The Flourishing Note™

Hi Reader,

On Thursday I wrote about a list I used to build every time I was about to leave for vacation. Long. Thorough. Something I pushed myself to get through, one more item, one more email, until I had at least made a real dent in it.

What changed was not the list. It was the question underneath it. Is this actually urgent, or is this just how I have trained myself to respond.

If you read It Was Never About the List, you already have the fuller story. What I want to add here is something the post did not quite have room for.

Inspired in Practice

I have used the word permission in this newsletter before. Permission to change direction. Permission to be proud of progress that does not look like the plan. This time it is a smaller version of the same thing, and maybe a more uncomfortable one.

Permission to leave something undone. Not because it stopped mattering, but because I decided, in that moment, that it mattered less than my own capacity to keep going.

That is a strange kind of permission to need. Most of what I have written about giving myself permission for has been about starting something, saying yes to something, believing I was allowed to want something. This is the opposite. It is permission to stop, in the middle, with the list still half full, and call that enough.

I do not think anyone hands you that permission. I think you have to practice taking it, one unfinished list at a time.

Reflections

Here is what I keep noticing. It is easier to give yourself permission for the big things, the pivot, the rest, the bold decision, than for the small, ordinary act of leaving something on a list undone.

Where in your life have you been waiting for permission to decide something matters less right now, when that decision was always yours to make?

This Issue's Focus

This issue I want to put the Monthly Planning Journal in front of you.

I still make the list. I said that in the blog post and I meant it. I am not asking anyone to stop planning, stop setting goals, stop writing things down. What I am asking is that the list stop deciding everything on its own, without you.

This journal gives you that same structure, prompts to name what actually matters this month, space to track it, room to leave the rest where it belongs. It is not about doing more. It is about deciding what is worth doing, on purpose, before the list decides for you.

It is $29 and you can find it here.

With you on the journey,

Jennifer

Keep flourishing fiercely.

P.S One day until Perfectly Positioned to Soar launches. If you caught my email last week, you already have the details. If not, my chapter is called Conquer Your Story: Your Mess Is Your Message, and I would love for you to be part of launch day tomorrow(8/13). There will be author interviews streaming live from 10am to 3pm ET. My interview is scheduled for 11 to 1130am ET. [Grab the details here.]