I never set out to build a movement. The only thing on my mind back then in my life was simply to survive what happened to me. When I attended networking and educational events, my only intention was personal development and growth.

What therapy and coaching couldn’t do

I’d spent years in therapy. It was helpful in many ways, but I often felt like I was explaining my feelings to my therapists instead of them genuinely understanding. It wasn’t that they weren’t trying to help me. They’d never lived my experiences, so they couldn’t know what it was like to be me.

Therapy helped me make sense of my past. It didn’t get me moving, though. I still had things I wanted to create, and I still wasn’t creating them. I was a big dreamer, but I was paralyzed at the thought of taking action and putting myself out there again.

So I looked for answers somewhere else. I attended as many seminars and personal-development events as I could. I hired coaches and took their courses. I learned what to do, and I made the plans they told me to make. Then I’d get close to pulling the trigger to launch, and I’d stop.

The therapists couldn’t help me build anything, because they weren’t business coaches. The business coaches couldn’t help me with the fear, because they weren’t therapists. I kept thinking the problem was me.

What was really going on

It took me a long time to see what was really going on. My past had convinced me that staying invisible was safer. At one point in my life, staying out of sight was what kept me safe. So every time I got close to being seen, fear stepped in and pulled me back. From the outside, it looked like procrastination and/or laziness. I always had something to justify my delay. I told myself I needed one more course before I was ready, or that my work wasn't 100% yet. Truthfully, it was my fear of doing the job it always did: protecting me.

If you keep signing up for one more course, or rewriting a plan that was already good enough, I want you to hear this. You are not lazy, and you are not broken. There’s a good chance fear is doing for you what it did for me. Once upon a time it was a good thing, but somewhere along the way, it became the thing keeping me from the life I wanted to live.

Finding women who understood

At those events, I noticed that the more I talked with women who could relate, the lighter I felt. The more women I met, the more they told me they were glad to have found someone who understood their story.

They knew exactly what they needed to do, but they couldn’t bring themselves to do it.

There’s something that only happens when you’re in the presence of someone who knows. Someone who's walked in your footsteps too. Someone who doesn’t need you to explain why you can have the whole plan written out and still not make the call. Or why you can’t simply “get over it”; whatever "it" is.

They just know.

And in that knowing, I felt safe. Safe enough to say out loud what I wanted for myself and my life, and safe enough to actually try the hard things.

So I started sharing more of my story at events and on social media. At first, it was terrifying. I worried I’d say too much or reveal too much. But the more honest I was, the more women reached out. They sent me messages or discreetly pulled me aside and said, “I thought it was just me”.

I wasn’t trying to build anything at the time. I was just trying to find my people.

I began writing about it, not as an expert, but as someone still figuring it out. I wrote about the hard days and the setbacks. I wrote about the days fear won. And I wrote about the good days when I did the hard thing anyway.

Women started reading, and then they started talking to each other. They formed friendships, and they cheered each other on when one of them finally did the thing she’d been putting off for years. They became a community.

This movement wasn’t born from a business plan; it was born from a need.

A need for women to be seen and understood by other women who truly get “it”. A need to feel safe enough to take the first step, even when everything in you says to stay hidden.

I didn’t create that need. I just gave it a name and a space to exist.

That’s how UNSCRIPTED came to be.

It didn’t start with a grand vision. It started with one woman who knew exactly what she needed to do but couldn’t bring herself to do it, so she searched for someone who understood.

Three things that helped me take the first step

Today, I keep sharing my story because I know I’m not the only woman who has lived, or is living, this way. Maybe you’ve been living it too. If you see yourself in my story, here are some easy wins to do something different...

Call it what it is. The next time you put something off, ask yourself what you’re afraid will happen if you do it. Write the answer down. A fear you’ve named is much easier to work with than a habit you’re ashamed of.

Say what you want out loud to one woman who has been there. You don’t have to tell everyone. Pick one woman who won’t need an explanation, and tell her what you’ve been wanting to do.

Take one small step while you’re still afraid. The fear doesn’t leave first. Choose something small you can do this week, like sending the email, the social media post, or sharing the first paragraph of your manuscript, and do it scared.

If you’re already doing the hard things, keep going. If you’re still working up the courage to start, you’re in the right place too.

I still feel the fear. Some days it still wins. But the fear that once protected me doesn’t have to lead me now, and it doesn’t have to lead you either.