When Ambition Meets Real Life If you had told me a year ago that I would become a gym regular, someone who actually plans her week around strength training, I would have laughed and gone back to convincing myself that walking the dog counted as exercise. And yet here I am, proudly calling myself a gym addict, with an ambitious goal of strength training five days a week and a far more realistic outcome of usually landing at four, which I genuinely feel proud of. I have always

Most parents don’t question their teen’s intelligence or effort. What confuses them is the disconnect they see in certain moments. Their child prepares, cares deeply, and puts in the work, yet when the moment arrives, something seems to slip. It might look like a blank mind during a test, sudden self-doubt before an interview, or a performance that doesn’t reflect what the teen is capable of. Parents are left wondering what happened, because on paper, nothing was missing. Wha

This time of year carries a quiet energy. There is a sense of turning the page, of wanting the next chapter to feel different. When I sit with students during these weeks, I hear variations of the same underlying hope. They want growth, clarity and they want to feel more capable in the year ahead. That is when I realized something important. We all want to improve, achieve meaningful things, and feel successful. Yet only some people follow through on those aspirations and sta

Every year around this time, I notice the same quiet tension settling into many households with high schoolers. It usually starts with a simple question that quickly snowballs into stress. How many service hours does my child need this year? In the race to stand out, teens often get stuck focusing on accumulating a specific number of service hours for high school. Parents start tracking spreadsheets, texting group chats, searching for last minute opportunities, and sometimes