Your Next Big Leap Won’t Come from Effort — It’ll Come From Coherence.
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The next level of growth, clarity, and fulfillment won’t come from more effort, hustle, or strategic complexity — it'l come from coherence.
Being internally coherent means that your thoughts, beliefs, values, and actions align and make sense together, creating a unified and consistent sense of self. It's about having a clear, logical, and integrated inner world.
In this post, we’ll explore how your biggest breakthrough may depend not on what you’re doing, but on how aligned your thoughts, emotions, and actions are.
When those elements move together, your energy becomes clear.
The world starts to respond differently to you, and your results accelerate.
We’ve all been there. Caught up in the franticness of the day, constant demands, being on high alert dawn til dusk.
You show up to your desk already behind, with an energy and inner state that mirrors that reality.
You’ve got slack pings, a full inbox, and a calendar that barely leaves space to think.
You’re achieving, but feel disconnected.
You’re functioning, perhaps even at a high level, but it’s costing something inside.
There’s that nagging voice in the back of your mind.. Letting you know that how your moving and how your being isn't sustainable.
Most people chasing the next big leap in life — a breakthrough in their business, a long sought career advancement, or a deeper sense of peace — are looking in the wrong place.
They double down on effort.
Tighten their systems.
Push harder, move faster, stay busy.
And even then… they still feel behind, disconnected, or stuck.
I know this because I’ve lived it.
There was a stretch in my entrepreneurial life where I was doing everything “right.”
I was showing up fully, paying meticulous attention to detail, stretching myself, hitting the performance metrics I’d set.
But I was also tense. Judgmental. Drowning in self-reinforced pressure to prove I was enough — every single day.
What I didn’t understand then was that I had trapped myself in a smaller version of my life — not because of workload, but because of the way I was operating, the signal I was broadcasting, the lens I was looking at the world through.
I was chasing progress from a place of negative pressure.
I was working from a do or die mentality, while sacrificing the present moment that made it possible.
I had forgotten this simple truth: it’s not just what you do, it’s the state you’re in when you do it.
My focus was on doing, and what it could get me. Not on who I was being.
I spent three months in a pattern of overwork, recounting in my head the things I did or did not do all day.
I let those things dictate my self-esteem and worth, and I was getting crushed under the weight.
I knew I had to do something different.
This wasn’t the first time in my life that this pattern had emerged.
I decided rather than attempt to continue to normalize it, I would take a step back. Take space.
A shift began to happen for me.
Not from a new strategy, but from a walk in the woods, listening to teachings on the nervous system, quantum manifestation, and presence.
I remembered that the vision I’ve held for years — a life of impact, learning, health, creativity, and meaningful work — doesn’t live in some distant future.
It lives in how I live today.
It originates from within.
In the alignment of my thoughts, emotions, and actions.
In the coherence of my being.
That’s what this post is about.
Because your next big leap?
It’s not on the other side of more effort.
It’s on the other side of coherence.
The Real Leap Is Energetic
Your next level in your career or in your business isn’t about force. It’s about frequency.
Most people chase transformation through action — but the real shift is energetic.
Your level of effort is often equated with your level of achievement. But effort is only a part of the achievement equation.
You can be incredibly committed and still feel stuck.
Have you ever worked so many long days in a row, staring at your computer screen long after daylight has passed, eyeballs dry, that it starts to become your new normal?
You are working to stay atop of what you have to get done that a shift occurs.
The doing becomes your whole life.
This isn’t a knock on hard work, and grinding to get what you want in life. It’s an acknowledgment of a truth I’ve failed countless times to admit to myself.
Your effort is capped. There’s only so many hours in a day.
You’re a human being, not a machine.
100% up time is not only impossible, it’s detrimental to the pursuit of meaning and fulfillment in life.
The job is not to push harder, it is to become clearer.
In a sense, this idea of coherence over effort is contradictory to what I help with and coach on.
I help lower stress and overcome overwhelm to get more done.
I help put systems in place that streamline work.
I help maximize time, schedules, and focus.
I help with organization, productivity, and being consistent.
But that’s not why I do it.
I do it to help my clients feel more fulfilled, more capable, more self-determined, more free.
You can have all the right systems and practices.
Eventually, without internal alignment, none of that’s going to matter.
You’ll lose your drive. You’ll disconnect from your why. Including why you wanted to perform at a high level in the first place.
The sooner you prioritize alignment from the inside out, the faster you will free yourself to progress.
The world responds to your entire state of being, not just what you do. And you’re always broadcasting a signal.
Eye contact. Tone of voice. Posture. Confidence. Openness. Intent.
Your internal state broadcasts a signal that your coworkers, friends, family, and even your pets respond to.
When you say “yes” to a team member's work request, but your energy and attitude says “no,” you’re broadcasting your discontent to the entire room.
When you make a commitment to yourself internally to get an email done, or to find time to work on your most pressing priority, and then don’t, you aren’t just failing to do the work.
You are creating inner tension, stagnation, misalignment.
According to Polyvagal Theory, your nervous system is constantly scanning the world for cues of safety or threat — often beneath conscious awareness. When you're incoherent, you're operating from defense.
When misaligned, everything feels harder.
You procrastinate what matters, react to what doesn’t, and second-guess your decisions because they’re coming from internal chaos, not clarity.
This isn’t about being perfect. You can renegotiate timelines on work with yourself, and with others. You can decide what is reasonable one day, and change your mind.
The point is this - if breaking commitments and intentions to and with yourself becomes a regular thing, you create a pattern of misalignment that will keep you feeling and being stuck exactly where you are.
The sun will come up and go down. Seasons will pass. Joys and sorrows will visit you. But you will have bottlenecked your own development, your own growth.
Your outer world and what people see externally may reflect success. But inside, if you have the courage to look, you’ll know that at least in part, you’re stalled.
So what do you do? You can’t stop working. You can’t ignore life’s various responsibilities and commitments.
But you can go inward. You can momentarily take a step back to breathe, to reflect, to ponder.
In doing so, you may discover opportunities worthy of pursuit that will make you more coherent, more whole.
Let’s talk about what being coherent is, and how to to improve your own coherence.
Ok Great, But what does it actually mean to be coherent?
So, what does it mean to be coherent?
Here’s a definition I came across that I quite like.
“Being internally coherent means that your thoughts, beliefs, values, and actions align and make sense together, creating a unified and consistent sense of self. It's about having a clear, logical, and integrated inner world. ”
When your thoughts, emotions, and actions point in the same direction, the field responds.
Being coherent is about being unified internally. When you are coherent, your thoughts, feelings, and actions are aligned, in harmony.
You become more creative, connected, clear.
More grounded, more magnetic.
Not because you’re striving — but because you’re finally tuned in, present, in the now.
Decision-making becomes easier. Prioritization crystalizes. The state of being in flow becomes more attainable, and visits you more.
Every time you align thought, feeling, and action — you're reinforcing a neural pathway.
In neuroscience, it’s called Hebbian learning: ‘neurons that fire together wire together.’
You’re literally encoding a more coherent identity.
As my good friend Joseph Antoine Alston, Integrative Health and Functional Medicine Coach likes to say “be open, connected, in flow, not attached.”
Making It Practical
Best-selling author Joe Dispenza gives us a simple approach to check in with ourselves. It starts with awareness. You observe and becoming aware of current state, made up of our thoughts, feelings, and actions. You evaluate yourself, and your own alignment.
By practicing awareness, you give yourself the space to think about what you’ve been thinking about, feel what you’ve been feeling, and connect how that’s affecting your attitude, your behavior, your interactions.
I invite you to checkin with yourself right now.
Have your thoughts, emotions, and actions been in sync today?
What about this week?
How do you feel right now?
What situations, circumstances, and people are affecting your current outlook?
What stories are you telling yourself and reinforcing about your life, about who you are?
What patterns of behavior and attitude are dominant in your life right now?
Are those feelings, thoughts, and behaviors serving your bigger self, your goals, your dreams?
Or are they hampering them?
A big part of this process is about letting go. Letting go of old stories, of past transgressions, of ways of being that aren’t serving you.
The real shift in life happens not when you do more — it happens when your thoughts, emotions, and actions sync and come into alignment.
That’s when the next level in your life reveals itself. That’s when life starts to respond differently to you.
Cultivating Alignment and Coherence In Your Life
Simple rituals to regulate your nervous system, energy, and intentions
“Your personality creates your personal reality." How you think, act, and feel directly shapes the experiences you attract into your life. ” - Joe Dispenza
Unlocking states of high-coherence doesn’t have to be rocket science.
Here’s what works well for me.
A warm embrace with a friend or a loved one
Moving my body on meditative walks in the woods
Grounding barefoot and getting summer sunlight in the mornings
Taking a moment during the day in appreciation of the life that I have
Connecting emotionally with my goals and aspirations, and the mission and direction I’m on
Calling to mind the value I’m creating for others with my work, my presence, my attention.
“To be happy with yourself in the present moment while maintaining a dream of your future is a grand recipe for manifestation. When you feel so whole that you no longer care whether “it” will happen, that’s when amazing things materialize before your eyes.”
― Joe Dispenza, You Are the Placebo: Making Your Mind Matter
When you become more coherent, you free up energy and possibility. How you move through the day, how you engage with work, how you treat yourself, how you interact with others all changes.
Your level of consideration, care, and empathy rises.
Here’s how I cultivate coherence and internal alignment, in detail.
Calming Nature Walks
I take 30-minute meditative walks in the woods by my house regularly.
The walk acts a clearing and tuning process for me.
In a society which reinforces the importance of digital connection, there is something special, something mystical about “unplugging” and connecting with nature.
Sometimes, I go without technology and take in nature fully.
Other times, I choose a youtube video on my phone, headphone up, and select an inspirational video.
I enjoy talks on life success, quantum manifestation, the power of intention and presence, to name a few..
As I walk, I tune in with myself, recenter, elevate my outlook, and feel more whole.
I process the events, emotions, and the stories I’m telling myself about my life.
I get clear on the emotional and psychological patterns present.
Especially the patterns acting as gatekeepers and blockers to my personal and spiritual growth.
I unwind. I free up energy and space that prior to the walk wasn't available or accessible.
“The research adds to a robust body of evidence indicating that our brains benefit from getting outside. Studies comparing participants’ mental health after they’ve spent time in natural environments versus built environments have revealed physiological differences — such as lowered salivary cortisol levels, a biomarker of stress, or reduced activity in brain regions implicated in rumination, a cycle of negative thoughts — between those who spent time in nature and those who did not. Even being in indoor rooms with windows that allowed views of nature or contained natural features, like plants, has been linked to cognitive benefits.” - Molly McDonough, Harvard Medicine
Journaling
One of the most tried and true ways to get in touch with your inner state is to journal.
When I was in 6th grade, my english teacher required our class to write 5 pages every week in a personal journal and submit it.
The content could be introspective, it could be fictitious, or educational. Anything really, as long as we were writing five pages.
The point was to develop the practice of self awareness and articulation. It was a tremendously powerful practice for a 12 year old to adopt.
As a business owner and an adult, I continue to journal.
At the end of each day, I reflect. I revisit my wins, my happy moments. I return to the positive emotions I felt during the day as a way to embody those positive emotions as a habit.
I pose simple questions to myself, such as “what would make tomorrow amazing?”
Questions like this help me prime my mind and my outlook for what’s to come tomorrow, and how I want to show up and meet the day.
“Your brain and body don’t know the difference between having an actual experience in your life and just thinking about the experience – neurochemically, it’s the same.” — Joe Dispenza
Inner Balance Biofeedback Meditation
I’ve invested hundreds of hours researching health, wellness, nutrition, and biohacking.
One of the best finds I’ve ever come across is a little device I attach to my ear to measure my heart rate variability and get into states of heart coherence.
(image of device)
The device plugs right into your iphone or smartphone.
Using an app, your heart rate variability is measured in real time on screen.
The app provides a visual circle that shrinks and expands, syncing your inhale and exhale.
Sounds cool, right? But what’s the science behind this?
What exactly is heart coherence?
Heart coherence is the science-based practice of synchronizing your heart and brain.
“ In the 1990’s HeartMath Institute researchers, identified a physiological state called heart coherence — a type of coherence that occurs when our body’s systems, our breathing, heart rhythms, brain rhythms and hormonal response, are in sync with each other…This alignment balances your nervous system and creates coherence between your heart, mind, and emotions — which is key to clearing stress and unlocking your higher capacities…Studies from the HeartMath Institute show that when we enter a state of heart-brain coherence, our stress response lowers, our cognition improves, and we become more emotionally balanced — not just in theory, but physiologically…” - HeartMath Institute
Here’s why I love it:
It’s quick. It only takes you 3-5 minutes to see results.
Real-time feedback. The app gives you a coherence score, which lets you know when you are in high coherence.
It’s experiential. You literally feel lighter, calmer, more grounded within minutes.
It’s FUN. It gives you a score each time, so there’s an element of gamification and play involved.
It’s a great product.
I highly recommend you check it out for yourself. Doubly so if you regularly deal with stress, overwhelm, and mental and physical exhaustion.
Interested? Learn more here. (I’m not affiliated with HeartMath, just a fan of their product).
Keeping it simple, practical, and implementable - what to do when you fall out of coherence midday
Some of these practices are more practical than others during work hours.
Stuck in the office or the cubicle?
Here are a few more examples that may be practical within an office environment, on work breaks, and before or after work.
Morning Coherence Check-In
If your mornings feel chaotic before you even begin, this simple check-in resets your internal compass and sets the tone for how you want to show upAsk yourself: What energy do I want to show up with today?
Breathwork + Nervous System Reset
Stress disrupts your focus? This quick breathing practice calms your nervous system and brings you back to center.Practice 5-5-5 breathing ( 5 second inhale, 5 second hold, 5 second exhale) and eyes-closed centering
Walking Meditation + Inspired Input
Mind running 100 miles a minute? A walking meditation clears mental noise and recharges your creativity while reconnecting you to your body.Pair nature with inspirational talks that remind you how you want to show up, and who you want to be.
Evening Review + Emotional Integration
Days blurring together, feeling like you’re on autopilot? This reflection anchors your progress and helps you turn experiences into growth.Make reflection and introspection a habit: Ask yourself: How did I do today? What states of mind and body did I experience? What hangups did I experience? How did I respond? How might I have better handle a similar situation in the future?
Embodying the Emotion of the Future You
Feeling stuck in old patterns and emotions? This practice lets you step into the energy and mindset of the person you’re becoming — right now.Emotional rehearsal: feel it before you see it
Gratitude
Feeling discontent, lack, focused on what's missing? Gratitude shifts your focus to what’s working, elevating your mood and perspective.
Take 2 minutes to jot down three things you are grateful for. Tap into the emotions of gratitude, appreciation, and joy that you have. Try to maintain that energy as you return to your next activity or to do.
Build Unbusy time into your schedule
Running from one task to the next without space to think? These small pauses create breathing room to realign and reset your energy.
Schedule 5-minute blocks on your calendar two or three times a day to checkin with yourself to center and align your outlook and mood.
The beauty of these practices?
They can be used proactively to establish a positive inner state, as well as reactively, as a way to reset and recenter when you get off course.
Like when unexpected urgent work hits your desk, when a family issues arises, or when you aren’t feeling at your best.
If you are caught in the pattern of “being busy” and "on" all day, you may never have the space to unplug and do introspective work.
I invite you to act, to make a commitment to yourself, to create the space you need to process how things are going for you.
Whether it's 10 minutes, an hour, or a full day getaway, make the time to work within your structure and schedule.
Give yourself the space and grace to go inward and explore the patterns of your life you are working so hard to conquer and overcome.
Here are some powerful self exploratory questions to help you integrate more awareness, clarity, and coherence into your daily life.
What area of your life is asking not for more hustle, but more coherence?
What would change if your next breakthrough came from clarity, not intensity?
Where in your life are you doing everything right — but still feeling off?
What would become possible if you stopped efforting your way forward — and started aligning your way there?
Here’s the key - monitoring and guiding your internal state into alignment with your actions isn’t a one time event, it’s a continuous, everyday practice to cultivate and adopt.
This isn’t about ignoring your reality, or pretending serious obstacles and challenges don’t exist in your life.
It’s about feeling real all the time, and learning through deliberate practice to bring yourself back into alignment when you get off course.
What Becomes Possible in a Coherent State
The shifts that become available when your inner world syncs up
When your inner world syncs up with your actions, you stop pushing and start receiving.
You attract aligned opportunities and aligned people.
You become someone others want to follow — not because of your credentials, but because of your energy, your clarity.
Next time you find yourself revisiting old patterns of stress, bogged down in overwhelm, fighting "tooth and nail" to just get by, remember.
You don’t need to control everything — you need to become the clearest version of yourself.
Stop focusing on doing, on getting. Start focusing on your internal state, who you are being.
If you’re working to break free of overwhelm in work and in life, I’d love to help you make coherence a daily practice.
This is something I’m passionate about — and support clients with every day.
If you want to explore how your next big leap could come from coherence, I invite you to reach out.
Thanks for reading!
PJ Danahey
Cofounder and Coach - Work How You're Wired - How to thrive as yourself.