It was Monday, July 5. Technically a holiday, but given a few pressing deadlines combined with an upcoming off-the-grid camping trip, I decided to call it a workday.

I was ready to work.

My to-do list was made.
Priorities were set.
I was going to slay the day! 

…until… (you knew there’d be an until, right?!)

I got a text from my friend Ray that he was swinging by with his daughter to drop off some books. 

...great…keep slaying the day, Tiffany…

Then Tim popped his head into my office to see if I would be ready for lunch soon. “Yep, anytime!” I told him, and I heard Ray’s voice—they were staying for lunch.

And my day changed.

All of a sudden, what would have been a rushed meal so I could get back to my desk became a leisurely lunch with a friend we hadn’t gotten to dine with since February 2020.

This drop-in lunch surprise a delight. Bonus points that we got to have the leftover fried chicken sandwiches that I’d made the night before. (Feeding people is my love language.)

After lunch, I headed back to my desk and realized that I had a choice: I could be frazzled about “losing work time,” or I could revel in the serendipitous delight. 

I chose to revel and got back to work. 

…until… (Yes! Another until)

We got a text from a neighbor that there would be a farewell gathering in their driveway for neighbors who were moving next week, starting around 4-ish. 

And yes, absolutely, we wanted to stop by. 

But, because of pick-up soccer games, kids playing hide and seek, and impromptu pizza runs, we didn’t get home from the “popover” until nearly 8 pm. 

Which would have been fine any other time, but remember how I was planning to slay the day? Yeah…I still had a pile of work waiting for me. 

Automatically, my brain dove into the oh no, what have I done? I’m so behind! habitual loop. 

But then I paused and considered the way I’d felt all day: Delighted. Free. Expansive. Connected. Enthusiastic. Playful. Present. Lit up. 

Once again, I realized I had a choice: I could fall back into my striving habit, stay at my desk until 11, get the work “done,” feeling frenzied while doing so and curse the way my day was “taken” from me. 

Or I could show up from a place of radical self-belief, live in the delight and trust that the day I had was exactly right.

Because of that radical self-belief, I’d been able to pause my workday so that I could be in my life. 

I was able to be delighted because I was showing up to my values. 

I was able to say yes, not to a day spent kicking ass and taking names, but time among friends and family. 

The radical self-belief let me give myself the grace to know that the to-do list would still be there the next day. 

The radical self-belief let me have faith in my ability to show up even better to the work after having such a delightful day. 

The radical self-belief let me say: that was an amazing day. With wonder and awe for my life that I’ve worked really hard to deliberately create. 

It hit me as I was getting ready for bed Monday night: the day that I had is exactly what Grown-Up Gap Year is all about.  The way I felt is exactly what I’m after for all of us. (And I suspect it’s exactly what we’re all most hungry for right now!)

So, rather than writing about St. Augustine and why we don’t trust ourselves and misogyny and how we can radically embrace self-belief, I decided to write about a Monday wherein a friend stopped by for lunch and we gathered on a neighbor’s driveway to bid farewell to a family who’s moving. 

And here’s the thing: the specifics matter way less than the fact that I made deliberate choices throughout the day based on how I wanted to feel. I didn’t let my ambition keep me at my desk just because there was work to do. 

Here’s what I want you to know: sometimes radical self-belief means you shift your workday to make space for friends. Sometimes it means you stay at your desk until 9 pm because you’re on deadline and need to wrap things up. 

Sometimes it means you say yes, sometimes it means you say no. Sometimes it means you stand in authority, sometimes it means you say I have no idea. 

It’s not about being infallible; it’s about letting yourself be human. 

It’s not about trusting that you’ll always have the Right answer; it’s about trusting yourself to find the right-enough-for-right-now answer, knowing full well that another right answer might show up later. 

It’s not about picking one lane and staying there; it’s about trusting yourself in any given moment to proceed or pause or change lanes based on your intuition and feelings. 

It’s about living beyond the black-and-white, this-or-that, yes-or-no and seeing the full spectrum of possibility, trusting yourself in a way that feels simultaneously radical and like coming home.

It’s all of that, and this is exactly the place that Grown-Up Gap Year is designed to teach you to live from.

In this program, you’ll have a year to put your striving on a shelf & radically infuse your life with delight, serendipity, and deep trust in yourself so you can design a life that feels as good on the inside as it looks on the outside.

Grown-Up Gap Year is your chance to create an experience that feels enchanting within the realms of your also-completely-real grown-up responsibilities.

It’s your chance to learn how to radically trust yourself (beyond just what you’re capable of) and use that to infuse more space, play, and serendipity into your day. Your week. Your month. Your year. Your life.

Because while you’ll have a year-long creative experience within the Grown-Up Gap Year container, you’ll also learn to cultivate sustainable delight so that the fun doesn’t end when our year together is over.

Intrigued? Curious? Click here, to check out the details and hop on the waitlist! 

And may delight find you exactly where you are.