Kait with her husnband, Ricky, holding her son, Sebastian on his shoulders standing in front of the ocean

There’s a quiet discomfort that comes when the version of you that once worked… doesn’t anymore.

When your training changes.
When your energy changes.
When your goals shift — not because you gave up, but because your life looks different now.

We’re often taught that consistency means staying the same.
But health, strength, and growth actually require adaptation.

Then vs. Now: Redefining Strength

Earlier in my career, I thought being strong meant optimization.

Reading the latest research daily.
Always being enrolled in a course or two.
Meticulously preparing for every client session, often at the expense of my weekends.
Training at maximum effort, maximum intensity.
Believing that if I wasn’t doing something nearly every day, it didn’t count.

At the time, that version of strength worked…until it didn’t.

Today, I define strength very differently.

Strength now looks like the ability to show up over and over.
Choosing one priority when there are many good options.
Valuing presence over over-preparation.
Working from systems that minimize decision fatigue and maximize meaningful results.

Not louder. Not harder. Smarter.

Listening vs. Forcing

My body has taught me…repeatedly…that pushing through isn’t the same as moving forward.

It’s a lesson I’m honestly still learning. Like many of you, I don’t have unlimited time, energy, or resources to respond perfectly to every signal my body sends. I can often keep going for a while with work-arounds.

But there’s always an eventual cost when we don’t listen.

For me, that cost has shown up as burnout.
Sometimes, as a nagging injury.
Most recently, as an autoimmune flare.

This past year has required me to navigate growing a business, caring for a young child, a chronic sleep debt, continuing to understand my neurodivergent brain, unpacking lifelong perfectionism, and redefining my relationship with athletics while healing postpartum.

What I’ve learned most is not how to do more, but how to pace my time and energy.
How to decide where priority truly belongs when everything feels important.
And which acts of self-care actually move the needle — not just check a box.

Identity Shifts

I no longer train to prove something.
I train to support the life I want to live.

As a recovering high achiever and perfectionist…shaped by a culture that rewards intensity, discipline, and grinding at any cost…I’ve had to consciously detach from identities that once felt essential to who I was.

Those mindsets worked… until they didn’t.

They helped me achieve a lot: academic success, elite programs, athletic milestones, high-level jobs.
They also came at a cost.

Kait with straight brownish reddish hair sitting in her college dorm room

My undergraduate years included a significant mental health decline that eventually required a medical leave and a lot of therapy. Since then, I’ve rebuilt…not by abandoning ambition, but by refining it.

Motherhood accelerated that evolution. When my resources shifted almost entirely to my child, I no longer had the energy to maintain the same masks or strategies. I had to relearn how to care for myself in a way that was values-driven and sustainable.

Professional Evolution: Embracing the Gray

The more I’ve learned clinically, the more I’ve respected how much context matters.

Stress. Sleep. Hormones. Season of life.

The rehab and fitness industries often love polarizing rules: this is good, that is bad. I’ve grown comfortable living in the gray, where individuality and context guide decisions.

Progress isn’t about perfection.
It’s about choosing what actually starts to move the needle.

Permission to Build Smarter

Evolving didn’t mean starting over.
It meant building smarter.

For me, that means clarity around priorities:

In business: being fully present in my 60-minute sessions with clients
In training: moving my body in ways that feel supportive
At home: time spent in genuine connection with my child

The “smarter” part is systems.

A training program written by another coach that I can pull up on my phone, no thinking required.
A weekly block of time to plan my schedule, self-care, and to-dos.
Thursday afternoons reserved for writing this blog and email.
One business growth goal per quarter, not ten at once.

It also means support:

Therapy every other week
Business coaching and simple weekly KPI tracking
A household rhythm where my husband cooks and does laundry and I plan the meals, get the groceries, and wash the dishes

This isn’t doing less because I can’t do more.
It’s doing what allows me to keep showing up sustainably.

If you’re in a season where your body, training, or priorities are changing, you’re not failing.

You’re evolving.

An Invitation to Reflect

If you’re noticing that something in your life doesn’t fit the way it used to, pause before labeling that as a problem.

Instead, consider it information.

You might ask yourself:

What has changed in my body, energy, or responsibilities over the past year?
What expectations am I still holding onto out of habit rather than alignment?
Where am I forcing something that might benefit from support, structure, or simplification?
If I defined strength for this season of my life, what would it look like?

Nothing here needs to be fixed all at once.
Sometimes evolution starts with awareness, noticing what no longer supports you and giving yourself permission to choose differently.

You don’t have to become someone new.
You’re allowed to adjust how you care for yourself so the version of you that exists right now can keep showing up.

That’s not failure.
That’s growth.

If You Want Support

If, as you’re reflecting, you realize that your body, training, or recovery needs a different kind of support in this season, you don’t have to figure that out alone.

My work is centered around helping people adapt, not force, their way forward. We look at the context of your life, your stress, your goals, and your capacity, and build an approach that supports sustainability, not just short-term wins.

If that sounds like the kind of support you’ve been missing, let’s chat about it in a complimentary consultation.

And if now isn’t the right time, let this be your reminder:

You’re allowed to change the way you care for yourself as your life evolves.