It’s marketing best practice to sell yourself and your story, but the most transformational coaching containers are not about the coach at all. Since Begin Within involves working directly with me, I guess it makes sense to share some of what brought me here.
Let’s get the professional stuff out of the way. I like to say that I develop leaders who care. I’ve got a degree from Vanderbilt with a focus in leadership. I studied coaching in Martha Beck’s training program, and I regularly facilitate learning and development spaces for leaders at Fortune 500 organizations.
But the personal side of things is where it gets more interesting. My story probably sounds like a version of yours. I always did pretty well in school. Participated in multiple extracurriculars. Went on to graduate cum laude from a top 20 institution and landed at a Fortune 100 after college. I was following the societal success playbook, but I felt neither successful nor fulfilled.
I have a low tolerance for feeling misaligned, so I just started making changes. Now, I would call it doing the inner work. It was a years-long journey of reframing my idea of self-care, unlearning harmful beliefs, learning about myself in all my fullness, and growing through a series of tiny, imperfect actions.
There are so many things I would say to that past version of me as she was finding her way, but one of the biggest truths I’d want to share is that there’s no gold star for going it alone. I made Begin Within as a supportive space for younger me and for people like her.
But, like I said at the top, my superpower isn’t that I empathize with your experience, though I do. My superpower is that I believe in your personal power. I’m simply here to help you access it.
Doing everything yourself seems efficient, but it’s actually holding you back. You’ll be surprised how far you can leap forward when you’re willing to allow yourself to receive support. Suddenly the energy you’ve spent curating resources can flow into actually doing your inner work.
As a coach, I don’t tell you what to do. You’ll probably find it annoying at first. But over time, you’ll start to realize that you had the answers within you all along. You were just afraid to hear them, let alone act on them. Begin Within gives you a safe container to try both.
Clients tell me two things pretty frequently: I ask questions they wouldn’t think to ask themselves; I reflect statements back to them that they didn’t even realize they were saying. Begin Within is a coaching container where you will be seen, lovingly challenged, and supported.
It’s one thing to miss an appointment with yourself, but you’re not one to ditch out on others. Begin Within gives you the accountability you need to show up for yourself. With four months of coaching calls, workshops, and community, you can’t help but make your development a priority.
The Begin Within Journey
Begin Within follows a four-month process to help you take care and redefine success.
💖 August: Self-care
Inner work is an activating and involved process. That’s why we begin the journey by reconnecting to your ability to listen within and respond with love. Using the Take Care assessment as a resource, you’ll identify the self-care support system you’ll need for the journey ahead.
⏪ September: Unlearning
Doing the inner work allows you to become a truer expression of yourself, but unexamined narratives about who you should be can keep you stuck. Peel back the biases, beliefs, and behaviors you hold about what it means to be successful and clarify how you want to define success.
📖 October: Learning
Once you’ve unlearned, you’re ready to get to know the whole you. First, you’ll tap into your inner wisdom. Then you’ll identify the tools, frameworks, and resources that will support you as you make your version of success a reality in your own life.
🌱 November: Growth
Growth happens throughout the program. You’ll celebrate the growth you’ve had so far and strategize around what might get in the way of your growth. Then the Begin Within journey ends with another beginning as you continue to take imperfect action beyond the program.
What you get when you Begin Within
Monthly workshop
The monthly gathering, which happens on the first week of the month, is part workshop, part community circle. You’ll be introduced to tools related to that month’s theme and have an opportunity to share your insights with your peers.
Group coaching
On the third week of the month, we'll gather for group coaching. Bring your roadblocks and obstacles, and we'll work through them in real time. Whether or not you're in the coaching hot seat, group coaching sessions are powerful reminders that you're not alone in this work.
Community
If you appreciate digital connection and support, you can stay connected with your fellow journeyers in our Signal group chat.
Applications close on August 1, and the journey begins in August.
Investment: $599 or four payments of $150
If you think Begin Within might be for you, you'll click the link above to complete your application. Then you'll get a link to book a 15 minute discovery call. This is a chance for everyone to get their additional questions answered. If Begin Within feels like a yes, you can save your spot by either paying in full or submitting your $150 deposit.
The monthly workshop is scheduled for the first Thursday of each month from 7:00 - 8:30 pm CST, and group coaching is scheduled for the third Thursday of each month from 7:00 - 8:30 pm CST with the exception of August and November.
Dates:
Thursday, August 3 - Workshop
*Wednesday, August 16 - Group coaching
Thursday, September 7 - Workshop
Thursday, September 21 - Group coaching
Thursday, October 5 - Workshop
Thursday, October 19 - Group coaching
*Thursday, November 9 - Workshop
*Thursday, November 30 - Group coaching
The August 2023 cohort will be the final cohort.
You can add one-on-one coaching sessions for an additional fee. We can discuss the coaching cadence that best fits your goals and budget after you submit your application.
✔️ You’re self-aware, and you’re ready to take that knowledge a level deeper
✔️ You over-identify with your achievements
✔️ You’re not afraid to work through difficult questions
✔️ You’re ready to trust yourself more fully
✔️ You’re willing to do the work
✔️ You want to feel successful and fulfilled
What's inside Begin Within
- Four group coaching sessions
- Four monthly workshops
- Online community space