I had a client call recently that I keep thinking about.

She came in with a list. A plan. Questions about what she was doing and whether she was doing it well. She’s brilliant and she’s someone I’d describe as deeply committed to getting things right. Which is exactly why she was stuck.

We spent 90 minutes together and by the end, I’d basically handed her back the thing she kept trying to build a plan for and said: just do it for six weeks. See if you like it. Then decide.

That’s it. That was the move.

Planning drives paralysis. Action is what breeds the confidence and creates the momentum we’re after.

The Planning Trap That Keeps High-Achieving Women Stuck

Here’s what I see constantly — especially with ADHD entrepreneurs, and especially with women who are genuinely good at thinking things through:

The plan becomes the work.

The research, the strategy, the to-do list, the color-coded calendar — it all feels productive. And parts of it are. But at some point, the planning stops protecting you and starts keeping you in place.

You’re spending all your energy on the map and none of it on the road.

On this particular call, my client had a passion project she’d been talking about for months. A nature-based co-op for her kids and a few families. Beautiful idea. Completely aligned. She had notes, questions, considerations.

I stopped her and asked: do you want to do this?

Yes.

Then here’s what you’re going to do. Pick a day. Pick a time. Nine to noon, one day a week. Text the families. Six weeks. That’s it.

She didn’t need a better plan. She needed to start.

Action Is the Data You’re Missing

This is what I keep coming back to, in my own business and with every client I work with: the information you’re looking for is on the other side of doing the thing.

You want to know if you’ll like it? Do it for six weeks.

You want to know if it will work? Test it.

You want to know if the offer is right, if the niche fits, if the schedule is sustainable? You will not find that answer in another strategy session. You will find it by running the experiment.

I talk about being the scientist of your own life constantly. This is what that looks like in practice. Not endless research. A hypothesis, a test, a result.

The plan is not the experiment. The action is.

What Regulation Actually Looks Like (Not What You’ve Been Sold)

One of my biggest soapbox moments right now is this: regulation is not the aesthetic you see on social media.

It’s not the linen set and the sourdough and the chickens. Not that those things aren’t beautiful — they might genuinely be your thing. But if you think changing your external environment is going to regulate your nervous system, you will be waiting a long time.

Regulation is internal. It’s how you face emotional dysregulation. It’s what you do when life lives.

Here’s what it looked like for me recently.

Five in the morning. I’m on my mat, about to work out. And it just washed over me — this wave of financial stress, logistical overwhelm, all of it hitting at once. My kids are in every sport known to mankind. There are braces and chiropractors and club basketball fees and summer camps and an expander for my daughter’s mouth. The world is expensive right now and I felt every dollar of it in that moment.

Here’s what I didn’t do: spiral into a plan for how to fix it.

Here’s what I did instead. My three-step loop:

• Regulate first — get out of my head and into my body. Breath work, movement, whatever it takes. In this case it was lying down and breathing at 5am.
• Reflect with compassion — validate the emotion before trying to move past it. Of course you’re overwhelmed. Look at what you’re carrying. Look at what the world is right now.
• Rewire toward what’s true — once I was regulated, all the actual facts were available. We have savings. I have clients renewing. I’m a scrappy person who figures things out. None of that was accessible to me in panic mode.

The whole thing took maybe three minutes. I went from full panic to fine. Workout done, great day ahead.

That is regulation. Not an aesthetic. A practice.

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“Planning drives paralysis. Action is what breeds the confidence and creates the momentum we’re after.”

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Using Your Cycle as a Business Blueprint

This is something I used to talk about constantly and I want to bring it back because it’s one of the most useful things I do.

I came back to social media on April 1st. That was intentional — it was the second-to-last day of my menstrual phase, which meant I’d spend the bulk of my social media window in my follicular and ovulation phases. That’s the energy you want for showing up, connecting, creating. Coming back during luteal? A different story entirely.

I wrote something during my luteal phase recently that I want to share here because I think it says more about cycle thinking than any strategy ever could:

I am holding the weight of rising progesterone and depleting estrogen, feeling the difference in my lens of the world minute by minute.

It allows me the gift of consideration — for what I want and what I don’t, who I am and who I am not, where the leaking energy calls for my radical responsibility to seal it.

I imagine these fluctuations happening in my body like water flowing in a river. First crystal clear, smooth, surrounded by blooms and light. Then the rapids — exciting, exhilarating, inviting nervous laughter and skinny dipping. Then where I am: the rapids recede, but the boulders appear.

The waterfall. It’s fast, it’s a rush, it’s a relief. You land and you float in your own magic, your own knowing and self-trust. This is the female body — worth worshiping. A goddess among goddesses. A wonder to marvel.

When we fight against any version of what our cycle is calling for, we fall short. If your body is calling for connection and creation and you’re hiding behind a screen strategizing — there’s a mismatch. And vice versa.

Your cycle is a blueprint. Use it.

What’s Happening in the Business Right Now

A few updates from where I’m standing:

The one-on-one coaching — what I call business therapy — is and has always been my favorite way to work with clients. Most people who come in through that door don’t leave. That’s not an accident.

The Regulated Woman program is being elevated and rebranded. No name yet. More soon.

The Clarity Intensive is being renamed The Quick Fix — which I love because yes, it sounds counterintuitive, and also it’s exactly what it is. Ninety minutes. I get in, I see what’s actually happening, I help you clean it out and build an action plan. Then two weeks of Voxer to make sure it sticks. It’s not a slow process. It’s a precise one.

On Building a Village When Family Isn’t Around

My best friend is a few years ahead of me in the mom chapter. Her boys are older than mine. And she showed up to my kids’ games this weekend with her husband and I genuinely could have cried.

We don’t have a lot of family nearby. The family that is around isn’t always available. And three kids in approximately every sport means the logistics alone require a village I’m still building.

My encouragement if you’re in a similar place: keep offering. Keep being the person who says, I’ve got the kids, I’m already going to practice, I’ll just take yours too. Not everyone will take you up on it. Some will. And sometimes the act of offering is what signals to the people around you that this is the kind of community you’re building.

It’s hard to ask for help. So sometimes you have to make it easy for other people to give it.

🎧 This is Episode 187 of the Shamelessly Ambitious Podcast. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

xx, Ash

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