Stop Sitting on the Sidelines: How to Start Participating in Your Own Life
I almost threw away my 2024 presidential ballot because it seemed as valuable as junk mail right next to it.
The first presidential election that I participated in was 2000: Bush vs. Gore. This was back when everybody had to vote in person, so I went to the local library to vote before work. I will never forget the pep in my step as I walked out of the voting booth, fueled by a sense of pride in being an American and participating in such an important event.
People have fought and died in wars for this right! I must not take it for granted!
Over the years, I have grown jaded by the left and right wings always undermining each other, the bureaucratic process, and a sense of what difference does it make?
I now consider myself apolitical.
Which is why the 2024 presidential election was the first election where I had zero desire to vote. My mail-in ballot sat on my counter for weeks. I almost threw it away at one point, but then I realized, without that piece of paper, I had no hope.
In my personal life, I have reached a point of zero hope. And I know firsthand how dangerous that place is. It felt like a massive black hole that was sucking me in, and I was powerless against it. I no longer had any hope or will to live because the future seemed pointless.
So now, I am always looking for a glimmer of hope, even if it’s a mail-in election ballot.
Recently, I was watching an interview with a former political figure. He encouraged American citizens to:
“Participate in the process” by being a “citizen, not a spectator.”
I wasn’t totally sure what this meant, but it resonated with me somehow, so I kept thinking about it. I thought about it on a global and national level, and I still couldn’t wrap my head around what it meant to participate and be a citizen in the current state of affairs.
That’s when I started taking a different approach.
What does this mean at a personal level?
I used to think that life happened to me and I was helpless against it.
When I would hear things like “life is happening for you,” I would roll my eyes and think it was total bullshit.
It wasn’t until I reached my emotional rock bottom and my friend told me, “It’s not your time,” that I had an epiphany.
I realized that I am here. And whether I knew my purpose or not, I was done living like I didn’t have one.
I also realized that how I had been living wasn’t working and that I wanted to live my life a different way. And I was the only one accountable for making those changes.
That was the moment that I started participating and being a citizen of my own life, instead of being a spectator.
And my entire identity changed:
I am genuinely happy and fulfilled, not because my life is perfect, but because I finally stopped waiting for it to be.
I no longer have chronic anxiety because I am unavailable to live my life for other people and things outside of myself. I am loyal to myself.
I intentionally chose to surround myself with loving and supportive people instead of people who passive-aggressively throw shade and tear me down because I thought that’s what I deserved.
I don’t overanalyze everything and ask all my friends before deciding because my self-trust is so fierce that I know I can handle whatever happens after I make a decision.
I don’t bypass my wounds with love and light. I face them head-on because I know the only way to heal is to face the darkest parts of myself.
I still don’t know what participating in the process means at a national level yet.
But I know this: most people are spectators and sitting on the sidelines of their own lives. They think about changing, but never do anything about it.
This looks like:
· Staying in the job you complain about every day but never applying anywhere else
· Consuming podcasts, books, and content nonstop, but not actually implementing anything
· Journaling about what you want your life to look like, but your actions look the same as last year
· Waiting for the “right time” to have the conversation, make the move, or go all in
· Waiting for more money before you invest in yourself
· Waiting to feel confident before making a decision
And then they wonder why nothing changes.
No. We’re not doing that anymore.
We participate, decide, and move.
Taking bold action doesn’t always look glamorous. It looks like this:
· Updating your resume and applying, even if you don’t feel fully qualified yet
· Taking one insight from what you learned on a podcast (or this post!) and implementing it that same day
· Making decisions that align with the life you want, even if your current reality hasn’t caught up yet
· Having the conversation now, not when it feels perfect, but when it matters
· Investing in yourself based on where you’re going, not where you currently are
· Deciding before you feel confident, and building confidence through action
Because the moment you stop waiting for life to change and start showing up for it instead, everything changes.
You get your power back the moment you decide to participate.
Glow Tip:
This is something simple you can start implementing in your day-to-day life.
The next time you catch yourself waiting: waiting to feel ready, waiting for the right time, waiting for more money, more confidence, or more certainty before you make a move…
Notice it before it passes.
Are you:
•Staying in something you’ve outgrown because leaving feels too uncertain?
•Consuming content, books, and podcasts without implementing anything?
•Journaling around your problem in a million circles while your actions look the same?
•Waiting to feel confident before deciding because you want to be certain of the outcome?
Before you scroll past this and go back to waiting, pause. And ask yourself one question:
Am I participating in my own life, or am I spectating it?
Then make one move. Not the perfect move. Not the fully planned, completely certain, right-time move. The one move that the woman you are becoming would actually make.
Because confidence is not built when everything feels certain. It is built in the exact moment you are not sure, and you decide anyway.
This is what it means to be a citizen of your own life instead of a spectator of it.
You don’t need to have it all figured out. You don’t need to feel ready. You simply need to trust yourself enough to take one step before the wave of doubt pulls you back under.
And when you start moving that way, waiting stops feeling like safety, and starts revealing itself for exactly what it is: fear.
That’s what it means to participate.
And that’s what it means to shine from the inside.
Make sure you’re sitting down because I’m about to glow-up your entire life.
Okay, I need you to stop scrolling because I created something that is going to change the trajectory of your life.
If you have built the life they told you to build, hit the milestones they told you to hit, and still lie awake at night with this relentless, inexplicable feeling that you are somehow living someone else’s life, and you cannot say that out loud to anyone because who complains about a good life? I see you. I was you. And what I am about to tell you is going to hit you somewhere so deep you are going to wonder why nobody said it sooner.
The Inner Glow Overflow is my brand-new 6-month private 1:1 coaching experience. And it is not like anything else out there. Because we are not just doing the identity work. We are not just doing the budgeting. We are doing both, at the same time, because your bank account and your identity are not separate problems, and it is time someone treated them that way.
We are talking:
✦ A practical budget and savings strategy that actually works for your real life, not a generic, boring spreadsheet
✦ Rewiring the money stories and inherited beliefs that are running your entire life (P.S. these stories are not the truth)
✦ The identity work that makes the external results actually stick instead of disappearing the moment things get hard
✦ Nervous system and embodiment practices so you can hold more money, more confidence, more abundance, instead of sabotaging it the moment it arrives
Because here is the truth nobody in the personal finance space wants to say out loud: you cannot out-earn a broke money mindset. And no amount of budgeting fixes a belief that you are not worth it.
This program bridges both. The practical and the energetic. The strategy and the identity. The plan and the woman who actually executes it.
I have poured everything into this: my finance degree, my corporate dropout story, my own rock bottom and the rebuild that followed, and every client breakthrough I have ever witnessed. All of it distilled into 6 months that I genuinely believe will be the most transformative of your life.
Spots will be very limited, and I want my people, the ones who have been here, who have been watching, who already feel it in their gut, to have first access before anyone else.
👉 Click here to get on the waitlist and be the first to know when doors open.
You have been waiting long enough. Let’s build the life that finally feels as good as it looks.
With Love & Fire,
Angie
https://www.innerglowbyangie.com/
Angie Hawkins is The Inner Glow Coach who helps successful on paper women expand their inner and outer wealth, so their life finally feels as good as it looks.
She works with women who’ve read Think and Grow Rich, keep booking Bali retreats, or affirm “I am abundant” in the mirror, but are still stuck between knowing information and making actual change.
Through her signature GLOW Method, combining identity work, practical money strategy, and real-time action, she helps them build fierce self-trust so they can confidently earn, handle, and grow their money, and finally make the bold moves they’ve been talking themselves out of.
She is the author of Running in Slippers, a raw and vulnerable memoir about finding resilience after emotional rock bottom.
Angie has moved from Chicago to Hawaii on her own, jumped out of a helicopter and into the ocean Navy SEAL-style, bungee jumped, skydived, and cliff jumped, yet is still terrified about allowing herself to be seen.
