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Welcome to Hope Sparks. I write for people standing at thresholds—the uncomfortable edges where who you’ve been meets who you’re becoming. The places where you know something needs to shift, but you’re not quite ready to let go of what’s kept you safe.
If you’re here, you’re probably navigating a transition you didn’t choose, or finally choosing one you’ve been avoiding. Either way: I see you. And I’m glad you’re here.
Part 3 of The Threshold Series
If you missed the others, don’t worry. Each piece stands alone. But they’re building toward something: understanding what keeps us frozen at the edge, and what it takes to actually cross.
Read Part 1: Certainty Is a Myth
Read Part 2: The Limitations You Borrowed
I’m watching brilliant leaders put their heads in the sand.
Not because they’re scared. Not because they’re incapable. But because waiting feels safer than being a beginner again.
A client just emailed me: “I’m waiting to see what the AI strategy will be in a few months. Then I’ll figure out if I need to learn it.”
I recognize that sentence immediately. Not because of AI specifically, but because I’ve heard versions of it a thousand times. From leaders I respect. From people doing extraordinary work in every other area of their lives.
“I’m waiting for things to stabilize before I make that move.”
“I’m waiting for the right time to address this pattern.”
“I’m waiting for someone to tell me what to do.”
Here’s what I’m learning: There’s a difference between pausing to come back to yourself (which is wisdom) and waiting for perfect conditions that will never arrive.
Pausing to come back to yourself looks like:
Taking a week to feel into a decision
Sleeping on something before responding
Creating space to hear your own wisdom beneath the noise
Waiting for perfect conditions looks like:
“I’ll address this when I have more time” (you never will)
“I’ll learn this when it’s clearer” (clarity comes from engagement)
“I’ll make this change when I feel ready” (readiness comes from action)
Your body knows the difference. The question is: which one are you doing?
The Ostrich Racket
Tracy Goss calls them “rackets.” Persistent complaints we maintain that secretly serve us. We complain about them endlessly, but we never actually resolve them. Because deep down? We’re getting something from keeping them alive.
The version I hear most often: “I’ll deal with [insert transformation here] when things are clearer.”
AI is just the current, most visible example. But the pattern shows up everywhere:
“I’ll work on my anxiety when work calms down”
“I’ll address my leadership gaps when I have more bandwidth”
“I’ll figure out my pricing when I feel more confident”
“I’ll build those systems when things stabilize”
Same racket. Different costume.
And here’s what makes it so insidious: It sounds reasonable. It feels prudent when you’re already overwhelmed.
But underneath the reasonable explanation? You’re outsourcing responsibility for your own life.
What the Racket Actually Protects
Here’s what I didn’t want to see about my own version of this:
For two years, I told myself I’d “restructure my business when things stabilized.” I had endless reasons why now wasn’t the right time. Too many client commitments. Too much uncertainty in the market. Fears about working too much and losing my beloved balance. Not enough clarity on what the new model should look like.
Sounds reasonable, right? That’s what I told myself too.
But here’s what I was really protecting: my identity as someone who had it all figured out.
If I admitted my current model wasn’t working, I’d have to face that I’d been wrong. That I’d built something that looked successful from the outside but was quietly depleting me. That I didn’t actually know what came next.
Calling it “being strategic” let me avoid being a beginner at my own business. Again.
The question that finally broke it open: What am I committed to that keeps this racket alive?
The answer landed like a gut punch: I was more committed to looking like I knew what I was doing than to actually building what I wanted.
Let me show you how the racket works with the AI example, because it’s happening in real time for many
The Story: “I’ll learn about AI when the strategy becomes clear. When experts agree. When it’s safer. When I’m not so busy.”
The Evidence You Collect: Every article about AI risks. Every expert disagreement. Every horror story that makes waiting feel smart.
The Hidden Payoff: You don’t have to face the discomfort of being a beginner. You don’t risk looking foolish. You maintain your identity as someone who’s “thoughtful” and “strategic” rather than reactive.
What Staying “Strategic” Actually Preserves:
The belief that you only act when you have answers
Your reputation as someone who doesn’t make mistakes
The safety of never having to say “I don’t know”
Permission to avoid the thing that actually scares you
The Cost: Months pass. The gap widens between those experimenting and those waiting. Your capacity to leverage this tool (for good, for growth, for your own evolution) stays locked in potential.
And that pattern? It shows up everywhere else too.
The Real Cost: When You Outsource Your Agency
Here’s the connection I keep seeing:
When you outsource your agency (your right to choose, to act, to experiment without permission), you also outsource your meaning. That hollow ache you feel? It’s not burnout. It’s not even overwhelm.
It’s the cost of not living like you have a say in your own life.
Because here’s what creates meaning: The conscious application of your attention and choice to what matters.
Not perfect choices. Not safe choices. Conscious ones.
When you wait for external conditions to give you permission, you’re essentially saying: “My life isn’t mine to shape. I’m waiting for reality to cooperate before I get to live.” And that (that resignation dressed up as patience) is what drains the aliveness right out of you.
My mom Robin used to talk about “tapes.” The programs we run on repeat without examining them. The same reactions. The same excuses. The same complaints that keep us exactly where we are.
When you run those tapes long enough, meaning slips away. Not because life is meaningless, but because you’ve stopped being the one creating it.
The Alchemy You’re Missing
Here’s what I’m learning about these patterns we loop in:
You don’t have to destroy the part of you that waits. You get to transmute it.
That capacity for thoughtful pause? That discernment you’ve been practicing? It’s not wrong. It’s just been pointed in the wrong direction. What if all this time spent “waiting for clarity” has actually been teaching you how to distinguish between wisdom and resignation?
That’s the alchemical gold: Your pattern of pausing isn’t the problem. It’s what you’ve been using it to avoid that needs to shift. The real question: Can you take that same discerning awareness and turn it toward action instead of delay?
Instead of asking “Is this the right time?” ask “What’s the smallest experiment I could run?”
Instead of “What will people think?” ask “What becomes possible if I try this badly?”
Same wisdom. Different direction. That’s transmutation.
Who Do You Need to Become?
The shift that’s happening for me isn’t about doing different things. It’s about becoming someone different. Almost like changing an outfit, I’m trying on being different in my life to impact the outer circumstances.
Let me show you what I mean:
Old Identity Hope:
Waits until she has all the information
Needs to look competent at all times
Believes “strategic” means “slow and careful”
Outsources big decisions to external validation
Evolving Identity Hope:
Experiments before she has answers
Is willing to look clumsy while learning
Knows strategy includes rapid iteration
Trusts her own discernment enough to move
I’m not there yet. But here’s what changes when I practice being that person even before I feel like her:
I made a decision last week in 48 hours that old-identity Hope would have researched for 6 months. Not because I had more information, but because I asked: “What would someone who trusts herself do here?”
The answer was immediate. And terrifying. And right.
Here’s my invitation
Not as someone who’s figured it out, but as someone still working with this:
What if you declared yourself capable of learning anything, regardless of evidence?
Not “I’ll be capable when I have proof.” But: “I am someone who experiments, fails, iterates, and creates clarity through action.”
That’s a declaration from nothing. It doesn’t wait for permission. It doesn’t need evidence. It just is. Try it. Say it out loud right now and notice what happens in your body:
“I am someone who experiments before I have all the answers.”
Does it feel true? No? Good. That’s the point. You’re not trying to believe it. You’re trying it on to see what becomes possible.
Your Turn: Breaking the Racket
You can’t think your way out of a racket. (I’ve tried.) And you definitely can’t do it while keeping it to yourself, holding it tight like a secret in some dark internal closet. You have to pull that racket out into the light. See it so clearly that continuing it becomes ridiculous.
Only then can you move beyond it.
Here’s what’s working for me:
Track the Pattern
Every time you hear yourself say “I’ll deal with that when...” pause. Put your hand on your heart if it helps.
Ask yourself: “What am I really avoiding by waiting?”
Be honest. The answer is usually one of these:
Being a beginner (and looking like you don’t know what you’re doing)
Risking failure (and having others witness it)
Making conscious choices without guaranteed outcomes (the most terrifying one)
Write down what comes up. Don’t edit it. Just let yourself see what’s actually running underneath the reasonable explanation.
Start With One Experiment
Pick one area (just one) where you’ve been waiting for “the right time” or “clearer strategy.”
Ask yourself: What would change if I experimented now, imperfectly, messily, instead of waiting for perfect conditions?
Not “What would I do perfectly?” but “What would I try if I gave myself permission to be clumsy at it?”
That’s your next move. Not the whole transformation. Just the first experiment.
Make one decision today as that future version of yourself. Notice what happens.
What Happens When You Stop Waiting
I can’t tell you that breaking this racket will be comfortable. It won’t be.
But I can tell you what I’m watching happen for the people who’ve stopped outsourcing their transformation:
They become different. Not just in what they do, but in how they move through the world.
There’s a woman in my world who spent 18 months “waiting to see” if she should pivot her business. She finally made the choice (messily, imperfectly) and within weeks, three opportunities appeared that had been invisible before.
Why? Because she stopped broadcasting “I’m waiting for permission” and started radiating “I’m choosing this.”
The universe responds to that frequency differently.
Another client stopped waiting to “feel confident enough” to raise her prices. She did it scared. Guess what? Her ideal clients didn’t blink. The ones who left? They were never her people anyway.
Here’s what I’m learning: Your transformation doesn’t just change you. It gives permission to everyone watching.
When you stop waiting, you show others they can too. When you experiment badly, you prove that clumsy action beats perfect planning. When you choose consciously (even when it’s hard), you demonstrate what agency actually looks like.
That’s the radiation. That’s how one person’s decision to stop running their racket becomes a ripple that changes everything around them.
P.S. Want to know my most powerful motivator when I can’t seem to break the cycle?
My kids.
When I catch myself running the same racket for the hundredth time, I ask: Do I want them to learn this pattern from me?
That question ends the loop every single time.
The Pattern Across All Three Parts
If you’ve been following my Hope Sparks Threshold Series, you’re starting to see how these rackets weave together:
Part 1: Certainty Is a Myth → You wait for evidence that only comes from acting
Part 2: The Limitations You Borrowed → You accept “truths” that were never yours to begin with
Part 3: The Permission Slip (today) → You keep waiting for perfect conditions that will never arrive
See the thread?
Each racket is a different flavor of the same pattern: waiting for something external to change you instead of claiming your own agency.
You’re waiting for proof. You’re accepting inherited limitations. You’re postponing action until conditions are perfect.
All of it keeps you safe at the doorway of your threshold. None of it gets you across.
So Here’s My Question for You
What are you waiting for perfect conditions to address?
And what if (just what if) the life you’re here to live is waiting on the other side of that first clumsy experiment?
Not someday. Now.
Craving to learn AI specifically?
I can’t recommend Callan Faulkner’s work enough. She’s moving mountains when it comes to offering accessible AI training, and frankly, she gathers incredible leaders who are willing to learn, make mistakes, get messy, and get down in this new arena. She’s positive. High frequency. I’ve loved everything I’ve taken from her.
In fact, her approach inspired me to run my own invite-only BUILD WITH HOPE cohort supporting women to build both capacity and capability around learning AI as a tool to amplify their human agency. Yup. That’s how good Callan’s work is. It’s also proof that I’m willing to experiment and create in new territory.
Check out Callan’s MasterClass - TODAY Oct 14 @11:30am CT here
I’m Hope, and I believe you’re capable of learning anything, even before you have evidence. Especially then.
Next in my Hope Sparks Threshold Series: Part 4 explores what happens when you can no longer maintain the old way. The collapse that becomes the portal to transformation. Subscribe so you don’t miss it. PLEASE leave me a comment, share what comes up for you when you read this. I’d love to hear.
