Y'all, we've been talking about courage all of October. The focus was on courage to start, and today we're closing it with the courage to release. You have always heard that growth means saying yes. What no one tells you is that growth just as often means saying no, letting go, and pruning. If you're the only woman in the room, or one of very few, you've probably been told your whole career to say yes. Sometimes those yeses bury you. Today's episode is tough for me. I'm trying to talk myself into some clarity about what I need to release, and I'm bringing you along.

• Why growth isn't only about saying yes
• What I've had to release to make space for this podcast
• What the courage to release is not. It isn't quitting because you're weak. I share Steven Levitt's coin flip research on why people who make the change they were weighing are happier later.
• Why the hardest no's are often the good things that just aren't yours anymore
• Why saying no is so hard, especially in historically male-dominated fields: hypervisibility, having to prove it again, office housework, the tightrope, the glass cliff and sunk cost
• How to prune: deadwood, crossing branches, and healthy growth in the wrong place
• Ritual theory: separation, liminality and incorporation, and why we try to skip the first one
• Releasing the armor, the version of us we built to prove we belong
• Marking your endings, and making a release a goal

Build your own No Club. Find two or three women and run your yeses by them before you commit.

Join Simply Bold: https://www.plangoalplan.com/simplybold

Schedule a chat about Simply Bold at plangoalplan.com

In early January, I'm hosting a quarterly retreat that kicks off the year with planning. I also have a few one-on-one coaching spots open. Sometimes you just need someone to hold some of that courage for you.

• Email: support@plangoalplan.com
• Website: PlanGoalPlan.com
• LinkedIn (I post most here!): www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-mcgeough-phd
• Facebook Group: www.facebook.com/plangoalplan

I'm wishing you the ability to tell what to step into and what to release. On the other side of that no, there are beautiful things. Untill next time, be bold, be balanced, and be well, friends.