Last month, I traveled more than I have in 2026 thus far.
A few long flights and a handful of different cities. I didn’t experience exhaustion that comes not from doing too much, but at times I felt a good depletion at the end of the day from being fully present for it all. And somehow, in the middle of it, in the boardrooms, client meetings, living rooms, and on long walks, the same conversation kept finding me.
First, it was a family member. Then another. Both had recently started therapy, or were thinking seriously about it. They asked me variations of the same quiet question, the kind people ask when they’re finally ready to be honest with themselves:
“Do you think I need to change?”
Then, a few weeks later, I was on a long walk with a CEO I’ve been working with for a while. He’s both brilliant and accomplished. The kind of person who has been in the work of personal development for years. And somewhere between the trees and the sky, they said something that stopped me in my tracks:
“I keep trying to change, to get better, and it feels exhausting.”
Viktor Frankl wrote:
“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”
It’s a powerful idea. But I want to offer you something that’s been sitting with me since those conversations from my trip in July.
What if the challenge isn’t to change ourselves?
What if it’s to understand ourselves, and from that understanding, we get to choose to relate differently?
There’s a version of personal development that operates on a quiet but persistent belief: that who you are right now is a problem to be solved. That the goal of all this reflection, all this work, is to become a different person. A better one. A fixed one.
And I understand why it feels that way. When we recognize a pattern that’s costing us, in our relationships, in how we lead, in how we move through the world, the instinct is to grab hold of it and get rid of it.
I know I felt it many times before: “ Why can’t I just change, just stop doing that, just be different?”
But what if that very instinct is what’s keeping us stuck?
What I’ve seen, time and time again with the brilliant individuals we work with and what I watched ripple through those conversations on my trip, is that the deeper shift doesn’t come from changing who we are.
It comes from understanding why we are the way we are.
And from that understanding, we stop being at war with ourselves. We start making different decisions. Not because we forced ourselves to, but because we genuinely see things differently now.
That’s not change. That’s clarity.
Think about a pattern you’ve been trying to “fix” about yourself. Maybe it’s how you respond to pressure, how you avoid a certain kind of conversation, or how you lead when things get hard.
Now ask yourself:
Do I fully understand why I do this?
Not the surface answer. The real one.
What has this pattern protected you from?
What has it cost you?
Where did it come from and why, at some point, did it make complete sense?
Because when you truly understand that, when you can hold it with curiosity instead of judgment, you don’t need to force yourself to change. You start responding differently because you’re seeing from a different place.
Understanding, acceptance, and then action is the real work.
Wayne Dyer wrote:
“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”
This is what I came home thinking about. And it’s what I want to leave with you this week.
Not: what do you need to change about yourself?
But: what do you not yet fully understand about yourself?
Sit with that one.
Here’s to understanding ourselves a little more this week and letting go of all that self-imposed pressure,
Carmen
CEO & Founder, The Amplified Life Company
If this resonated, I’d love to hear what it brought up for you. Leave a comment below or email me at carmen@carmenohling.com.
If you’re curious about working together, reach out directly or visit The Amplified Life Company website. We work with leaders and teams through 1-1 coaching, group workshops, and keynote speaking.