I had a client a few years ago who came to me and told me she was very happy. Her life was going well. She and her husband were in a good place. She just felt uncomfortable in her house and couldn’t seem to get rid of things. Let me say this first. Most people don’t come to me and open with everything’s great. That’s not usually the first sentence, so it got my attention.
She wasn’t sure if she needed a coach or a decorator. We were on a discovery call, both of us trying to figure out the same thing, whether this was a fit. So I asked her what about the house made her feel like she needed a change.
“Nothing in particular,” she said. “It’s really well decorated. We have beautiful furniture. I keep it clean and neat. I just don’t feel comfortable and happy when I walk in the door. Maybe I should change the paint colors.”
So I asked when she’d last made a physical change. When did she last move the furniture, change the paint, move things around, take a load to be donated? Her answer was simple. “Probably once a month I take things I don’t use anymore from my husband’s closet, from the kids’ room. I move things around. But never the furniture. It’s big and heavy.”
That’s when we stopped talking about the house. I started asking her what she did. What she enjoyed. What her hobbies were, what her dreams were, what the next ten years looked like. At first she pushed back. She thought it had nothing to do with her furniture. But as she started to answer, I think she began to see why I was asking.
Her vision of her future had nothing to do with the life she was living in that home. Her kids had left. They lived in other states. She loved the beach but lived five hours from it. Her idea of a perfect day was walking on the sand at sunrise, that pink light coming up over the water. The stuck, stagnant feeling in her home had nothing to do with the paint. She’d outgrown that home. She was becoming a new person, freer of some responsibilities, wanting to enjoy her life, and she had a vision for it she was almost afraid to say out loud.
How do you know when your life no longer fits who you are becoming?
You usually know because something feels off and you can’t name why. The house is clean but it doesn’t feel like home. The calendar is full but none of it is yours. It all looks right on paper and it still doesn’t fit. That quiet discomfort usually isn’t a decorating problem or a scheduling problem. It’s a sign you’ve grown past the life you built. And part of you already knows it.
This shows up in different ways for different people. Sometimes it’s obvious, like a home that just doesn’t feel good anymore. Other times it’s quieter:
● You look at your week on the calendar and cringe. There’s nothing on it you actually want to do, and you don’t know why you’re doing any of it.
● You stand in front of a full closet with that familiar “I have no idea what to wear,” which so often comes from not knowing who you are or where you want to go.
● You feel a constant mental clutter that keeps you from even picturing who you’re ready to become.
Let’s go back to my client for a minute. Her decision to book that call didn’t happen one morning out of nowhere. This feeling in her home, about her life, and about herself had been building for a while. On an ordinary Monday, she’d wake up and not feel great. She’d come home on a regular day and just not feel the connection to the space she used to.
Sometimes these things seem to hit us like a lightning bolt. But far more often they’re slow and steady, and they wear us down. We get stuck, and we don’t know why. We get unhappy or unsatisfied, and again, we don’t know why.
Here’s what I’ve learned. When the discomfort finally gets your attention, the instinct is to fix the surface. Change the paint. Rearrange the furniture. Fill the calendar with something new. And none of it works for long, because the surface was never the problem. The real question is a bigger one, and it’s the one my client had been avoiding. Does this life still reflect the woman I’m becoming, or the woman I used to be?
That’s a tender question. Answering it honestly means admitting something has changed. The version of you who chose this house, this schedule, this way of spending a Tuesday, she was doing her best with what she knew back then. She isn’t wrong. She’s just not quite who you are anymore. And the life she built, as lovely as it is, was built for her. Not for the woman standing in it now.
My client didn’t need a decorator. She needed permission to say the thing out loud. She wanted mornings by the water. Once she let herself name it, the house made sense. It wasn’t a bad house. It was a house for a chapter that was ending. That discomfort she’d been feeling wasn’t something wrong with her. It was clarity, trying to get her attention.
What can you do when your life no longer reflects who you are becoming?
You don’t have to change everything at once. Start by testing the future you think you want. Then bring small reminders of it into the life you’re living now.
While we were working together, she didn’t move. But she started putting the wheels in motion to sell the house and get closer to the beach down the road. Her first step was much simpler. She began spending a week or two at the beach at a time, so she could test the lifestyle instead of just imagining it.
Back at home, she lightened and brightened her rooms and brought in things she actually loved. I told her to bring home seashells and use them as decor. We talked about swapping out some of the heavy still lifes for beach scenes and water.
None of these were huge changes. But they cracked open a little window to what could come next. Her home started reminding her of the future she was moving toward, instead of only the chapter she’d already lived.
So this week, if something feels off and you can’t name why, resist the urge to fix the surface first. Sit with the harder question instead. Does the life you’re living reflect the woman you’re becoming, or the one you used to be? You don’t have to have the answer today. You just have to be willing to ask it honestly.
Then look at one area. Your home, your calendar, your closet, your routines. And ask yourself: what’s one small change I could make so this reflects who I am now?
Talk to you next Monday.
Meryl
Part of the Monday with Meryl series.
