How Do You Girl Boss AND Touch Grass?
Oct 14, 2026
The fall is my favorite time of year. It's my birthday, wedding anniversary, and the best weather of the year. I love being able to break out a sweater and open every single window in the house.
This time of year also feels like a fresh start. Maybe it's back-to-school in September or the new seasonal colors and temps, but I always feel the urge to strategize plans for the end of the year and get down to business. But that urge to get work done feels at odds with my desire to get outside.
So, I begin to wonder, how do you girl boss AND touch grass?
After 9 years of leading Generous Change, a company that gives higher education fundraisers the tools, inspiration, and advice to raise more money, I'm still struggling with work-life balance.
But here’s what I do know:
My work is better when I'm having more fun.
This might seem obvious, but I can fall back into patterns of work that feel punishing. If you grew up striving for A's and higher test scores, chances are you're still striving for exceptional performance reviews, the next promotion, and the next rung on the career ladder. This is NOT wrong, but it's led me to exhaustion, bouncing from task to task, and that nagging feeling I'm just going through the motions without knowing why or if it even matters.
For me, the antidote to overworking is planning fun. Better yet intentionally planning empty days where there’s space for fun to happen. This weekend, we camped with friends in our yard. I woke up in a tent on my lawn, and it was glorious. But it never would have happened if I'd over planned.
Creativity rarely happens at my desk.
Genuinely good and new ideas hardly ever come when I'm churning through day-to-day tasks. Long walks and hikes, floats on the river, road trips, and conversations with great friends are my best grounds for creative thoughts. And this kind of interpersonal, relational, human work takes a ton of creativity. If you're not inspired, it's nearly impossible to inspire other people.
I've found a walking route in my neighborhood that passes horses, goats, sheep, prairie dogs, and has a mountain view. Every time I walk this route, I feel more grounded, open, and whole. Creativity doesn't have to mean being a great artist. Sometimes it's just a feeling of connectedness and smallness.
What if we could have more designated space for creativity and connection?
I need to consistently reconnect to what I really want.
I get distracted by shoulds more than I'd like to admit. I should be working harder, eating better, lifting more weights, taking better care of my skin, calling family, cleaning more often, staying on a budget, learning AI ... gah! There's more information, pressure, and comparison in our lives than ever.
When I make time to ask myself intentional questions, I start doing what matters to me.
Here are four questions to reconnect with what matters to you:
- What do I really want? Why?
- What's one thing I could do tomorrow to get closer to it?
- What's one thing I could stop doing to get closer to it?
- Who is one person who could help?
This really struck me when I cried my way through Folktales, a Netflix documentary about students in Norway taking a gap year. The teens were worried about what other people think, obsessed with their phones, and unsure what they wanted in life. After a year of dog sledding, camping, and connecting with nature, they were deeply changed. It's hard not to want your own gap year!
What would you do with more time and space to reconnect to what you really want?
That’s one of the questions we’re creating space to explore at UPLIFT 2027 — two days for women in Advancement to step outside the day-to-day, reconnect with what matters, and think more intentionally about what comes next.
If that sounds like the kind of space you need, you can learn more about UPLIFT here.
