I’m At The Top Of The Mountain

I’m At The Top Of The Mountain

What I can see now that I couldn’t see earlier in the climb

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I feel like I’m standing at the top of a mountain right now.

Of course, it’s a metaphorical mountain and definitely not some final mountain I’ve reached in life, where I plant my flag at the top and announce:

Done. I have officially completed life.

Even still, at age 51, I feel like I’ve reached the top of a mountain I started climbing a very long time ago.

You see, I’ve now been coaching for more than 25 years.

My kids, who I once carried around as newborns and chased around as toddlers, are now young adults (almost 20 and 22).

I’ve built a business I’m incredibly proud of, which includes more than 25 published books and more than 100 courses and coaching roadmaps.

I’ve also achieved a level of financial security and created a life in a beautiful home, surrounded by family and friends I love, that I once only dreamed of having.

My younger self would be so freaking proud to know that so many of the things she once hoped for and worked so hard for are things I now get to look around and see in my life every day.

And yet, I sometimes wish I had appreciated all the steps more along the way.

I just finished reading the book The Midnight Train by Matt Haig, which is the sequel to one of my favorite books The Midnight Library.

In the book, Wilbur is given the chance to go back and relive some of the moments in his life that mattered most.

But he doesn’t just relive them.

He observes them, almost from the outside, peering in on his own life as it happened.

Except this time around, those moments look completely different from how he remembers experiencing them.

Surprise, surprise, they’re all moments he didn’t fully appreciate while he was actually living them.

But now, with some distance and time, he can finally see just how amazing those moments really were.

Anyway, of course, while I was reading this book, I immediately imagined travelling back through my own life as an observer.

Imagine that…

Stepping into your past and watching it all unfold again as an observer.

It would be so weird for me to see myself as a child playing with my sisters at home or as a teenager walking through the halls of my high school.

I would LOVE to take a sneak peek at my wedding day again from afar and witness myself holding each of my two beautiful babies for the first time.

I’d also love to drop in on an ordinary day in my life when my kids were toddlers and preschoolers.

Or watch myself sitting down at my clunky computer back in 2001, with a How To Start A Website For Dummies book in hand, trying to build a website for my life coaching business (no WordPress back then – just coding and FTP).

If I could, I’d want to drop in on so many days along the way.

But I also know it would be filled with so much wistful nostalgia because I’m already certain I never truly appreciated the preciousness of all those moments while they were actually happening.

Me as an observer would want to shake my younger self. Look around!

Look at what you have.

Look at what you’re doing.

Look at these beautiful little humans.

Look at the life you’re building.

Look at how special this ordinary day actually is.

And this is not to say that I didn’t appreciate those moments at the time, because I have always been hyper-aware of the preciousness and fragility of life.

It’s just that I also allowed worry, stress, overwhelm and impatience to colour way too many of those days at the same time.

And now I wish I had spent even MORE time focused on the present, instead of always worrying about something, thinking about what needed fixing, wondering whether I was doing enough or trying to get somewhere else.

Because now that I’m standing at the top of the mountain – a peak that once seemed so far out of reach – I realise:

Oh gosh, every single moment along the way was special in its own way.

Except, of course, we rarely think of the days we’re living right now as our future “good old days.”

I can see the same thing when I look back at my work

The way I coach today isn’t exactly the same way I coached 25 years ago.

Of course it isn’t.

I’ve learned too much and lived too much to give exactly the same advice at 51 as I did when I started my business at 26.

Over the last two decades, I’ve experimented, failed, succeeded, changed my mind and discovered better ways of doing things.

I’ve also lived through very different seasons.

I mean, just look at some of the coaching roadmaps I’ve created.

There was a time when I created 10X Your Productivity.

Later, I created The Lazy Way To Get Things Done.

You could look at those two titles and think:

Well, Frances, which one is it?

But I actually love that both exist.

Because they reflect different things I learned at different points along the climb.

In my own life, I have definitely gone through all the different seasons.

There were seasons when growing my business and achieving success were incredibly important to me.

Other seasons when productivity and getting more done became my priority.

And there have been seasons when I’ve realised that doing more isn’t necessarily the goal at all, and I’ve prioritised calmness and slow living instead.

Fast-forward to these later years and, even though I still love working towards my dreamy goals, I truly believe that nothing is more important to me than the relationships I have with the people I love.

Anyway, all this is to say: you live and you learn.

I have always been 100% committed to the importance of simplifying your life and managing your mind.

But I have also always taught from where I was standing on the mountain at the time.

And now I’m standing somewhere different.

I can see more.

The higher I’ve climbed, the more I’ve realised that there isn’t one secret

After more than 25 years of coaching, I still absolutely believe in strategy.

I love strategy.

If you want to organise your life better, there are strategies that will help you do that.

If you want to become more productive, there are strategies.

If you want to grow a business, there are strategies.

If you want to achieve a goal, manage your time, change your habits, write a book or make something happen that isn’t happening right now, there are practical things you can learn and DO that will move you closer to it.

That’s why I’ve spent decades creating courses that teach those things.

But here’s something I can see much more clearly from where I’m standing now:

I’m more confident than ever before that strategy alone isn’t enough.

Because eventually, you have to actually implement the strategy.

And that’s where you will meet yourself and your messy mind (the one that travels with you throughout life).

The moment you sit down to do the work, all the normal human emotions come along to join the party.

Say hello to fear, procrastination, doubt, confusion, second-guessing and discomfort.

Guess what?

THEY ALL WANT TO JOIN YOU AS YOU MOVE TOWARDS YOUR GOALS.

What this means is that you can have the greatest strategy in the world sitting right in front of you, but if you don’t know how to manage the brain that is constantly trying to talk you out of implementing it, that strategy isn’t going to get you very far.

Which is why so much of what I teach now also involves learning how to manage your mind.

But then again – mindset alone isn’t enough either.

You can believe in yourself until the cows come home.

At some point, you have to DO something.

That’s why I don’t see strategy and mindset as two separate things.

They belong together. And I have always taught them TOGETHER.

A stronger mindset helps you put the strategies into action.

And together, they help you climb.

But let’s come back to this mountain top and something I understand better now than ever before

I now realise that reaching the top of any mountain isn’t the only thing that matters.

How you live while you’re climbing matters too.

Of course, as your coach, I want you to achieve your dreamy goals.

I want you to make money if that’s something you want.

I want you to create things you’re proud of.

I want you to surprise yourself with what you’re capable of.

I want you to follow those little nudges in your heart that keep telling you:

There’s something more I want to experience in this life.

But I don’t want you to sacrifice your soul, your sanity or the people you love trying to get there.

Because I can look back now and see something my younger self couldn’t see quite as clearly:

Your life isn’t waiting for you at the top of the mountain.

It’s happening during the climb.

Building a successful business is something I’m enormously proud of.

Writing my books matters to me.

Creating all those courses matters to me.

But none of those achievements makes raising my children less important.

They don’t make a beautiful ordinary afternoon with my family less worthy.

They don’t make my marriage less of an accomplishment.

They don’t make peace, health, laughter, relationships, time or presence consolation prizes for people who aren’t successful enough.

They’re all part of the richness I want you to embrace in your own life too.

The climb is 99% of the journey, my friend.

So please don’t wait until you reach the top to enjoy the view.

So what happens when you reach the top?

Here’s what I’m doing.

I’m looking around, appreciating the view and definitely giving myself so much credit for how far I’ve come.

And then?

You keep living.

Because there isn’t some magical point where you’re finally finished growing.

I’m certainly not finished.

I still have dreamy goals.

I’m still curious. I’m still creating. I’m still learning.

I’m still going to experiment with things that might work and things that might flop spectacularly.

There will ALWAYS be more things I want to experience, contribute, learn, create and become.

That’s what having a growth mindset means to me.

Once again, you don’t reach the top of a mountain and just STOP LIVING.

That would be the craziest thing to do.

Even if you’ve raised your kids and established your career.

Even if you’ve bought your house and created some financial security.

Just because you’ve arrived there doesn’t mean the answer to the question:

What next?

is:

Nothing. You’ve arrived.

It’s:

Whatever you want it to be.

Another mountain. A completely different adventure. More time enjoying the view. Something you’ve never tried before. Or maybe a season where you don’t feel the need to climb quite so hard at all.

Whatever your choice, you keep living and choosing and discovering what matters to you now.

And hopefully, with every mountain you climb, you get a little better at appreciating the journey while you’re still on it.

And if you’re nowhere near the top yet…

That’s okay too.

Maybe you’re still standing at the bottom looking up. Maybe you’re halfway there.

Maybe you’re exhausted and sitting on a rock wondering why on earth you decided to climb this particular mountain in the first place.

Maybe you know exactly where you want to go but can’t work out how to get yourself moving.

That’s part of why I’ve spent so many years documenting what I’ve learned:

• The strategies I’ve used.
• The mindset shifts that helped.
• The mistakes I’d avoid.
• The shortcuts I’d take.
• The things I’d do differently.
• The things I’d absolutely do again.

It’s why Inspiring Life Academy contains such a vast collection of courses.

They weren’t created in a vacuum. In many ways, they’re a record of the climb.

And if you’re working towards something I’ve already learned how to navigate, I’m happy to show you the path I took and help make your own climb a little easier.

But I also want to remind you of something I wish I could tell every younger version of myself:

Don’t spend the entire climb staring at the summit.

Look around occasionally. This bit counts too.

The messy middle counts. The learning counts. The tiny wins count. The days when nothing spectacular happens count. The people walking beside you count. The person you’re becoming while you’re figuring everything out counts.

ALL OF THIS COUNTS!

And guess what? You might even be living something today that you’ll ache to experience again twenty years from now.

So yes, keep climbing. Use the strategies. Work on your mindset. Take the uncomfortable actions. Follow your dreamy goals. Build the richer life you keep imagining for yourself.

As long as when you reach the top of this particular mountain, you remember to stand there long enough to appreciate what you’ve done.

Then once you’re done, look towards the horizon because I’m almost certain that there will be another mountain calling your name. And when you decide to climb it, take everything you’ve learned with you.

Just don’t forget to enjoy the view along the way.

With love,

Frances xxx