Time Bending: How a 5-Year Goal Turned Into a 9-Month Reality

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Welcome to the Unfolding Podcast, a space where we explore what

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it looks like to really trust yourself,

say no without guilt, and live your

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life like it actually belongs to you.

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I am Erica Voell.

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I'm a Decision Mentor and Inner-Trust

Guide, and I help women in midlife

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untangle from the life patterns of shape

shifting and keeping everyone else happy.

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Claim how they are uniquely

designed to make decisions and

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understand their unique strengths.

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Using human design as a lens, we clear the

noise of conditioning so their no feels

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powerful and their yes feels true, and

they can move forward without self doubt,

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guilt and pressure to prove anything.

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On this show, we have honest conversations

about self-trust, boundaries, energy

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and identity, especially for women

in midlife who are done living by the

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shoulds and second guessing themselves.

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If you've ever taken a personality test

and followed the recommended path and

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still can't shake that feeling that

you've been spending your whole life.

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Trying to fit in.

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When you really want it to

belong, you're in the right place.

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You'll hear stories, insights,

and tools rooted in human

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design, coaching, and real life.

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Not to tell you what to do, not like

another self-help book, but to help you

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really hear yourself so you can stop

overthinking and start making decisions

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that feel grounded, clear, and true.

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A friend who is a yoga teacher once

told me that we can't always be growing,

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just like we can't always be inhaling.

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We need to exhale too.

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And a few months later, I was

in a human design class and the

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teacher brought up how each of the

different types grow for generators.

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It's like stair steps.

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We grow and then we plateau, and then

we grow and we plateau, and then we get

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frustrated and we feel stagnant like

nothing is happening in that plateau.

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But what's really happening is that

momentum is building that feeling of

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frustration that nothing is happening.

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We need to manage our energy while we

wait for that next thing to respond to.

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Our brains need that rest, and the

plateau is actually needed for our

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next expansion, just like an exhale

after we take a gigantic inhale, and

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I want you to hold that image of the

inhale and the exhale, because I'm

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going to come back to it at the end.

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This last year has been a lot

and I want to tell you about it.

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Some of you know my story.

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Some of you know that I left my job

at the library about 10 months ago.

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Actually, it's been about 11 months ago.

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So let me go back and introduce you

to a few people who have played a

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really important role in this story.

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In 2024, in August, I met with a new

business coach, her name's Dallas.

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That was a conversation where she planted

a seed about collapsing my timeline.

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I was not ready to hear it

yet, and it actually shifted

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something for me that day.

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And then two months later, in October,

I started working with Heather Wick, who

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you heard about in my last episode about

business energetics, at first we were

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doing energy work together and I had no

idea that a few months later, she would

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introduce me to the concept of business

energetics and that it would completely

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change how I showed up in my business.

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Then in January, 2025, I started working

with a career coach named Nic, and it was,

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I was thinking I needed a bridge job, some

kind of interim role that would get me

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through the next few years until I could

make that leap into coaching full-time.

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And she asked me a question that

really stopped me in my tracks.

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It seems so simple.

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"Erica, what do you really want?"

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I have actually adopted some

of that visioning work with

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my own clients since then.

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What do you really want and how does

it feel to be in whatever you want?

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So I'm talking about time bending in

this episode and it just feels like, it

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feels cra it still feels crazy to me.

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So how did I take a five year goal?

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Turn it into a nine-month reality.

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Honestly, I still don't

know how this happened.

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I just know that there were a lot

of things that happened that brought

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things to fruition that I could not

have dreamed about two years ago.

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So let's go back to that

conversation with Dallas that I had.

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She asked me about my goals in

August of: 2024

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wanted to be a part-time coach with

a part-time job in three years.

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My five year goal was to leave full-time

employment altogether and be a full-time

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coach, and she challenged me that day.

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She said "what would it feel like

to get that three year goal of being

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a part-time coach in two years?

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I felt my throat close up.

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I felt my chest getting tight.

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And I felt this sinking feeling in

my stomach, and I said, I don't know.

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I don't know how I would do that.

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Because what happened is, is my mind got

involved and was like, oh my gosh, all

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these things, and I would have to do this

and this and this, and I would have to

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get this step done and that step done.

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I knew I needed to leave the

library sooner than three years, but

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leaving full-time employment felt

like a completely different thing.

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That was the goal that

felt five years away.

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But something happened that

day when she challenged me.

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Something that I could not consciously

do for myself because when I would

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think about leaving full-time

employment, I would think about

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all the steps I needed to take.

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I was looking at square nine when

I was still on square one, and she

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said, I'm just planting this seed.

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I want you to think about it.

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And then around that same time, we were

in the middle of this huge reorganization

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at the library, and I was moving from

a branch that I had worked at for

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four years to a pair of branches.

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That transition did not go well for me.

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I showed up every day

and I was deeply unhappy.

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They talk about presenteeism.

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That was me.

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I also felt symptoms

of burnout coming back.

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I felt like that every time

I was making some headway.

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I was also meeting some resistance.

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I would get a project that I, that helped

me feel needed, and it allowed me to

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dive deep into my love of spreadsheets

and logistics and coordination.

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But I kept finding myself trying so

hard to force myself to settle into

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this new role and this new place.

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But then as I was kept forcing it,

like some opportunities outside

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the library started to show up.

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I was invited to be part of a retreat that

was amazing, and I was so grateful because

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two of the women who I hosted it with

are now former clients and dear friends.

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And the longer I stayed at the

library, the more I knew I did not

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want to do library work anymore.

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It felt so misaligned and

it had for several years.

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I mean, I burned out in 2022 and

I was like, I was still there and

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I knew that I needed a change.

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And I didn't know what else I could

do outside of the library world.

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I didn't know how to take

my skills somewhere else.

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So my career coach suggested to doing

informational interviews to help me figure

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out how I could take those skills that

I had from computer science and library.

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The library world and how I could

translate them to something else.

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So I would do an informational

interview and I would just get

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this feeling that like I could

never go back to a corporate job.

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And then I started having

dreams of feeling trapped.

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My body was sending me these clear

messages and I was like, okay, I need

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to listen to this because if I am

feeling trapped in my dreams, then I'm

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going to feel trapped in another job.

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And then March 31st, 2025, I had a really

hard day at work and it was another day of

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me calling my husband during lunch after

a meeting, crying on the phone to him.

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And he came home that day and he

said to me, "I think it's time

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for you to leave the library."

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I in my body and my mind had known

it for a while, but I think I just

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needed him to be on board because

I didn't, we didn't have a plan.

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I needed to have a plan to make that exit.

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And then a week later, I met with

my career coach Nic, and she said

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something that I was not expecting.

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She told me that she was afraid that

if I found another job, I would just

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repeat the same patterns that I had been

repeating for years, that I would love the

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job I had for about 18 months, and then

I would be right back where I started.

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So I would be unhappy.

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It would be a misaligned, and I would

feel so depleted that I wouldn't be

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able to build my business on the side.

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And then two days after that.

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On April 10th, I met with Heather

Wick, the business energetics coach,

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and she asked me a hard question

that really made my stomach drop.

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She said, "Erica, what would it feel like

to leave and not have a backup plan?"

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And immediately my brain

went into all of the excuses.

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I can't do that.

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We have these bills to pay.

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We have this and this and this,

and we gotta send my kid to camp.

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And money was my biggest excuse.

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And she said, I want you

to sit with it for a while.

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And she did some energy work with me.

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And later that night, I started

to feel like I could have a

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conversation with my husband.

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Not just that it was time to

leave, but that I wanted to leave

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without something else lined up.

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I really wanted to focus all in

on my business, putting all of my

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energy there and being in it full

time, and he said something that

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I will absolutely never forget.

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He said, I trusted your intuition before

with an adoption and needing to move to a

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new house, and I have to trust it again.

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I know that you have done everything

you need to do and that you don't

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make decisions like this lightly.

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That just settled so much for

me, and I, I remember just crying

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because I was like, oh my gosh,

this is really, really happening.

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These were three conversations in 10 days.

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The day my husband said it was

time to leave the conversation

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with my coach, Nic, that I would

get stuck in the same patterns and

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that conversation with Heather.

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And everything changed everything.

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And the next day I went to work at

the library and I had two people

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ask me, what is different about you?

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Did you get a haircut?

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And maybe 'cause my hair is short,

but I just felt so much lighter.

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I felt like a whole

different person overnight.

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I felt like I could take one step

'cause I didn't need to know all

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the steps to get to square nine.

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I just needed to take the leap

between square one and square two.

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I did not give notice for four more weeks.

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But it gave me time to really

envision what I wanted, and it's

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helped me start to really embody the

new me and ask myself, who is 4K?

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Erica, what is she like

and what does she do?

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So who is $4K Erica?

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$4K.

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Erica is the one that is

making $4,000 a month.

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Which was my original monthly income

goal, but it was a number that it

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would replace my library salary.

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But one thing, when I thought about $4K

Erica, what I did not consider when I

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focused so tightly on that number was that

my happiness, my sense of contentment,

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my mental health and my nervous system

did not have a dollar value on them.

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I could not place a dollar value on them.

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Within a few days of making that decision,

I got a new client and a month later I

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got another new client and it turned out

that suddenly I had too many clients to

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keep working at the library, which was the

goal originally anyway, and it was great.

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So often we think we need to be certain,

we wanna know exactly how things

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will happen and what will happen.

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We think I will do that in five

years, which is a someday goal.

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And then we have all these other things

that we feel like we have to check

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off before we can make that goal.

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We feel like we need to have all

of our ducks in a row, but I can

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tell you I sometimes the ducks are

scattered all over the place and

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they can not be put into a row.

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And what if square nine isn't

even where you want to be?

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What if getting there just means that

you're following the same old patterns

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and doing what you think you should do?

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So what would it feel like for you to take

one of those five year goals and to make

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it happen in two years or even one year?

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I want you to notice like

what comes up for you.

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Do you feel like your chest tightening

and do you feel your stomach just

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like dropping out and sinking?

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Or does your mind jump in and

be like, you are freaking crazy.

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Who do you think you are?

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And then it tells you that anybody who

is responsible would not make that choice

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without having all their ducks in a row.

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I totally felt like that, and

I knew I had to do it anyway.

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And there are still days, honestly, that

I think I am crazy and that I think, oh

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my gosh, I should go get a part-time job.

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And then later that day, something

pops up to remind me of why

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I'm doing what I am doing.

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And I think about that yoga teacher friend

and what she said about the inhaling

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and the exhaling and those years at

the library burnout, the reorganization

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that just felt so chaotic, and the

feeling that I was going nowhere.

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That was actually my

plateau and my exhale.

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It felt eternally long and so

slow and completely uncomfortable.

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And leaving was my inhale.

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It was this huge inhale.

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So if you are on a plateau right

now and it feels like nothing is

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happening, I want you to hear this.

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There is momentum building

under the surface.

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You might not notice it yet.

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But your exhale is preparing

you for that next inhale.

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You do not need to know

what square nine looks like.

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You can vision it.

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You can say, this is what I want.

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But the biggest thing is you just need

to be willing to take one step from

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square one to square two, because you

might meet something that says, Hey,

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square nine over here is a lot better

than what you originally thought.

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So I feel like I need to celebrate.

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It's been one year since I made

this huge life changing decision,

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and it has not been easy.

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It's been one of the hardest things I

have done in my entire life except for

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being a parent to a now 12-year-old.

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But it's also been the absolutely most

fulfilling thing I have ever done.

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The most fulfilling work I have ever done.

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I wake up on Monday mornings and I am

excited to do the work that I get to do.

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I never thought that I would be

excited about Mondays, and there

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are some weekends where I'm just

like, I'm so excited for tomorrow.

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So I'm going to have three

little parties for myself.

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I've already had one of them.

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As I'm recording this on April 1st,

on March 31st, I celebrated the day

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that my husband and I agreed it was

time for me to leave the library.

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On April 10th, I'm going to be

celebrating that hard conversation

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with Heather and the even harder

one with my husband that same night.

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And April 14th,

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I'm celebrating the anniversary of

the first episode of this podcast.

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And the biggest one I'm gonna be

celebrating is May 23rd, which was my one

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year anniversary from the day I walked

out of that library for the very last

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time and ended my 19 plus year career.

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I thought I would be in that

career for the rest of my life.

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And when I couldn't get out of it and

I was feeling so stuck, I was like,

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I don't know what else I'm gonna do.

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So I want you to think about what is this

milestone that you have to celebrate?

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Is there a date that when you made a big

decision, or maybe something just clicked

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and you're like, oh, that was the day.

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Maybe you celebrate with a little

dance party, if you're a dancer.

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Maybe you take yourself out for a

cup of tea at your favorite cafe.

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Maybe it's lunch with a friend

you haven't seen for a while.

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Do something to market.

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You really deserve to

acknowledge how far you've come.

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I mean, we all keep wanting to grow

and grow and grow and sometimes we

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need to exhale because otherwise

we're just we, we can't explode.

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And I know it's been a really rough

winter for a lot of people and

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it's been a rocky start to this

spring, but I will be celebrating

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some things right along with you.

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There's gotta be something that you are

celebrating, even the tiniest thing.

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And if what I shared with you today

resonated, the patterns, the plateau,

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the moment of finally saying yes to

yourself, that's exactly what we look

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at together in the Life Patterns Review.

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It's a free one-on-one session where we

look at the patterns you've developed

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through all areas of your life.

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The ones you've developed to keep

the peace and developed because

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you were running on autopilot when

you were overgiving and saying yes

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when you really wanted to say no.

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Maybe you were trying to be the version of

you that makes everyone else comfortable

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and who you think you should be.

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In the life patterns we view,

we look at all of that together.

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We look at five areas of your

life and the roles that you

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have picked up along the way.

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The patterns you've repeated so often

that you actually might not even notice

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them anymore, and we start to untangle

what's actually yours and maybe what you

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inherited or picked up along the way.

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If this episode resonated with

you, I would be so grateful if

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you would click the plus sign to

subscribe and share it with a friend.

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Thanks for joining me.

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Be well.

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Okay.