What story will your career tell six months from now?

Welcome to Fit to Lead! and Week 5 of What Now? 5 Weeks to Reclaim Your Professional Path. You’ve learned how to stand out, how to prepare with authenticity, how to uncover your strengths, and how to reconnect with purpose. Now comes the big step: designing what comes next with clarity, intention, and momentum.

Why This Matters

It’s easy to think skipping a step or delaying decisions merely postpones progress. The truth is more sobering: not designing your path is a decision to stay where you are. We often justify inertia—saying, “I’ll figure it out later”—but neuroscience tells us that taking intentional action actually rewires our motivation systems.

As neuroscientist Andrew Huberman explains, motivation isn’t a static trait—it’s created through action. Our brains produce dopamine that fuels drive when we initiate movement toward a goal—even if small or imperfect. The action produces the motivation. Huberman Lab

The Three Sequential Challenges

These aren't isolated issues—they are stages in a stuck pattern:

1. Lack of Integration

   • When your strengths, purpose, and goals aren’t woven together, you lack clarity. You’re moving, but toward what?

2. No Roadmap

   • Even with clarity, without a practical map, aspirations stay dreams. You need steps that bridge where you are to where you want to go.

3. No Growth Plan

   • Plans can stall without deliberate follow-through. If six months pass and you see no difference, growth hasn't happened—you’ve stayed the same. Static means stuck.

Without integration, you can’t map forward. Without a roadmap, you can’t grow. And without growth, ambition fades.

Try This Instead

Use these reflective actions to move forward:

1. Review Weeks 1–4. Take 15 minutes each day to revisit the core steps: stand out, prep well, discover strengths, and reconnect with purpose.

2. Create a simple roadmap. Choose a format that suits your style—sketch timelines, sticky note chains, a minimalist Trello board—visualize how you move from A (now) to C (aspired next step).

3. Activate growth through small action. Partner with a trusted colleague or mentor, and ask:
   “Looking back, what’s one thing you’d do differently in the last 6 months?”
   Reframe it as a growth indicator—not criticism—a path toward a better version of yourself.

My 3K in Open Waters

Personal Reflection

If you’ve been wondering what the journey looks like, let me share a glimpse: I’m someone who loves to swim—open-water races, to be precise. My most recent was a 3k swim in the beautiful waters of Conchal, Costa Rica. I didn’t just show up—I had a goal, a strategy, and a willingness to stay the course.

That’s leadership: A goal + a plan + action = evolution. What if your career could feel like that next swim: purposeful, intentional, and invigorating?

What will the next chapter of your career look like?

If anything in this series called to you—maybe the question of purpose, the trust in your superpowers, or the call to action—now is your moment.

If you’d like support designing your roadmap for clarity, growth, and impact, I’d love to work together. Visit www.coachjessicabonilla.com/services to explore how executive coaching can help you become the leader you're meant to be.

Imagine looking back six months from now and seeing how far you’ve come.