Project You 2.2 is your go-to podcast for navigating life transitions with clarity, confidence, and purpose. Hosted by Carrie Helmer, a retired teacher and health coach. Each episode dives into practical strategies for mindset shifts, personal growth, and actionable steps to create the life you want. From transforming your health and fitness to mastering your emotions and setting bold goals, Project You 2.2 shows you how to connect with yourself, rewire your subconscious, and take intentional steps to level up. Tune in to find inspiration and motivation as you put yourself first and glow up.
Part 5...In this 5-part series of Project You 2.2, we explore why so many people feel stuck, overwhelmed, and inconsistent—even when they’re trying their hardest to change.
Through real-life stories, mindset shifts, and simple behavior changes, Carrie Helmer breaks down the hidden patterns behind burnout, self-sabotage, and starting over again and again.
You’ll learn how your environment, habits, identity, and calendar are all quietly shaping your life—and what to do instead.
This isn’t about doing more.
It’s about seeing differently.
And once you see it… you can’t unsee it.
www.projectyou22.org or email carrie@projectyou22.org
SPEAKER_00
My friends, welcome back to Project U 2.2. If you've been listening through this series, congrats on making it through the whole week, and thank you for staying with me. I'm Carrie Helmer, a life coach, a former teacher of 31 years, and a mom to three amazing young men. This week we've looked at why trying harder keeps us stuck, why your environment, calendar, and habits are shaping your identity, why motivation doesn't last, but changing and shifting that identity does. And today we're going to look at how to create lasting change. And it's probably not what you think. This isn't about creating a perfect life or becoming perfect, but becoming aware and then watching how free you feel and getting your spark back and feeling like you again. You care, you probably care a lot, but some parts of you have tried to pretend that you don't care and that things are just fine. That this is just the way your life has become. Your life has slowly become full in ways that you didn't notice, it just happened, and your life became full of pressure, full of responsibility with new roles you continue to add, full of patterns that used to make sense, but they don't feel aligned anymore. And when life gets that full, you do not need a motivational speech from anyone. You need space, space in your habits, space in your home, space in your environment, maybe in your body, space in your identity and in your mind. Because when that space is there, that's when you have time for clarity and you can see it, and clarity shows up. And when that clarity shows up, you can start to see your life differently. This isn't something that we can wave a magic wand for and make it happen all at once, unfortunately. But by being intentional in a way that actually sticks, we can see this change happen in our lives. And I have seen this over and over again in myself and in people I work with, adults who come in feeling overwhelmed and stuck and frustrated with their lives, with their daily routines and with themselves, sometimes even disappointed in how far they have drifted from the life they thought they would be living. And then I work with teens who feel unsure of themselves. Maybe they're just quiet in rooms where they want to speak up, but they're afraid to step outside their comfort zone, even though there's so much more inside of them waiting to come out, and as parents, as adults, we see that potential. And what's interesting is that all of this rarely starts with fixing everything, but it starts with awareness, then one shift, and then another, and then slowly confidence starts to build again. Clarity comes back, and behavior starts to match who they're becoming instead of who they've been stuck believing they are. Here's what I want you to hear. I don't believe people need to be fixed. I believe that we all start at the 1.0 version of ourselves, and we have to keep pushing to upgrade to the next level, to the 2.2 version of ourselves, just like technology advances. I think people need support seeing what they can't see when they're in it. Because when you're in your own life, it's hard to step outside of it and understand what's actually happening. That's where coaching comes in. And coaching isn't therapy, it's more about goals and pushing than it is looking back at your past. And coaching is not advice because everyone has opinions and advice for us, but it is movement, it is forward movement, awareness, accountability, having someone walk with you while you rebuild trust in yourself again. And it's important for you to know that I don't take everyone who reaches out to me, and not because people aren't worthy of support, we all are, but I take my work very seriously, and I used to pour into thousands of students, and now I get to be selective, and I think it is so important to be selective. I work with clients, teens, and adults when I'm confident that I can actually help them move forward because I don't want to waste your time and I don't want to waste mine. And the right coaching relationship is so important. It matters. It should feel aligned for both of us. It should feel safe and it should feel like, yes, this is the person who can walk with me through this. For teens, I help build confidence, not surface level confidence, but real confidence. The kind that comes from stepping outside of comfort zones and pushing and speaking up and trying things even when they feel unsure and learning how capable they actually are. For adults, I help with weight loss, confidence, life direction. This can come through internal thoughts, your home environment, leveling up your career, improving a relationship. It's it's about creating sustainable habits, clearing that mental and emotional clutter, and building a life that actually feels so good to live in again and not just one that looks good on the outside. My coaching style is emotional and story-driven, just like my teaching career was, because that's how we can act as humans. It's also grounded in structure. We will look at patterns, we'll look at your behavior, we'll look at what's happening in real life. And there's layers of mindset, awareness, and deeper stuff too, because I believe we're more than just those habits and routines. We are our identity, we are energy, we are patterns that we absolutely can change when we become aware of them. And here's what I've seen over and over again: people come in feeling overwhelmed, feeling stuck, frustrated with themselves, sometimes even disconnected from who they used to be or who they want to be. And what they leave with is clarity, confidence, momentum, and behaviors that sustain them long after that initial change. They start feeling like themselves again, sometimes for the first time in a long time. So if you've been listening to this series and something in you has been saying, hmm, this sounds like me, please don't ignore it. Not everything has to be figured out alone, and you don't have to keep doing this the hard way, and you do deserve it. If you feel ready to talk about what this could look like for you, please go to www.projectu22.org. Email me, Carrie at ProjectU22.org, and set up a call with me. We can talk honestly about where you are, what's going on, and whether this is a right fit for both of us. There will be no pressure, no forcing anything, just a real conversation because the right support does not push you. It meets you where you are, it helps you move forward from there. I hope you have a great day, and I will see you in the next episode.
