For years, I told myself a story. It went something like this: once the kids are older, once things calm down, once I have more time, once life isn’t so heavy — that’s when I’ll finally do something for myself.
I believed it too. I really did think there was a version of my life coming where the chaos would quiet down long enough for me to start the blog, build the business, chase the thing I kept pushing to “someday.”
Here’s my life right now, in case you’re picturing something calmer than reality: I have two kids in college who still live at home but honestly don’t need me for much anymore. And I have a high schooler who needs me for a lot — the kind of “a lot” that drains my mental energy some days before I’ve even had coffee. Between the two ends of that spectrum, there hasn’t been a quiet moment in longer than I can remember.
For a long time, that was exactly why I kept waiting. I figured a business, a blog, a “thing that’s just mine” needed space I didn’t have. It needed calm I wasn’t getting. It needed a version of my life that wasn’t currently on fire.
And then one day I did the math.
If I kept waiting for the “right” moment — the smooth, stress-free, everyone-is-fine moment — I realized I could be waiting well into my 60s. Because here’s the truth nobody tells you: life’s demands don’t stop. They just change shape. The empty nest doesn’t erase the noise, it just replaces one kind of chaos with another. There is no finish line where everything finally settles down enough to “earn” doing something for yourself.
So I stopped waiting for permission from my circumstances. I started the blog and the business right in the middle of everything — the stress, the sadness, the frustration, the teenager testing every last nerve I have. Not after I fixed my life. Not once things got easier. Right in the thick of it.
And I’m so glad I did.
It didn’t happen because things got quiet. It happened because I finally decided that my something-for-myself didn’t have to wait for everyone else’s timeline to line up first.
If you’re in this phase too — the one where you keep telling yourself “when things settle down” — I want to gently push back on that. Things may never fully settle down. That’s not pessimism, it’s just life. There will always be a kid who needs you, a job that demands more, a season that feels like too much.
So here’s my encouragement to you: start the hobby. Start the business. Take the class. Write the book. Have that Midlife Makeover! Whatever it is you’ve been quietly saving for “someday” — bring it into today, chaos and all. You don’t need a clean, stress-free runway to deserve something that’s yours.
If you’re not sure where to even start, that’s okay — you don’t need it all figured out today. Grab my free Vision Workbook and give yourself the space to get honest about what you actually want this next chapter to look like. It’s the same first step I took before anything else.
And when you’re ready to turn that vision into daily action instead of just words on a page, my 90-Day Midlife Renewal Journal is built to walk you through it, one day at a time — right in the middle of your real, chaotic, beautiful life.
Time waits on no one. Don’t wait on it either.
