Your Next, Best Step

There is a chair on your porch that has been waiting for you all summer. You keep meaning to sit in it - right after the dishes, right after one more email. And somehow the season you most wanted to enjoy is slipping by while you wait to earn the rest. If you keep postponing joy until the work is finally finished, this gentle, summery episode is for you. The work is never all the way done, and the...

Let me tell you how you can make happy moments last longer... it costs you nothing. Join me for the latest episode of Your Next, Best Step where I share a way to be fully present with the people who matter most, and the one sentence that turns an ordinary moment into one you both get to keep. (Ep 113: “Celebrate Them While You Can” Ready for your next step? FREE 5-Minute Daily Reset (instant downl...

Your dad’s birthday. An ordinary Tuesday dinner. The friend on the other end of the phone. We almost never miss the big days, and somehow the regular ones, the ones that make up most of our life with the people we love, slip right past us while we are looking the other way. This week’s episode is a celebration: an invitation to savor the people still at your table this summer, before the season sc...

The party starts for everyone else the moment they walk in the door. For you, it started days ago. So what happens if you’re the one who is ALWAYS hosting? Join me for more in the latest episode where we get into the research that explains why the planning and the cleanup always seem to land on you, and the small change that makes the next gathering lighter.  Ep 112: "Red, White, and Worn Out...

You love the cookout. You really do. So why are you the one stacking plates while everyone else sinks into a lawn chair? If the planning and the cleanup always seem to land on you, this episode is for you. In Episode 112, you'll learn: See the hidden shape of hosting work — the part that starts days before and ends long after the last guest leaves  Meet the one woman in Scripture who would co...

At the next gathering, notice the audience in the back of your mind keeping score. Here is what the research says about that feeling, and why the real room is kinder than the one in your head.  Join us for the latest episode “The Freedom You Actually Need This Summer’ (Ep 111) where I share the one word in Galatians 5:1 that reframes the whole weekend, and the single thing worth setting down befor...

This weekend the whole country celebrates freedom, and a lot of us will spend it proving, pleasing, and performing through a backyard full of people, then wonder why a holiday about freedom leaves us feeling everything except free. If a day off has ever failed to feel like one, this episode is for you. You will understand why an open calendar and a long weekend do not deliver the freedom you are h...

Your phone is not the enemy of your summer — it is just very good at reaching you first. One small way to give the moment in front of you a fair shot.  Join me for the latest episode of Your Next, Best Step: “A Little More Wonder, a Little Less Wi-Fi” where we walk through one small daily practice that helps you notice more and scroll less, without adding one more thing to your to-do list. Ready f...

You will pass a hundred small wonders today, give or take. Most of them get intercepted somewhere between your eyes and your attention, usually by a screen about the size of your hand. This summer can be different. In this episode of Your Next, Best Step, you will discover why the ordinary moments of summer hold more than you think, how a fifteen-minute practice studied in people your age changed...

For years, I read 1 Thessalonians 5:17 that says, “pray continually” and felt slightly defeated by it. Continually? How? I cannot even continually remember where I put my keys. Here is what I have come to think it means. Join me for the newest episode on Your Next, Best Step (Ep 109): “Popcorn Prayers: When You Are Too Tired for a Quiet Time” where we walk through a simple 3-step popcorn prayer th...

Have you ever been so tired that even your quiet time felt loud? You love God. You want to pray. And then real life walks in wearing muddy shoes — and your “quiet time” becomes “Lord, help me not lose my mind” whispered in front of the fridge. Today, Coach Janet J names something almost too simple: that ten-second prayer counts. In this episode you will learn: Why short, scattered prayers may be t...

What if the number on your banking app has nothing to do with your worth? This short gives you a 60-second mental shift you can run anywhere. No spreadsheet. No budget app. Just three words on a small piece of paper, placed somewhere only you will see. Save this one for the next time you open the app and feel that little tug of “should have known better.” Ready for the full episode? It is called T...

The Christmas bill is still here. And it is June. If you have been making payments since the new year and the balance is moving slower than you hoped, you are in good company. Researchers describe what you are feeling as a loop, and the way out has almost nothing to do with the numbers. This episode is for the woman who thought this would be gone by now. The woman who feels a little tug of “should...

If you are caring for someone whose mind is slipping away from you, here is a gift that often goes undiscussed. To dive deeper, check out Episode 107 where Coach Janet will walk you through a Scripture that holds steady when memory does not and two researched frameworks that name what you are living through. "Loving Someone Who Does Not Remember You" Ready for your next step? FREE 5-Minu...

If you are loving someone whose mind is slipping away from you — a parent with dementia, a husband with Alzheimer's, a sibling or friend whose memory keeps shrinking — the grief you carry has a name. Most people will never name it for you. So we are doing it here. In this episode, I sit with one of the most under-discussed experiences in the sandwich generation: caregiver grief. The kind that...

Researchers studying what they call spiritual dryness have found something worth knowing, so if God feels silent right now, let me share a sentence to help you carry it if you're in that season. Then join me for the latest YNBS episode (106) where we walk through a small, repeatable practice that may bring you closer to God than another devotional plan ever could. "Has God Forgotten Me?...

There is a question many faithful women carry that they will not say out loud. It surfaces at two in the morning, in the carpool line, in the middle of the worship song everyone else seems to feel. Has God forgotten me? If you are still praying, still serving, still showing up — and God feels silent anyway — this episode is for you. Here is what you will walk away with: Why God's silence ofte...

“The sun may stay up late. That does not mean you have to.” Join me for a short prayer to make the longest day a little better as we lean into the reminder that that God made the day, the night, summer, winter, and the limits inside all of it. Feel free to check out the latest episode of Your Next, Best Step (105) for a gentle reminder for the woman who is running on backup battery this summer - &...

The longest day of the year sounds beautiful. So why are you running short on patience by 6:12 in the evening? If summer feels less like a season of joy and more like a season of slow depletion, you are in the right place. The science says it is not your character. It is heat, evening light, and modest sleep loss all chipping away at your emotional bandwidth at the same time. In this episode, I wi...

Holidays can be layered. Most of us carry gratitude and grief in the same family tree, and the night before can leave a heart feeling restless. Here is a small practice you can use tonight. I call it The Naming Practice. Three steps, about sixty seconds. Name the gift. Name the gap. Receive. It is a quiet way to hand the day to God before you sleep. Full (Ep 104) of Your Next, Best Step is live no...

Father's Day is coming, and the truth is, your father story may be more layered than a greeting card allows. Maybe your dad is wonderful and you cannot wait to call him. Maybe he is gone, and June makes the missing harder to ignore. Maybe your stepfather raised you, your grandfather was your safe place, or a man who was never family at all fathered you when no one else did. Maybe your story h...

When was the last time you were actually in the picture? Here's a quick reflection to help you jump in the next time someone says "Hey, get in here with us!" Then join me for the full episode - "The Summer Your Body Dreads" (Ep 103) - to dig deeper on why summer turns up the volume on body image, and one small shift you can make tomorrow morning before you even get dressed...

Summer sounds adorable in theory. Sandals, sunshine, long porch evenings. And then your actual body has to participate — sleeveless tops, shorts, family photos — and the dread starts climbing. If that feeling has shown up the way the temperature has, you are in good company. Researchers actually study this, and there is a kinder way through it than gritting your teeth until September. In this epis...

The summers we remember most from childhood almost never cost anything. A sprinkler. A porch. Reading in front of a fan. Nobody booked those memories. They happened because someone decided that simple was enough. Join for me for the full episode (#102): The Vacation You Cannot Afford And the One You Can Ready for your next step? FREE 5-Minute Daily Reset (instant download): YourNextBestStep.com  W...

By mid-June, your social media feed has become a slideshow of everyone else's vacations. Italy. Cruises. Beach houses. Matching linen outfits in front of mountains. Meanwhile, you are looking at the grocery total and the gas prices, wondering if your summer is somehow falling short. Here is the thing. The vacation you cannot afford is rarely the trip itself. It is something underneath the tri...