Before we dive in (quite literally!) today:​
If you're in-between (jobs, homes, lives) — or you sense a transition on the horizon — I’m running a short course on May 9: Liminal by Design: Navigating the in-between with intention and imagination. Details here.

I’m standing on a cliff overlooking the Russian River.
My friends are already in the water below, shouting up at me.
I’m the last one left to jump.

“Just jump!”
“It’s fun!”
“It’s not that steep!”

But the longer I stand there, the bigger the cliff grows.
The more terrifying the jump feels.

By the time I finally do it, I’m exhausted.
They’re exhausted.
(The cliff is probably exhausted, too. 🤣)

And the thing that could’ve been thrilling? Now it just feels like survival.

Here’s the thing:

It wasn’t the height of the cliff that made it so scary.
It was the waiting.
The standing still.
The trying to psych myself up for one giant, all-or-nothing leap.

This happens in life, too.

When you stand at the edge of something new—a job change, a creative project, a relationship—trying to make it happen in one leap often has the opposite of the intended effect.

Instead of feeling exhilarating, it feels big and scary.

And the world around you will often shout,
​"Just do it!"​
​"Take the leap!"​
​"Go all in!"

But I believe something different.

You don't have to jump.​
You don't have to terrify yourself into action.

You just have to move. One small step at a time.

Someone sent me one of those motivational quotes recently:
“Feel the fear and do it anyway.”

Honestly? I kind of hate those quotes.
They make it seem like new should feel terrifying.
But new doesn’t need to be terrifying.
It needs to stretch you.

And there’s a big difference between stretch and shut down.

Safe scary vs. scary scary

There’s a kind of fear that expands you—the good kind.
And then there’s the kind that constricts your breath and locks your body.
That’s the kind that makes movement almost impossible.

This is the work I do with people:
Not pushing big leaps—
But helping them scale the leap to something they can actually do.
Something that excites, not terrifies.

Here’s where we start. We look at their next step, and we ask:

Most people come to me at a 7 or 8.
But that’s not a jump. That’s a freeze.

So we dial it down.
We scale the experiment.
We find a version that feels like a 2 or a 3. Maybe a 4.

The goal?

Stretch, not scare.
Motion, not paralysis.

Because what matters isn’t how big the leap is.
It’s that you move.

Try this experiment of the week:

1. Pick something you’ve been hesitating on.
2. Write down the next step.
3. Ask yourself: Where does this land in my body, from 0–10?
4. If it’s more than a 5…
   → Shrink the experiment until you can actually take the leap.

Momentum doesn’t come from standing at the edge.
It comes the moment your feet leave the ground.

P.S. If you’re ready to move forward without the panic leap (and design your own experiment), I’d love to see you at Liminal by Design on May 9. I'm so excited about this newly refined experience! You can learn more and join here.

To a weekend of non-scary scary things,
Amy