The first symptom is hope.

This is what I mean when I say, “return to you first.”

Every time this pattern shows up I used to think it meant something was wrong with me.

So what if it is new information I have not picked up yet. And every time it comes back around it brings something with it.

In hope that it eventually turns into a pattern when a feeling of success happens.

Let me show you what I mean.

You are sitting at your desk. Laptop open. And somewhere between the first email and the second cup of coffee it shows up.

That feeling. The one that lives just below your chest. The one that says,

oh. Here we are again.

I feel like this is not going anywhere. And if you have ever found yourself asking why you keep repeating the same patterns in your business or just in life. That was the exact thought as that low hum of a person who knows exactly where she is because she has been here before.

The number of times I have been here is well … more than I liked to admit. SHIT.

The first symptom is hope.

And it feels so good you do not even think to question it.

Genuine, reorganize-your-whole-workflow, buy-a-new-notebook, this-is-the-season-everything-clicks-into-place hope. You bring people in. You make a financial commitment. You feel ready.

“You are three steps ahead of where you actually are but you do not know that yet because Hope is inspiring. Reality is specific.”

Then the slow realization creeps in, after the decisions are made. You thought you needed a team again. (this is the pattern, btw) Which means you are now focused on feeding the machine instead of figuring out how to bring income in so you can actually afford the machine. As much as what social media people say to sell you something, these are two different things. I know from the hard way.

The anxiety moves in and sets up a little home office directly on top of your creativity. The productivity slows. The stress goes up. You are working harder than you were before you had help and somehow producing less of what actually matters. Still with no income to show for it.

And then the part that does not get easier no matter how many times you have been here. You let people go and it hurts, maybe them, definitely me. Every single time. The guilt of a hopeful decision that affected someone else lands differently than regular failure. It has a specific texture. A specific weight. And I have carried it enough times now to know exactly what it feels like the moment it shows up. (UGH!)

Then you are back to doing it all yourself. The loop tightens.

“Damned if you do.
Damned if you don’t.”

No metaphor here. This is a Tuesday afternoon in the life of someone building something real without a trust fund or a co-founder or the funds to support a team.

And then the questions show up from that place of shame and guilt and disappointment. You know the ones that are designed to keep you spinning.

What did I do wrong?
Why does this keep happening?
Maybe I am just not cut out for this.

Too many times around the loop.
Maybe this one is the charm?

This time I stayed in the discomfort longer.

Felt the weight of it. Knew something needed to be different. And not to explain it away. And as much as I wanted to do what was familiar — definitely not give into an immediate fix of a theorized solution that I was sold online.

The weight felt like, okay, I see you. I know this feeling too well. And I need to ask different questions, the curious questions.

• What am I missing that keeps bringing me back here?

• What is this pattern actually trying to tell me that I have not heard yet?

Those were the real questions. The ones that come from curiosity instead of shame. Because most people never get here. Most people never stop to ask how to get curious about their patterns instead of ashamed of them. And asking them instead of reacting to them is what changed everything about what happened next.

Because most of us skip straight to doing more. Another list. Another strategy. Another pivot. Another hopeful hire three steps ahead of where we actually are. But before you can move through a pattern you have to understand what you are actually standing in. Not the surface version. The real version. The one underneath the frustration that has actual information in it.

So I did what I always do when I need to get out of my own head.

I returned to what I know best about myself.

I am a visual person. A pen and paper, at-a-glance, if-it-is-not-beautiful-I-will-not-use-it kind of person. So I designed something. Problem solved and pivoted at the same time. I took a day to think tank what I actually needed. Made a list of everything in my head — every idea, every piece of content I enjoy creating, every piece I have a hard time doing, every project, everything I wished I could do. Then I rewrote the list from different angles. Categorized it. Assigned it to different parts of what I am trying to accomplish.

I was the CEO getting dirty with her team. The team being a team of one. Still counts.

It ended up looking like a bingo card. Circles to fill in when content was posted. Organized by category. Dressed in brand colors because the design matters as much as the execution and I am not apologizing for that. This is my tool. And a good brand element is a motivator for me.

It was my very own content tracker built with the same level of care and attention I bring to a photography portfolio.

For an audience of exactly one.

Me the CEO. Also me the scheduler. Still me the content creator. Me the intern who will need it later. Me the team meeting of one where we celebrate what we accomplished, assess what we liked, what worked, what needs tuning, and what we need to repeat and let die this time around.

Wearing every hat in the building. Including the ones I do not look good in. Including the ones I do not like wearing. Including the ones I am not quite ready to hire someone else for yet.

I looked at it when it was done and felt two things at exactly the same time.

Okay, let’s play bingo. And very overwhelmed by the size of the card.

It was a lot. It was also bingo.

Sometimes you fill the whole card. Sometimes you get one line across the board. Depends on what life is offering. There are different layers of success depending on what you can fill in. And it is a visual you can bring to the team meeting — even if the team is just you — to reflect on what worked and what did not.

My first thought was it would take a team to create all of this. And I felt the urge to call my team back. I have figured it out!

And something really cool happened right after that thought. The wise been-here-before CEO showed up and said — hold on. We need to test this first. We need to see how it performs. We need to understand what works with your message before we circle back around to hiring anyone. We need more information. We need to play bingo and see what the results are before we hire.

It clicked. This is what I keep forgetting when the pattern shows up. Because the real question was never why am I not doing enough. The real question was how do I stop feeling stuck even when I am working hard. And the answer was not another strategy. It was returning to what I actually know how to do.

I have been creating variations of fun productive workflows my whole career. Making play out of the process. Using design and structure to keep myself in the flow. In photography. In the bridal shows. In the Front Porch Project. I show up fully even when the audience is just me. That level of care is a habit I am damn proud of cultivating.

And instead of collapsing into shame and frustration I returned to myself. I yes-and’d my own document because it looked like a bingo card and I realized I needed to play the game. See what I could fill in. Challenge myself. Reflect on what was fun and what was not. The CEO felt the creative strategist’s struggles and led from the information instead of the anxiety.

“This curiosity and this bingo card led me to something I already knew but had not said out loud yet.”

I am not ready for a team in the way I keep imagining it. And this time that landed as awareness instead of criticism and judgment.

What does ready actually look like for me?

Not the version where hope has taken over a perception shift I needed and I am three steps ahead of my actual reality. The grounded version. The one where bringing someone in creates capacity instead of a new category of stress. The one where I am not handing off my unresolved relationship with social media and calling it delegation.

I have the smarts and the strategy. I know I do not enjoy it. I love working one on one and in groups and on stages. Not behind a computer figuring out post times and pushing content across multiple platforms just to be seen.

Everything that has ever worked in my career was because I genuinely enjoyed what I was doing. The Front Porch Project worked because I loved it completely. The photography works because thirty four years in I still feel it. The pattern of bringing in a team before I am ready keeps not working because I keep doing it from anxiety instead of alignment. From the fear of moving too slowly instead of the trust of moving in my actual direction.

I am not supposed to be scheduling. I am supposed to be creating. And somewhere between those two sentences is the whole answer to why this pattern keeps showing up.

This time around I am doing things a little differently. Not because it is the solution to my complicated relationship with social media. Because in order to find the solution I need to understand the problem better first. And not hand it to a team to deal with my issues for me.

Pattern recognition is the coolest thing.

I can see it now. The loop is visible in a way it was not the first time or the second time or honestly the third time either. I am not inside the confusion anymore. I am standing next to it with a cup of coffee going — oh yeah. I know exactly what this is.

The goal is not to eliminate the pattern.

I used to think it was. I used to think arriving meant never coming back here. But the goal is the information.

• What do I get each time I go around it.

• What expands.

• What evolves.

• What gets left behind.

• What gets created from it that could not have been created any other way.

I know which symptom shows up first now. The hope that feels so good you do not think to question it. The one I have been playing with instead of being played by.

Coming back to just me — the whole organizational chart, every hat, the scheduler and the CEO and the content creator all in one body — could have felt like failure. Because I honestly don’t want to be here.

But this time it felt like returning to something I actually know how to do. And do well.

The bingo card in brand colors helped. Because it brought back a sense of groundedness that had gone missing somewhere between the anxiety of feeding a machine I could not afford and the pressure of showing up across every platform just to be seen.

“It made something I do not completely enjoy feel like mine again.”

And impressing the CEO helped too. Even though the CEO is me.

This time the pattern had information in it instead of just pain.

I stayed in the question long enough to hear something new. And when awareness showed up I let it be useful instead of turning it into another reason to collapse.

That is what many times around will do for you.

“The pattern may come back around.
I am not pretending it won’t.”

But something is different now and I can feel it without the proof. The next time I bring someone in it won’t be from the same place. The reasoning will be different. The hope will have different perception.

It is genuine to feel the shift happen quietly. In a bingo card. In a brain dump. In a coaching session where someone held the list while I caught up to it.

Success is not always loud when it arrives. It just feels like finally knowing the difference between a hopeful decision and one grounded in hope.

So here I am without seeing the results and not collapsing into “not yet”.