Yes, you can achieve your wildest creative dreams, going slow and resting often

I vividly remember the day I quit my presumed dream job in the not-for-profit sector. I had been working crazy hours, accepting long, gruelling hot commutes (for the charity and waitressing jobs in the events industry I took on top to actually pay bills), while finishing my part-time undergraduate degree in London. I felt underpaid (minimum wage), undervalued (no appreciation, ever), and so done with being texted at random hours over made-up urgency, micromanagement because of other people’s insecurities, not the quality of my work.

This season taught me a lot about resilience, building connections, visibility and comfort zones. And also how to override my needs for the sake of making a living. How to hustle myself into exhaustion.

And it taught me that a values-aligned mission, NGO work, and later a mental health startup don’t guarantee happiness. The wrong job, even with great impact, can make you really sick, on so many levels.

It took me years, most of my twenties and burning out while co-building a startup, to make the counterintuitive choice: full-time employment, with rest and my wildest creative dreams pursued alongside it - and not expected to pay my bills.

I left the portfolio career many millennial and Gen Z women desperately trying to build this year.

Yes, counterintuitive, but that’s what felt safest. The best step to meet my creative needs: writing, creating seasonal rhythms and companions for women in business and life transitions and mentoring/coaching again.

For a long time, I believed I wasn’t creative; that I had nothing to give. I thought I was simply not one of them, the gifted kids, the confident women, the entrepreneurs with potential. But I was simply too depleted; merely surviving, and hearing from all sides, I needed healing, fixing. Oh, how wrong we all were.

In fact, I don’t think anyone really is innately special. We put people on pedestals because they sound successful, look successful or pretend to be. In reality, they’re just people. No one is special, so you can stop trying to be perfectly ready, organised or thoughtful before you pursue your dreams.

Don’t have dreams, just a list of things you don’t want? I’ve been there.

You can, right now, NOW, choose to be a person with creative ideas that want to be expressed. You can, right now, search for tiny pockets in your busy, modern life and tend to them. Learn to understand the language of your ideas. And what makes great decisions in your life truly your own.

You can totally go all in, hustle, overthink, and ask everyone and anyone for advice. But is that really getting you closer to YOUR dreams or maybe just theirs if you copy them?

As every gardener knows, your wildest garden dreams are rarely fulfilled in one day. You need to watch where the light falls and where the naturally dry and moist places are. Where rain sits maybe a bit too long…

For a successful harvest, you need to not only understand your plants’ needs but also your environment. You can ask ChatGPT for the needs of a tomato, lavender and an apple tree.

But you cannot outsource season zero, trimester or ground zero, the observation time, the dream space. Your reflecting, visioning. Going slow. Resting often.

That dear friend. Is your own territory. And don’t let anyone convince you otherwise.

Like with gardening, we inherently know life is about trial and error. Pivoting works the same way. Any day you can choose to change your path. There are no rules for how to get to where you wish to be.

People will have plenty of feedback, though.

So how do you forge your own path - build your own garden of your most creative ideas - without diluting your own wisdom - all while blurring out what others say, think or do?

Women in 2026 feel the shifts. The need for pivots. Change, life transitions and big decisions, and no longer accepting the status quo.

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Where do decisions of any kind finally feel like floating downstream on an air mattress on a hot summer day? Fun, light, free!

I won’t pretend to have your answers. I can only speak from my own experience, nearly two decades of mentoring, and the women I’ve coached and consulted through their transitions. I believe you know what’s good for you - when you’re in a vital state, with a fed soul.

A companion for you to build vitality from the ground up, because no transition pivot or decision should be made on fallow fields, exhausted ground, or a depleted self.

I don’t believe in more knowledge as the answer. I believe in more inner, self-knowing.

Science says change takes roughly 66 days. So over 66 days, we’ll revitalise your garden: weed the beds, build structures, plant what wants to grow next. And because a blooming garden can be overwhelming too (every seedling competing for light), we’ll build steady rituals and rhythms to carry you with both feet on the ground. For no wind to blow you off your tracks. A companion to help you find the thread that can guide you through your next move.

Here, I’m a doula for your creative ideas. Big decisions and exciting life transitions. I’m not and will not pretend to be a teacher. Not a savour. I don’t have all the answers. I’m here to hold your hand if you so wish. It’s not a typical course full of tips and tricks, telling you you need fixing. You aren’t broken.

If you are curious about the Way home to yourself - a 66-day journey to make better decisions. You can find more info here.

The structure is finalised, and short audios and videos are coming over the next few weeks. We meet for the first live Q&A on September 6th. Join before then, and you're in the room (5$ off pre-launch until the end of July).

There’s no destination btw. Only a life full of opportunities, (and later, death. Sorry to be blunt (German), honest with you.)

For my wildest creative dreams to come true, stepping more into the doula for decisions role supporting women in transition to dream, create and birth what’s next, I need to put myself out there. Just as much as you need to listen to your ideas calling you, and putting yourself out there, too.

I still have a “safe” corporate job, clients and colleagues I enjoy working with. And still, I see the work before the work, the dreams before the dreams, as the most fundamental work of all, in every area of life and business. To see them, honour them, take action. To trust and let go, all at once.

And for that there’s no age limit, no perfect situation. Just a tiny tickle that makes us want to be brave and try.

While this feels somewhat vulnerable for me to share, to step up and invite you in, I’d really appreciate it if you could support to get my message out. Pass it on. Send it to a friend.

This is about reminding each other to listen to our wildest creative dreams and empowering us that we can do whatever we desire and find the right people to do it with. A modern village!

We can go slow, we can rest often and not fall behind. We don’t need to be isolated; we can find others on the same path.

Join me in doing the groundwork, riding the waves of summer excitement?

New here? I’m Carmen, Business Coach and Women’s Mentor. I write HOMEcoming from the Bavarian Alps, for women at life’s thresholds about seasonal self-leadership, transitions, and finding the red thread of your life. If you want the moment this piece grew out of, start with this recent post On Why I stopped calling life transitions “messy middle”. Access all my FREE resources and 1:1 offering here