A 0 and a blank space look exactly the same. Both mean nothing happened.
But one keeps you a victim of your life, and the other puts you in the creator’s seat.
Some time ago I posted a note about missing the gym for a whole week and feeling zero guilt. I want to explore this a little deeper, because guilt has its gifts, just like any other emotion, and there was a very specific reason I said zero guilt.
And of course I’ll relate it to business, because everything is connected.
That post was inspired by our scoreboard call in the Your First Yes cohort. This is a small group of people who decided they are done struggling with a lack of clarity and with not knowing how to explain what they do. They are ready for their business to grow, and they know that if they keep doing what they’ve been doing, it won’t take them there.
As the saying goes, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Once a week, we meet to track their progress. It’s a structured process that helps them, and us, see where the real issue is, so we can address the root cause instead of overbooking ourselves with actions that won’t take us anywhere.
Why am I telling you this?
Because on this call, if someone took no action on one of the things we measure, it’s extremely important that they write 0. Leaving it blank won’t do.
When I said I felt zero guilt about missing the gym, it was because it was a conscious choice. I chose not to go. It wasn’t that life happened and the gym slipped because I couldn’t prioritize myself.
But notice how often this happens to you. You say you want to do something. It’s in your schedule. And you don’t do it. It slips out of your control because life happened to you.
In all the go, go, go, you didn’t even realize you had a choice. Again, you missed the gym. You missed the newsletter you said you would write. You missed the conversations you said you would have.
Writing a 0 on the scoreboard puts you in the creator’s seat. Leaving it blank, without even knowing why you didn’t do it, keeps you operating as a victim: life happens and you have no choice.
Which means you are constantly operating from old, unhelpful patterns.
I’ve had weeks when I didn’t go to the gym and I did feel guilty. And I let myself feel it. It felt awful.
My shoulders collapsed, and my thought was, here I am again, not making my health a priority. I looked back on my week and didn’t even know why I hadn’t gone. It just happened that way.
It happens to all of us.
And then we avoid the guilt, because so many spiritual and positive teachings tell us that if you didn’t do it, it wasn’t meant to be, or that we should be nice and kind to ourselves.
Guilt doesn’t feel kind or nice, so we don’t let ourselves feel it.
And we keep ourselves from its gift: change.
When you truly feel guilt, you learn. You don’t let your mind come up with an excuse to justify the unconscious choice. Instead, you change your actions, so you don’t have to feel it again.
The next time, maybe you’ll push yourself to go to the gym, because not going belongs to an old version of you that no longer fits your dreams. Or maybe you’ll skip it because you need rest, and you’ll know exactly why.
Either way, when you write 0 on the scoreboard instead of leaving it empty, it’s because you chose it, not because life chose for you.
The week after, I went back to my routine and showed up to the gym more than I said I would.
Guilt isn’t meant to be carried forward in life. It’s meant to be felt deeply, so that next time you choose consciously what you want instead of letting the unconscious choose for you.
Every time you don’t do what you said you would because life happened, you are letting your past choose. And every time your past chooses, you are not moving toward the goals and desires you have.
I am all about being kind and nice to myself, but that can’t rob me of the gift of negative emotions.
For me, being kind sounds like this: okay, I didn’t have the conversations I said I would. I’m aware this isn’t helping my business or the life I want to manifest. So the most loving thing I can do now is show up for myself better, instead of letting the pattern swallow my possibilities.
Sometimes the most loving thing you can do for yourself is to feel the guilt, process it completely, and choose differently next time.
When you do that, the zeros on your scoreboard will carry rich information. You’ll see your gaps. Maybe you need to develop a skill, maybe expand your network, or maybe you just need to do the thing that makes you extremely uncomfortable.
But you’ll only learn this when you consciously choose 0. Then guilt won’t be there.
Instead, you’ll start getting to know yourself better, and clarity will emerge: why you’re not getting the results you want, and where to double down because something is working really well.
With love,
Carolina
Your blanks have a pattern. The free Harmony Map helps you see it.
Who we’re celebrating: Amanda Goddard
This week I’m celebrating Amanda Goddard of Everyday Unconventional, our auction winner.
Amanda spent 15 years working on private yachts and now lives part of the year in an RV. She guides conventional achievers who crave unconventional lives, and she does it as a guide, not a guru.
She doesn’t teach people to copy her choices; she helps them hear their own.
Amanda, thank you for having the courage to share your gifts with the world.
I feel honored to support your journey.
Happenings
Offline, but connected
This upcoming week, we’ll be taking the week off to attend a retreat with a teacher who deeply inspires our philosophy and how we build our business. His whole premise is that only love is real, and everything that is happening, or not happening, in our lives is there to help us awaken to this truth.
From his teachings, I keep learning to love myself more. And love doesn’t always mean comfort. It’s quite the opposite. Love and kindness toward ourselves can mean doing what we don’t want to do, because it’s more aligned with the version of ourselves that is awakening, the one that came here to thrive and create, not to suffer and live a mediocre life.
Love and courage walk hand in hand. When our choices are made from fear, they keep us at a distance from the truth that only love is real.
I’m extremely excited.
We attended his retreat last year and it was a gift. Having had a year to practice the insights I received there, it feels just perfect to engage with him again as this new version of myself. And I’m ready for more uncomfortable actions, which are already on my horizon.
I’ll be connecting with you from my heart, holding our readers and clients in the energy of this container. Because yes, only love is real, and sometimes it causes pain, just to break our hearts open and let more light in.
You’ll probably see less of us on Substack, but we’ll remain connected. And I know you’ll receive the energy.
Memorable Quote by Carl Jung
Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.
