Tiny Revolutions №117: What three months of lighting fires taught me

a little bit every day over time 🔥

January delivered me a bootprint to the gut in the form of the flu, which descended right around the 20th, and then—rudely!!!—stuck around for a good 10 days or so. I hated it! I’m a huge baby about being sick. I do not enjoy being incapacitated. I was never fully knocked out—I just felt like garbage and didn’t have energy to do anything more active than flop about the house.

It was probably exactly what I needed. I didn’t slow down all that much over the holidays and I didn’t do any kind of year end retrospective, which I generally like to do. So this was the universe’s way of delivering me ample time to ponder the State of Things.

The good thing about pondering the State of Things while you are tired and cranky is that it removes the usual rose tinted lens from the process. That probably sounds bad, but I mean it in the best possible way. I had a year of some big swings, and I was able to get real with myself about how they’ve shaken out.

One of my big swings was in introducing The Fire Inside, my group coaching program for women, last fall. I’d been thinking about the program in one way or another for years, so this was huge.

I wrote about it here, but the gist is that it was a comprehensive program designed to help you discover what you want and go after it through the practice of conducting experiments, assessing how they went, and then using that data to determine how to move forward.

The thing I didn’t talk about was how The Fire Inside itself was an experiment for me. I wanted to see how I liked working with all women, how the facilitations I designed performed, and, most of all, what kinds of results the women in the program experienced. Well, the first cohort kicked off in November, and now I have three months of data. So I’m sharing what I’ve learned—not just about the program, but about what it really takes to move forward.

Here's the thing about change: we often make it way more complicated than it needs to be. I know I did. When I first designed The Fire Inside, I packed it full of content, training sessions, one-on-one calls—the works. I felt this pressure to deliver ALL THE THINGS, as if more structure and coaching would somehow guarantee transformation.

But you know what actually created the biggest shifts? The women in the group committing to the simple act of trying something new. Any time someone took even a tiny step forward—especially one that scared them a little—the energy would shift. Suddenly we weren't just talking about change; we were watching it happen in real time.

One woman found a part time job in a new industry after leaving a big corporate career. Another committed to working with a financial adviser to assess retirement options, a decision she’d been putting off for years. A third finally started blocking out time for yoga and her creative practice in the middle of a busy mom life.

These didn’t come from making giant leaps. They started with small experiments, little probes into possible futures. But they created momentum that no amount of analysis or planning could match.

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I also learned something about myself as a facilitator: I don't have to hold it all. In fact, the magic often happened when I got out of the way and let the group wisdom emerge. These women—thoughtful, competent, self-aware women who knew they couldn't go back to their old ways but weren't quite sure how to move forward—had so much to offer each other.

My job wasn't to micromanage their progress or have all the answers. It was to create a space where experimentation felt safe, where “failure” was just another form of data, and where small steps forward were noted and celebrated.

The conversations were rich, sometimes raw, often surprising. We talked about the fear of letting go of old identities, the challenge of putting ourselves first after years of pleasing and caring for others, the excitement and terror of following an inner calling that doesn't make sense on paper.

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What I find most fascinating is how the urgency of real-time experience amplifies everything. When we're all navigating change together—trying new things, stepping into uncertainty with as much grace as we can muster—it creates a special kind of momentum. There's something powerful about knowing we're not alone in our experiments.

That's the heart of what I've learned: transformation doesn't require complex frameworks or exhaustive analysis. It requires action, witness, and the courage to keep going even when we're not sure where it's leading.

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As I prepare for the next iteration of The Fire Inside (more on that soon), I'm letting these lessons guide me. The program is becoming simpler, more focused on action than analysis, more about creating momentum than perfect understanding.

Because isn’t that what Tiny Revolutions has always been about? A little bit every day over time. Small experiments that lead to big shifts. The courage to try something new, even if—especially if—we're not sure how it will turn out.

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A Tiny Invitation

Is there a small experiment that is calling to you today? Make it small enough that you’ll do it, but meaningful enough that you’ll do it. And then report back on what you find.

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Thanks for being here, as ever. If I leave you with nothing else, it’s this: the world may be on fire, but we do have options!! Please don’t lose faith.

😘

Sara

p.s. If this resonated, like this post or share it with someone who needs it.

p.p.s. Here’s some stuff from the old moodboard, which I am assembling over at Sublime.app. Do you use Sublime? It’s great!!