Life Will Punch You in the Mouth. Here’s What You Do Next.

This past week life punched me in the mouth: a broken ankle for my daughter, a thousand emails from women in crisis, and one coaching call that stopped me cold. And somehow, all three of them pointed to the same thing.

And that’s that we don’t fall apart because life gets hard. We fall apart because we decide that a hard thing is proof—proof that we can’t do this, that we’re not the person we thought we were, that maybe we were fooling ourselves all along.

Here’s what I’ve been sitting with, what I told my coaching clients, and the one reframe that I think matters more than almost anything else right now: you’re not failing. You’re recalibrating. And there’s a world of difference between the two.

Life will always punch you in the mouth.

That’s just the reality of, well, LIFE.

So the question isn’t whether you’ll get knocked off track—you will. We all do. 

The question is what you decide to make it mean when it happens.

Because here’s what I’ve been noticing lately, in both my own life and in the lives of the women I coach: 

We don’t fall apart because life gets hard. 

We fall apart because we decide that a hard thing is proof of something. Proof that we can’t do this. Proof that we’re not the kind of person who follows through. Proof that maybe we were fooling ourselves all along.

And I want to talk through that today. Because I think how we learn how to recalibrate in the midst of struggle might be the most important lesson of all.

And this past week has definitely been one of those weeks where life just kept showing up. 

And not in the good way.

When Life Shows Up and It’s Not the Good Kind

It started on Saturday. My daughter Annie—she’s sixteen—has really fallen hard for track this year. And I mean hard. Like, jumping-out-of-bed-at-4:45-in-the-morning-on-a-Saturday hard. Which, if you have a teenager, you know that is basically a miracle. She loves the practices, she loves the bus rides, she loves the camaraderie of the whole thing. She loves spending the whole day out at a meet just being with her people.

So she was up before the sun, on the bus by six, absolutely raring to go for her second meet of the season.

A few hours later, I checked in to see how her events had gone.

She sent me a photo of her ankle.

It was very swollen. Like, a lot swollen. And my husband Chuck and I are not run-to-the-doctor-for-every-little-thing people—we really aren’t—but we both looked at that photo and had the same instant gut reaction. Oh no. That’s broken.

We offered to come get her. She said no. We asked to speak to the trainer. She said no. She wanted to stay at the meet, ride the bus home with her friends, tough it out, and deal with it later.

It’s fine, Mom. It’s just a sprain.

It was not fine. The x-ray confirmed what we already knew. Fracture of the lower fibula. Broken ankle.

And here’s the thing that got me. She didn’t cry from the pain. She’d been tough about the pain all day—rode that bus home on a broken ankle without telling a soul how bad it actually was. What made her finally break down was the realization of what it meant. No more track season. No more meets. No more days in the sun cheering for her friends.

The grief of having something you love taken away by something completely outside your control. That specific kind of pain.

As a mom, I can’t fix that.

I can get her to the doctor, I can drive her to PT, I can make her comfortable. But that particular ache? There’s nothing you can do but sit with her in it.

And I’ve been sitting with it. In more ways than one.

Because that feeling—that particular flavor of disappointment—is exactly what I’ve been hearing from so many of you this week.

About a week ago now, I sent out a very simple email to my list. 

No pitch, no content, just a question. What’s going on for you right now? What’s keeping you up at night? What are you struggling with?

I was honestly not prepared for what came back.

A Thousand Women Told Me What Was Actually Keeping Them Up at Night

Over a thousand responses. I’m not exaggerating. A thousand people wrote back.

And I have been reading them all, and trying to respond to as many as I can, which is a lot.

Because it’s a lot. A lot of heaviness. A lot of pain. A lot of struggle.

A parent’s health crisis. A husband’s brain surgery. Your own body giving out at the worst possible time. Burnout so deep you can’t remember what you used to care about. A marriage coming apart at the seams. A business that imploded. A financial hit that took the floor out from under everything. Kids in crisis. A body that won’t cooperate no matter what you do. Menopause throwing everything sideways. Grief. Exhaustion. The particular numbness that sets in after too many hard things in a row.

These are not small things. These are genuinely, breathtakingly hard things. 

And I want to say that clearly before I say anything else, because I don’t want to minimize what people are carrying right now. It is a lot.

It reminds me of that quote, “be kind, because everyone is fighting a hard battle.”

It’s so true.

But here’s what struck me about the pattern underneath it all.

The overwhelming majority of these responses weren’t asking how to deal with the crisis itself. They mostly knew how to handle the hard thing. They were dealing with it, one way or another. What they were asking was something different. Something I didn’t quite expect.

One person put it this way, and it kind of stopped me in my tracks: “The thing I need help with is learning how to not feel guilty about focusing on my plan when unpredictable and urgent demands come up, and then how to maintain consistency once I get started again. I get derailed and then I can’t seem to get back on track.”

What she was really asking—what almost all thousand of those emails were asking—is how to maintain consistency when life keeps blowing up the plan.

That’s the thing. That’s what was underneath almost all of those thousand emails.

Not: I don’t know how to handle hard things.

But: I don’t know how to keep going when hard things keep happening. I don’t know how to come back. I get knocked off track and then I just… stay there.

And here’s what I want to talk about, because I think this is the part that doesn’t get said enough.

It’s Not the Setback That Breaks You. It’s the Story You Tell About It.

When we get derailed—when life blows up the plan, when the ankle breaks, when the diagnosis comes, when the thing we didn’t see coming shows up and flattens everything—we don’t just lose momentum. We also, quietly, almost without realizing it, start to tell ourselves a story about what it means.

I never follow through.

I always end up back at square one.

I must just be bad at this.

I should be further along by now.

And the really insidious version: if I were stronger, more disciplined, more together—this wouldn’t keep happening to me.

That’s the one that does the most damage. The idea that someone who really had it figured out wouldn’t keep getting knocked down like this. That resilient people, disciplined people, successful people—they somehow have a smoother path. Less interruption. More clean stretches of momentum.

And that story we so often tell ourselves—is the thing that turns a detour into a verdict.

Because here’s what happens next. Once you’ve decided that being derailed is evidence of something being fundamentally wrong with you, then getting back on track doesn’t feel like a fresh start. It feels like yet another attempt you’re probably going to blow anyway.

And so instead of recalibrating, you just… stop.

You use the interruption as permission to quit. You tell yourself you’ll start over next quarter, next month, next year, when things settle down. When life cooperates. When the conditions are finally right.

And I say all of this with zero judgment, because I know this pattern intimately. I live it too.

This week, with Annie’s ankle and the doctor’s appointments and the medical bills and the wedding we’re supposed to leave for Thursday now suddenly up in the air—I had my own version of that thought. That split second of: oh here we go. I can never get ahead. My life is a shitshow. It will always be a shitshow. The universe is literally just out here toying with me.

I want to laugh at myself when I say that out loud, and also I want to be real with you—in that moment, it didn’t feel funny. It felt true. It felt like evidence.

That’s the thing about mindset after a setback—in the moment, those thoughts don’t feel like thoughts. They feel like evidence.

But then yesterday I was on a coaching call with my Flourish VIP and one of them finally had a chance to introduce herself and share her story.

The Most Courageous Goal I’ve Heard in a Long Time

And I’m not going to share her name, but I want to tell you a little bit about her life over the last four years. Because it put everything into perspective for me in a way I really needed.

Her son had a massive health crisis. Hospitalized. Couldn’t speak for a period of time. A really serious, terrifying situation that upended their entire family life for two years. They were in and out of hospitals, in and out of crisis mode, for two years.

While that was still happening, her husband started having serious health issues of his own. In and out of the hospital. Ongoing. Still happening.

And then she got her own cancer diagnosis. Multiple surgeries. Chemo. She had to shave her head.

Four years. Four years of health crises stacked on top of health crises, medical bills, and carrying the weight of it all while trying to keep life running for everyone around her.

And she’s on my coaching call. She’s showing up. She’s there.

And I’ll be honest, at first, we she started sharing all this stuff, my first instinct was to think, “oh here we go, she’s got all these excuses for why she’s not doing the work.”

But these weren’t excuses, obviously. This woman had been through the ringer these past four years, and the fact that she was still sitting there was basically a miracle.

She was a WARRIOR through and through.

And she mentioned that her wildly important goal for the quarter was to just take care of herself a little bit more, so I asked what she meant by that. What are you doing to take care of yourself?

She paused, and then she said:

Show up. That’s it. Just show up.

Not scale her business. Not lose thirty pounds. Not launch something new. Not hit a revenue goal.

Show up.

And I wanted to start clapping. Because she was so wise.

Because I sat there and I thought about what it has taken for this woman to get to that call. What it has cost her. What she has survived. What she was STILL surviving.

Showing up after four years of that? That is not a small thing.

That is everything.

That is the most courageous wildly important goal I’ve heard in a long time. 

Because it doesn’t look impressive on paper. There’s no metric attached to it. You can’t put it in a spreadsheet. But it’s real, and it’s honest, and it’s exactly what she needs right now—to give herself permission to rebuild a relationship with showing up for herself before she tries to do anything else.

And what she said that really got me was this: she looked at the whole four years, all of it, and she said, I know God has a purpose in all of this. I’m just in the process of figuring out what it is.

Not bitterness. Not self-pity. Just trust in the process, even when the process has been brutal.

And like I said, I called her a warrior on that call. And I meant it.

So here’s what I’ve been sitting with since that conversation.

We think the lie is: if I were stronger, this wouldn’t keep happening.

But actually, I don’t think that’s the deepest version of it.

The deepest version is this: since this happened, I guess I’m done.

We turn interruption into permission to quit.

And I want to push back on that gently but directly, because I don’t think we actually believe it when we say it. I think we say it when we’re tired and discouraged and we can’t see clearly. I think we say it in the moment when the ankle breaks and the photo comes through and everything feels like it’s caving in.

And here’s the truth: unexpected crises are not actually the problem.

The problem is that we expect progress to happen in a straight line. (I wrote about this in depth after my own 10-day doom loop earlier this year—if that resonates, that post is worth a read too.)

Why Getting Knocked Off Track Feels Like Failure (Even When It Isn’t)

We build this picture in our heads of what momentum is supposed to look like… this clean, uninterrupted upward arc—and then when life shows up and zigzags all over the place, we don’t just feel disappointed. We feel betrayed. Like we’ve been doing something wrong. Like the zigzag means we’re not actually making progress.

But the reality is that progress has never been a straight line. Not for anyone. Not for a single person who has ever done anything meaningful with their life.

It is always two steps forward and one step back.

Sometimes two steps forward and three steps back. Sometimes you go sideways for a while before you find your footing again.

And that is not failure.

That is just life.

And honestly, that is exactly why I plan the way I do. Why I’m SO committed to my system—myThink Big, Plan Small™ system. 

How to Get Back on Track: The Planning System That Gives You a Rhythm to Return To

Because I think people sometimes misunderstand it.

I don’t plan the way I do because my system prevents disruption. It doesn’t. Life still happens. My daughter still breaks her ankle. Plans still fall apart. The thing you didn’t see coming still shows up and knocks the wind out of you.

I plan the way I do because it gives me a rhythm to come back to.

That’s it. That’s the whole thing. That’s the Think Big, Plan Small system—and the whole point of it isn’t perfect execution. It’s having something to return to.

Quarterly, I get clear on where I’m going and what matters most. 

Monthly, I check in with myself: what’s most important this month, what needs to shift, what do I need to let go of? 

Weekly, I ask myself: what matters most this week? What’s my one big focus? How do I want to show up? 

And then every. single. day., I do it again in miniature. What’s most important today? How am I going to show up today?

Not perfectly. Just intentionally.

And what that rhythm does is make it so that every day is a fresh start. Every day is a chance to come back. Not to catch up on everything you missed. Not to compensate for the week that went sideways. Just to return. To pick up where you are and keep going.

Recalibration Isn’t What You Do When You Mess Up. It’s the Whole Game.

I think we’ve somehow gotten this backwards. 

We think the goal is the pristine, uninterrupted execution. 

And the recalibration is what you have to do when you mess up. 

But that’s not right. The recalibration is the practice. Getting yourself back on track is not the exception—it is the game. It is the entire game. 

Learning to return, over and over and over, without making it mean something terrible about who you are. That is resilience.

Disciplined people don’t avoid getting knocked down.

They get back up faster.

That’s the whole difference. 

Not that their life is cleaner or their path is smoother or they have some advantage that you don’t have. They’ve just practiced returning enough that it doesn’t feel catastrophic anymore. 

The spiral still happens—it happens to me, it happens to women I deeply admire—but it gets shorter. You give yourself a day instead of a week. A week instead of a month. And you come back.

Mike Tyson famously said “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth”. And yeah. That’s exactly right. The punch is coming. The punch always comes. The only question is what you do after.

So If you have been feeling like you’re failing—like you keep getting knocked off track and you can’t figure out how to stay on—I want to say something directly to you.

You’re Not Failing. You’re in the Middle of Recalibrating.

And there is a difference.

Recalibration vs. failure: there’s a distinction that changes everything.

Failure is a verdict. 

Recalibration is a practice.

And the fact that you keep trying to come back? 

That you’re still here, still listening, still asking how to get back on track even when it’s hard? That’s not weakness. That is the thing. That is exactly the thing.

I keep thinking about Annie, riding that bus home on a broken ankle because she wanted to be with her team. Not asking for help. Not making it anyone else’s problem yet. Just being stubborn and brave and a little bit ridiculous in the way that only sixteen-year-olds can be.

She’s going to have a hard few weeks. She’s going to miss her season. She’s going to have to find a way to stay connected to something she loves while her body heals.

But she’ll be back.

And so will you.

I wish you would stop thinking that you’re failing every time life gets in the way of your plans. That’s not failure. That’s life. And life is always, always a process of getting back on track. The only thing that matters—the only thing—is that you come back.

You don’t need to catch up on everything you’ve missed. You don’t need to overcompensate. You just need to return. To pick up where you are, right now, and take one step forward.

That’s it. That’s the whole thing.

Building resilience as a woman—in business, in motherhood, in life—doesn’t happen in a single breakthrough. It happens in the returning.

And if you want help with that—if you want a real, structured place to do the recalibrating instead of just white-knuckling your way through it—then I want to personally invite you to join me in The Spring Reset.

(Note: The Spring Reset has ended, but you can follow along with any of our upcoming promotions by getting on our email list here and I’ll send you my Systems Finder GPT as a thank you for signing up!).

Here’s what it is. It’s one focused day. That’s it. One day where we slow all the way down, get clear on where you actually are right now—not where you thought you’d be in January, but where you actually are today—and build a simple, realistic plan for the next ninety days that you can actually execute in the middle of your real life.

Not a perfect life. Your real life, with all its interruptions and broken ankles and things that don’t go according to plan.

This is not about starting over. You are not starting over. You’re recalibrating. And there’s a huge difference between those two things.

Starting over says you failed and you have to go back to the beginning.

Recalibrating says you’re exactly where you are, and here’s your next move.

The Spring Reset is coming up very soon–just one week from today–and I would love to have you there. It’s going to be awesome, it really is. And you guys. It’s just $7 for a ticket, which is almost stupid. You literally have no excuse NOT to be there.

If you’ve been feeling off track—if this episode hit somewhere real for you—this is the place to come back to. I built it for exactly this moment.

Alright, that is what I’ve got for you today. And honestly, this one felt important to say. I hope it landed for you the way it was meant to.

If it did—if this is the kind of episode that you needed to hear, or if you have a friend who’s in the middle of something hard and could use a reminder that she’s not failing—would you share it? Send it to someone. Leave a review if you haven’t. It genuinely helps more people find the show, and this is exactly the kind of conversation I want more women to be a part of.

Thank you for being here. Thank you for showing up—especially if showing up is the whole goal.

And I’ll see you back here for another new episode very soon.

Related Episodes:

I Spent 10 Days Convinced I’d Ruined Everything. Here’s What Actually Happened.
You’ll Never Have Time for Your Goals Until You Stop Doing This One Thing
Why You Self-Sabotage—And How to Fix It in 10 Minutes
The Life Advice I Wish Someone Had Given Me 20 Years Ago

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