Lessons from my 37th Birthday

I just completed my 37th revolution around the sun. Every birthday, I reflect on the past year and future. I journal about my transformations, hard lessons, and next year’s manifestations.

In my 36th birthday entry, I wrote, “By my 37th birthday, I will laugh at how far I’ve come on communicating my needs, delegating, and boundaries,” and I did laugh. I laughed at how boundaries are second nature now. And I laughed at how much I still suck at delegating.

In the past year, I've transformed from a dissociated mother struggling with a toddler and newborn into someone who can set boundaries and express her needs. Now I'm so attuned to my needs that I respond like a driver feeling those bumpy lane markers on the highway—the smallest bumps in my system alert me when I've drifted off course and I come back to center. It wasn't a quick change, but an active practice.

I listened to the first half of the audiobook, Set Boundaries, Find Peace, before my library loan expired. One of my main takeaways is how often people who can’t set boundaries resort to big ultimatum boundaries like cutting people out. This felt like my experience with previous jobs. I’ve never had a job longer than 2ish years. My inability to set boundaries at work led to burning out quickly and quitting as the ultimate boundary.

The thing is that I struggled to even know when to set a boundary. I am genuinely enthusiastic about so many things - social invites, work projects, helping people - so it doesn’t occur to me to say no or set a boundary. My coach gave me some excellent advice, that if I feel resentment then a boundary has been crossed. I started journaling post-mortem about situations when I felt resentment, noticing patterns, and defining principles to help me course correct in the future.

Last year, I had made the decision to shut down my grad school application advising work after three years. I was my busiest and most stressed during the holiday season and it created a lot of tension with my family. But I realized that I was giving myself a black and white option of continuing what I was doing or quitting.

But I do love working with students. I love coaching them and seeing their transformation in my course. What I hated was the backend admin, marketing the course, and doing 1-on-1 calls.

Instead of quitting, I tried an experiment: what if I just remove all the parts of the program I don’t like? I decided my metric of success wouldn’t be revenue but how easy on me I could make the program.

I stopped making YouTube videos (actually, I had not made a YouTube video since before Delia was born, but I stopped guilting myself about it). I eliminated my most profitable offering—one-on-one coaching calls—keeping only group coaching. I felt scared shitless hiring my team of contractors before my program started not knowing if I would make enough money to pay them. Instead of filling my calendar with sales calls, the week prior to launch, I went on a vacation.

But I chose trust over hustle. I meditated and did my morning pages daily to keep me trusting in the universe that the right people would find my course.

By honoring my boundaries and cutting what drained me, I freed up energy for what I loved most: group coaching calls navigating the application journey in community. Am I an actually sorceress? Somehow making things easier on myself doubled my income from the previous year! And my students thrived—landing spots (many with full scholarships) at Stanford, Harvard, MIT, Carnegie Mellon, UPenn, Berkeley and beyond. The less I pushed, the more we all flourished, not just my students but my family. We went on three trips during my program and I didn’t do any work on the weekends or evenings!

Rather than quitting, I'm channeling wisdom from 500+ students into my next chapter: writing a book.

It was this process of centering my needs that shifted my understanding of boundaries. I used to think of boundaries as a wall you put up to keep others out. Now I see boundaries as a fence that I use to keep my desires from escaping.

Boundaries don’t have to be these harsh conflicts, but start with simple acts—blocking time for exercise, writing, and friends and sticking to it. I’ve also learned that boundaries aren’t just about saying no (which I still hate) but about clarifying expectations and checking assumptions. Simply stating what I expect to happen and asking clarifying questions of what people want: being upfront about time limits, communicating needs to my husband about the house and kids, or letting friends know when I can only chat briefly.

This process of putting my needs first filled my cup. My love for myself is spilling all over my husband, kids, and what my friend Ben refers to as “Lauren’s stokage in everyone.”

As I closed my birthday reflection, I sat in tearful awe of my year's metamorphosis—as a mother, in my health, and in my relationships.

Here is what I am manifesting for my next trip around the sun.

I have an abundance of creative energy pulsing through me, seeking form. But I am struggling to channel that energy and carve out space for my art. I am ready to move through the fear. I want to take responsibility for my creative process like its my job.

By the time I read this on my 38th birthday, my book will be in the world reaching thousands of students globally. I will own my identity as a writer and an artist, creating as fluidly as my emotions move—no more excuses, no more hiding.