My intention was and still is to write this article about progress and how I learned to redefine my understanding of progress throughout my journey with ICC. Ironically, writing this article put me right back into the heart of the matter, and reminded me how deeply I am still on my learning journey.

In hindsight, I see now that this reflection mirrors how ICC understands progress; not as a fixed destination, but as something fluid and unfolding. A journey that evolves as we evolve.

You are reading this after weeks of procrastination, feeling stuck, multiple versions, and the decision to start all over again. I had anticipated sharing the essence of such transformative, embodied learning to be easier. This process of writing the article has taught me something valuable: having a profound revelation does not mean it is fully integrated. When I started this article, I thought I understood how much my past and education shaped the way I approach progress. And yet, I still feel uncertain about what this new definition of progress really looks like for me now. That struggle is at the heart of this article.

So, please keep in mind as you read: my message is still in progress, just as I am still in progress.

I am taking you along on my journey and you will pick the elements which feel right for you in the given moment when you are reading these lines.

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The first time I remember consciously confronting the notion of progress was in elementary school. I felt like I was suddenly assessed by so many people who hardly knew me, squeezed into a system which I struggled to find my place in. I appreciate now that I had a pragmatic mind and could be overwhelmed by abstract concepts which I could not directly translate into application. I remember the terrifying feeling of just not getting it, while everybody else seemed to. That’s when a deep belief started to develop that there is only one correct way, the way that the school or authority deemed as correct.

This belief shaped how I showed up. It led to a strong desire to prove my worth by fitting in, by avoiding mistakes as best as possible, and by not asking questions - convinced that asking questions would prove I wasn’t “getting it.” Every degree I have earned, every position I have had in the corporate world since seemed to support this belief.

However, these achievements have never fulfilled me, nor did they give me a sense of deeper purpose. They opened doors for me and gave me a perceived sense of freedom to have more choice of jobs, to move forward.  But how did I know how well I was doing?

I judged my progress by how much I could juggle at the same time without dropping a ball. I got such a sense of self-esteem from experiencing that I could handle everything at once, even during significant corporate hustle and bustle. I was working 40 hours, travelling regularly, and doing my MBA through distance learning—I was so eager to prove my worth, to prove I could handle it. This came at a cost though; my internal battery felt depleted on a regular basis. I was exhausted. I needed 12 hours of sleep to recover over the weekend (which was no longer possible once I had a child).

At work, I got used to tears welling up when I was exhausted and learned to suppress those emotions by pouring cold water over my wrist and repeating my mantra: I will never cry at work. But one day, in a workshop about empathy and emotions at work, I could not stop the tears. My usual ritual with water did not work. I just wanted to hide somewhere but I couldn’t, all other participants had seen me falling apart for no apparent reason. I was very fortunate that one of the coaches sat outside with me and helped me through this. After all my tears were cried, I was numb. In that moment, I felt like a shadow of myself, filled with shame. This situation wasn’t something I wanted, it just happened. This unintentional exposure of my vulnerability made me feel insecure. What would others think? Certainly, they would never see me with the same eyes anymore and they may have started to doubt if I could really manage effectively.

Despite this shock, I was still not ready to change my approach and challenge my beliefs. I thought it would be enough to just catch up on sleep and return to work as if nothing had happened. Now, looking back after years of distance and deep work on myself, I can see that I had lost myself in the need to prove that I was strong and therefore I could belong in corporate settings.

The game changer for me came when I was introduced to a method called ThinkWrong™, in which my natural energy level and my natural way of thinking were honoured. The process encouraged quantity of creative ideas before considering quality and feasibility. Breaking free of conventions gave me so much energy, I felt my natural flow again. I quickly got trained as facilitator and train-the-trainer in this method.

The experience of guiding colleagues through ThinkWrong™ workshops was my entry point into coaching and to the start of my journey with ICC.

During the final ICC Module, the Master Certification Module (MCM), I was invited to look at progress differently and to unlearn a definition of progress that I had held for almost 20 years. But it took nearly the entire program for me to truly embrace that invitation.

Up until that point, the most important measure of progress for me in my coach training was how well I was diligently ticking the boxes of the numerous tasks we had to do. I was judging my progress on how well I was juggling many tasks at once and successfully ticking boxes. But ICC’s approach was inviting something else: progress as presence, not productivity.

It was in this final module that I saw the deeper gift of self-awareness, and where finally it clicked.

Becoming a coach required me to deepen my understanding of myself, to see my patterns, including the parts I don’t always like about myself; perhaps especially those parts. One of those was how closely I tend to stick to external structure. The very thing that was so difficult for me when I started elementary school had become the thing I had learned to master. I see what is required of me and I follow through diligently. It was painful to realize this, as it didn’t quite fit with how I see myself, but I had to acknowledge it as a strong and learned behaviour, and one that helped me succeed for many years. And yet, deep down, I have always remained connected to the free spirit of my childhood. Too much diligent compliance with outside structures felt like it left little room for that free spirit. So I began learning to dance with this paradox of not liking my diligent side, while also honouring it. It brought me far and taught me skills which are very useful in our achievement-focused culture.

The project component of MCM challenged me: This project was totally up to me and it was mine along to create. I decided what it would be, I had to define the structure, to decide on the tasks I assigned myself to make it happen, and I was the only one holding myself accountable for completing these tasks.

Can you guess how I approached my project? At first, I approached it, without realizing it, as corporate project. I just followed what I had learned over so many years. The topic I chose resonated deeply with me, but the tasks I had set to make it happen were like proper project management: logical milestones, broken down into tasks which would lead to completion. I hated it, I felt resistance. It felt cold, distant, and overwhelming all at once.

Eventually, I dared to acknowledge my resistance and to ask myself why it was so strong, especially as this was a meaningful project for me. The overall process of looking closer at what was happening helped me to consciously see my automated patterns.

The freedom to give myself structure was disorienting and at the same time I felt constrained by the minimally defined structure for the project. I was stuck in a paradox of feeling overwhelmed by freedom and constrained by structure simultaneously. How could I long for structure and resent it at the same time?

In that stuckness, something opened and began to unfold. I wasn’t failing, and nobody ever suggested that I was failing—the “failure” was in my own head, driven by the engrained criteria of how progress should look like. There was a deeper, more subtle kind of progress that ICC’s philosophy was helping me begin to see.

I began to realize how hard it is for me, how much courage it takes me, to step out of a structure that someone else has defined for me and step into the big unknown of endless opportunities instead. In German we have a saying about the pain of choice: “Die Qual der Wahl.” I felt this pain alongside the conflicting inner voices, one pulling to trust my intuition and one insisting I follow the logical sequence of things. Or else I would not progress and I would fail.

My first new progress? Scrapping a lot of things I had on my rigid to-do list, which read almost like a project management fundamentals course. I then sat down and gave myself space.

My second new progress? Sitting in stillness. Feeling the panic that I would get bad marks because I was not moving forward, was not progressing. Or even worse, that I had not understood the assignment properly. My head was consumed with what others would think. And eventually, letting that panic pass.

Through the stillness, I was beginning to cultivate a New Way of approaching tasks which felt more connected to the free spirit of my childhood. This way of being was less reliant on checking on my to-do’s to make sure I was progressing and more interested in connecting with myself and others. That shift transformed my project - connecting with people became my way into my project and suddenly all the tasks became more fluid. They linked together nicely, danced with each other, and the puzzle pieces started fitting together.

And then, one day when playing with names for my coaching service and how I intended to step out into the world with what I have to offer, I involved people again and suddenly there was the name that felt just right: Connecting Waypoints. This became the centre piece of my puzzle. From here on, I had momentum. It felt like I was finally experiencing the kind of progress ICC had encouraged all along, one rooted in connection and authenticity.

By the end of MCM, the question of “Am I progressing” softened and expanded to what mattered more – to the question of how connected I was feeling to myself. I accepted the invitation to try and embody a new perspective. I accepted the need to sit with the pain of realizing that complying with systems had gotten me this far, and it had also closed down opportunities for connection and spontaneity, which are important to me.  In this safe space ICC created, I had the opportunity to connect to this new way of being and doing and through this my understanding of progress has become much more playful again. I can honour both my structure-loving side and my creative, intuitive self. I can relate to this new way of being with progress not as something that is ‘complete’, checked off, rather as something that continues to unfold. And I now understand this aligns deeply with the kind of progress ICC fosters: playful, personal, and profoundly human.

This transformative experience has given me the courage to show up in a more authentic way, especially in the workplace. And my journey is still beginning.

And you? How do you know when you are doing well? It may help to observe yourself and consider the following questions when you aren’t sure about how you are doing:

     • How much of your own internal assessment is shaped by the opinion of others?

     • Can you think of a few moments when you felt you were tapping into your natural flow and it all felt so much easier?

     • What are one or two small things that would support you tapping into the natural flow of how you work in the future?

Let these be your waypoints.