272 | My Top 3 Tools for Working With Resistance

What if the reason your plans leave you exhausted has less to do with what you’re planning and more to do with who inside you is doing the planning?For ambitious, spiritually rooted women, the start of a new year can bring both excitement and dread. We want to grow, and parts of us also remember how much the last push cost us. But what if your most successful year and your well-being could be included in the same plan?Fifteen years ago, I had an experience during a program launch that changed the way I approach my work. At the time, I didn't fully understand what had happened. But looking back, I can see that it revealed something essential about the relationship between our inner lives and what we create in the world.In this episode, I'm sharing that story, along with a question I now consider before making any significant business plan. We'll explore what spiritual entrepreneurship really asks of us, why our most ambitious parts aren't always the best ones to put in charge, and what becomes possible when we approach planning in an entirely different way.I'll also share why I begin every plan somewhere that might surprise you, long before I look at revenue goals, calendars, or to-do lists.And if you'd like to experience this approach for yourself, I'll invite you to join me for Design Your Dream Business, my live virtual year-end retreat on December 3 and 4, where we'll create your 2027 plan in a way that honors all of you.

What if the reason you're not making the progress you want in bringing your work into the world isn't that you're doing too little, but that you're trying to do too many things that matter to you?For multi-passionate women, choosing one priority can feel like abandoning all the other possibilities we're excited about. But what if becoming more selective is precisely what allows our most important work to come into form?Inspired by two of my favorite business books, I'm exploring the art of choosing what deserves our deepest attention in a particular season of life.I'll share how a year of significant personal changes has reshaped my own priorities, why I've recently said no to opportunities I genuinely wanted to pursue, and how Internal Family Systems can help us distinguish between the wisdom of letting something go and the fear of staying with it.Plus, as we approach the end of 2026, I'll invite you to consider one question that could change the way you approach your business in 2027.RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:Subscribe to my newsletter, “Sara’s Sunday Journal.”Follow me on Instagram @saraavantstoverSubstack Essay: A Season for Living It, Not Just Writing About ItEssentialism by Greg McKeownThe One Thing by Gary Keller and Jay PapasanJoin the Design Your Dream Business in 2027 Retreat by November 18, 2026 and save 50%.SUBSCRIBE & REVIEWIf you loved this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts.Your support helps us reach more spiritually attuned women entrepreneurs who need these conversations.Thank you for tuning into the her Self podcast, and I’ll see you next week.

What if the clarity you've been searching for in your work isn't going to come from another strategy, another expert, or another round of trying to figure everything out?As women in business, our intuition is one of our greatest resources. Yet it's often the very thing we lose touch with when money, ambition, fear, and the expectations of others enter the picture.After more than twenty-five years of spiritual practice and running my own business, I've found that retreat is one of the most powerful ways to recover that connection.In this episode, I'm exploring why stepping away can lead to some of our most important business decisions, the overlooked intuitive wisdom of women's cycles and life transitions, and how to make retreat a regular part of the way you fulfill your calling.Because sometimes the answers we're working so hard to find only become clear when we stop looking for them.RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:Subscribe to my newsletter, “Sara’s Sunday Journal.”Follow me on Instagram @saraavantstoverSUBSCRIBE & REVIEWIf you loved this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts.Your support helps us reach more spiritually attuned women entrepreneurs who need these conversations.Thank you for tuning into the her Self podcast, and I’ll see you next week.

What if the resistance you feel around your most important work isn't something you need to overcome, but something you can learn to work with?After more than twenty years of writing books, creating programs, and running my own business, I've learned that resistance doesn't necessarily disappear with experience. But our relationship with it can change.In this episode, I'm sharing my three most effective tools for working with resistance, drawing on spiritual practice, Internal Family Systems, and the practical habits that have helped me bring my ideas into the world.Because the work you've been putting off may be the very work you're here to create.RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:You’ve done years of inner work, developed real expertise, and you know there’s more you’re here to create. Now you’re ready to stop carrying so much of your work as potential and learn how to bring it fully into the world.Open Channel is my free training for spiritually mature women who are ready to bring their spirituality, inner work, and business strategy together to build a clear, profitable business around the work they’re here to do.If you’re ready to trust yourself, choose a direction, and become more skillful at creating the clients, income, and impact you know your work is capable of, click here to join me.Subscribe to my newsletter, “Sara’s Sunday Journal.”Follow me on Instagram @saraavantstoverListen to episode 270: The First Place I Look When Something Feels Off in My BusinessSUBSCRIBE & REVIEWIf you loved this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts.Your support helps us reach more spiritually attuned women entrepreneurs who need these conversations.Thank you for tuning into the her Self podcast, and I’ll see you next week.

What if bringing your greatest work into the world requires you to become a beginner again, after spending years becoming an expert?In 2023, I made one of the biggest pivots of my career. What followed was far more challenging than I anticipated, and a conversation with one of my mentors changed how I understood what I was going through.In this episode, I share what the last three years have taught me about the apprenticeship of our life’s work, why we can’t think our way to a fully formed vision, and how creating our work changes us along the way.Because your best work may still be ahead of you, too.RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:You’ve done years of inner work, developed real expertise, and you know there’s more you’re here to create. Now you’re ready to stop carrying so much of your work as potential and learn how to bring it fully into the world.Open Channel is my free training for spiritually mature women who are ready to bring their spirituality, inner work, and business strategy together to build a clear, profitable business around the work they’re here to do.If you’re ready to trust yourself, choose a direction, and become more skillful at creating the clients, income, and impact you know your work is capable of, click here to join me.Subscribe to my newsletter, “Sara’s Sunday Journal.”Follow me on Instagram @saraavantstoverSubscribe to my Substack.Watch on YouTube.SUBSCRIBE & REVIEWIf you loved this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts.Your support helps us reach more spiritually attuned women entrepreneurs who need these conversations.Thank you for tuning into the her Self podcast, and I’ll see you next week.

What do you do when something in your business isn’t working and all the obvious places you know to look aren’t giving you the answer?I found myself thinking about this after a recent Friday morning when I skipped something I’ve been doing, in one form or another, for more than 25 years. And I could feel the difference. And it reminded me of something I see in my own work, and with the women I mentor, all the time.When we feel stuck in our businesses, we tend to look first at the most visible problem: the offer, the messaging, the marketing, the clients who aren’t coming, or the decision we can’t seem to make. But over the years, I’ve learned to look somewhere else first.In this episode, I share the three areas I pay attention to when something in a business isn’t working, why the one we’re most tempted to skip can affect everything that comes after it, and two experiences from my own creative life that changed the way I understand where our best work comes from.If you’ve been trying harder to solve a problem in your business and still can’t quite find your way through it, this may give you a different place to look.RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:You’ve done years of inner work, developed real expertise, and you know there’s more you’re here to create. Now you’re ready to stop carrying so much of your work as potential and learn how to bring it fully into the world.Open Channel is my free training for spiritually mature women who are ready to bring their spirituality, inner work, and business strategy together to build a clear, profitable business around the work they’re here to do.If you’re ready to trust yourself, choose a direction, and become more skillful at creating the clients, income, and impact you know your work is capable of, click here to join me.Subscribe to my newsletter, “Sara’s Sunday Journal.”Follow me on Instagram @saraavantstoverSubscribe to my Substack.Watch on YouTube.SUBSCRIBE & REVIEWIf you loved this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts.Your support helps us reach more spiritually attuned women entrepreneurs who need these conversations.Thank you for tuning into the her Self podcast, and I’ll see you next week.

What happens when you’ve spent years, or even decades, becoming excellent at your work, but your business hasn’t reached the same level of maturity?I’ve been thinking about this question a lot lately, especially after conversations with two highly trained clients who both believed the next step in bringing their life’s work into the world was another certification.It raised a distinction I think many accomplished women miss: being an expert at your work and being skilled at building a business around that work are two different forms of mastery.In this episode, I explore what it means to be a senior practitioner while still developing as a business owner, why we can so easily misdiagnose what we need to learn next, and what your current business results may actually be telling you about where your next apprenticeship lies.If the depth of your expertise has outpaced your ability to build a business around it, the question may no longer be how to become better at your work, but what you need to become better at next.RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:You’ve done years of inner work, developed real expertise, and you know there’s more you’re here to create. Now you’re ready to stop carrying so much of your work as potential and learn how to bring it fully into the world.Open Channel is my free training for spiritually mature women who are ready to bring their spirituality, inner work, and business strategy together to build a clear, profitable business around the work they’re here to do.If you’re ready to trust yourself, choose a direction, and become more skillful at creating the clients, income, and impact you know your work is capable of, click here to join me.Subscribe to my newsletter, “Sara’s Sunday Journal.”Follow me on Instagram @saraavantstoverSubscribe to my Substack.SUBSCRIBE & REVIEWIf you loved this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts.Your support helps us reach more spiritually attuned women entrepreneurs who need these conversations.Thank you for tuning into the her Self podcast, and I’ll see you next week.

What does it actually mean to lead your business from Self?In Internal Family Systems (IFS), Self is the grounded center within us that can lead with clarity, curiosity, compassion, and confidence, even when other parts of us are afraid, impatient, ambitious, disappointed, or unsure.In this episode, I explore five qualities of Self that I find especially powerful in entrepreneurship, along with how I’m working with them in my own business right now. I also look at something I’ve become increasingly interested in: how easily a part of us can appear to embody one of these qualities when something very different is happening underneath.Because business has a way of bringing our parts to the surface. Money, visibility, uncertainty, failure, success, and being seen can all activate something in us, sometimes without our even realizing it.So how do you know when you’re actually leading from Self, and when a part of you has taken the lead?RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:You’ve done years of inner work, developed real expertise, and you know there’s more you’re here to create. Now you’re ready to stop carrying so much of your work as potential and learn how to bring it fully into the world.Open Channel is my free training for spiritually mature women who are ready to bring their spirituality, inner work, and business strategy together so they can turn their depth into a clear, profitable business around the work they’re here to do.If you’re ready to trust yourself, choose a direction, and become more skillful at creating the clients, income, and impact you know your work is capable of, click here to join me.Subscribe to my newsletter, “Sara’s Sunday Journal.”Follow me on Instagram @saraavantstoverSubscribe to my Substack.Listen to episode #267: What Are You Compounding?SUBSCRIBE & REVIEWIf you loved this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts.Your support helps us reach more spiritually attuned women entrepreneurs who need these conversations.Thank you for tuning into the her Self podcast, and I’ll see you next week.

What if the things that will make the biggest difference in your life and business are the things that barely seem to matter today?As I get closer to 50, I’ve been thinking a lot about the small choices I made decades ago that I’m benefiting from now. I see it in my health, my spiritual practices, my relationship with money, and increasingly, in the way I build and lead my business.Compounding is easy to understand when we look at money. But the same principle is at work throughout our lives and businesses.If you’ve been wondering whether you need a new strategy, a new offer, a new direction, or simply a different relationship with what you’ve already built, I hope this episode helps you look at your business through a much longer lens.Because the question may not be whether things are compounding in your business. They already are. The more interesting question is what.RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:Subscribe to my newsletter, “Sara’s Sunday Journal.”Follow me on Instagram @saraavantstoverSubscribe to my Substack.SUBSCRIBE & REVIEWIf you loved this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts.Your support helps us reach more spiritually attuned women entrepreneurs who need these conversations.Thank you for tuning into the her Self podcast, and I’ll see you next week.

What if some of the things you’ve been avoiding in business are actually the things that could help you grow?Over the years, I’ve worked with hundreds of spiritual women entrepreneurs, and I’ve watched the same few patterns surface again and again. They often look sensible, even wise, on the surface. But underneath, they can make bringing your soul’s work into the world much harder than it needs to be.Together, we’ll explore:The business number I wish more women understood, and why getting it “right” may not mean what you think.A distinction around ambition that changed the way I think about sustainable success.Why investing in support is only the beginning, and what determines how much you actually receive from it.The pattern I see among highly trained women who readily invest in their expertise, but hesitate somewhere else.What professional athletes understand about sustainable performance that entrepreneurs can learn from.One simple practice I use to get far more value from the coaching rooms I invest in.These three mistakes may seem unrelated at first. But by the end of the episode, I think you’ll see how closely they’re connected, and why shifting even one of them can change your relationship with your business.If you want your business to become a greater source of freedom, stability, and support in your life, while giving your deepest work a structure through which it can thrive, this episode will give you a few things to consider.RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:Join my free training, Open Channel, for spiritually mature women in business.Subscribe to my newsletter, “Sara’s Sunday Journal.”Follow me on Instagram @saraavantstoverSubscribe to my Substack.SUBSCRIBE & REVIEWIf you loved this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts.Your support helps us reach more spiritually attuned women entrepreneurs who need these conversations.Thank you for tuning into the her Self podcast, and I’ll see you next week.