Testimonies

BT

Before beginning the Densofit lessons, what personal, academic, or professional goals were already important to you?

Prior to beginning the lessons, I was waiting on a promotion at work, and also wanted to strengthen my relationship with God. These two items were added to my vision board and both have been accomplished. I will continue to pursue advancements in my career and partake in activities that spiritually fulfill me.

How did reflecting on your identity and values shape your approach to setting or refining your goals?

Reflecting on my identity and values significantly shaped my approach to setting and refining goals by helping me focus on what truly matters to me. Understanding what my strengths and weaknesses are and what I’m passionate about gave me direction, and I was able to more clearly identify goals to help me improve in those areas. The end result was goals that were more meaningful and achievable.

What new opportunities: relational, spiritual, professional, or internal did you notice or begin to pursue as a result of the work you completed?

While completing the lessons, I’d been waiting for a promotion that was about a year late. I’m very happy to say that I have been promoted and given more meaningful responsibility as requested. I am now the lead on a project where we are developing a mobile app for one of the desktop applications my team supports. There will be more than 30,000 employees using the app. I feel that completing this course during the time of my pending promotion gave me the voice I needed to formulate the right questions and present certain facts to my managers to not only get the promotion but advocate for the appropriate pay I deserved.

Looking back, which activity, whether vision boards, goal setting, or journaling had the most significant impact on your growth or direction?

Creating the vision board was most impactful for me and it still is today. It is on the wall in my office and serves as a visual reminder of what my goals are and motivates me to keep working towards achieving them. It also shows me that goals can change and may need to be revised to align more with current situations.

How do you plan to use what you’ve gained from this experience as you continue your journey in life, work, or faith?

I plan to keep the goals in the forefront until I achieve them, then set new goals and achieve those as well. The lesson book is a good tool to use to look back on to measure progress, regain focus, etc. It may also be a good idea to go through the whole program again in a year or two to ensure that goals are still aligned with what I’m trying to accomplish.

"BT, Thank you so much for a great testimony. I’m so happy you are having much success. Your story is inspiring!" Donna

TS

What goals did you already have in mind before starting this journey?

My goal was family. I wanted a family I could count on to be there for each other.

Did any new goals come to light while working through the book?

I realized that I had to let go and move on if I wanted to be happy.

In what ways did the book help you notice areas where you could grow or improve?

I always thought that I was shy, but the reality is, I have no confidence in myself. I let people walk all over me because I was afraid to hurt others.

What new opportunities: personal, academic, social, or career-related—did you notice or pursue during this process?

I decided that if I wanted to be happy, I needed to look inside myself. With God’s help I knew I could be a better person of myself. I joined the Senior Citizen Centers in my area and I am so thankful I did.

What internal or external challenges did you become more aware of, and how did the book help you address them?

That I had to work on being confident with myself no matter how hard that is to do.

Did the process make you think differently about how you handle barriers in your life?

Yes, I am no longer afraid to say NO to someone if it is something I don’t want to do or can’t do. This was a lesson that held me back for most of my life.

How did the structure or tools in the book help you take action on your goals?

It helped me realize that I had to do things on my own and that is not a bad thing as long as I have a relationship with God.

How do you feel about your progress now compared to when you first started?

I am very happy with who I have become, and I hope, know I will, continue to be a better person for that.

How do you plan to keep using what you’ve learned from this experience in the future?

I plan to stand up for myself as long as I am not hurting anyone in the process. It is hard but it is working for me and I feel good with the choices that I make. I could not have said that a just a couple years ago.

"TS, Thank you for sharing a very personal testimony. I understand what you mean about wanting to please people and how difficult it is to stand up for self. I’m very glad you’re finding who you are and who you’re growing into!" Donna

JH

Prior to beginning this journey, what personal or professional goals were already shaping your path?

Both times that I did the goal setting I was going through a major transition. The first time I was in high school transitioning out of Montessori school to a more traditional school and planning for my future in ways that I had never planned before seeing as though college was on the horizon. The second time I did it, I was a single mother to a toddler and had gone through quite a high conflict coparenting dynamic so both periods of time were really marked by change, drastic change. Probably if you ask me at those times before I did the exercise, I would tell you that my goals centered around purpose, but in a limited way, really focused on career narrowly, and a lot of what was expected of me given who I had been to that moment. So, for example, in high school one of my most obvious goals would’ve been to get an engineering degree because I had planned to be an engineer and people knew I wanted to be an engineer. I was good at math and science, and that was my goal. Fast-forward to when I was about 32 and transitioning into being a mother of a toddler, it was more of “How do I make this all work?” I had a very high-powered career at a young age at a Fortune 100 company and that was juxtaposed against being a single mom in a high conflict situation, which was chaos, and the desire to mother in the way I was mothered mixed in with my own personal hopes for motherhood.

What new or revised goals emerged as you moved through the Densofit materials?

I would say the best word to explain what came out of the exercises that I did is unspoken, unspoken goals. The framework allowed me to dig deep and to consider the wholeness of who I was, especially at the time when I was in high school. I was so focused on that path that there was so much of me that was missing from that narrative. And I’m not talking about the narrative other people had for me, I’m talking about the narrative I had for myself. And there were other things that were important to me that deserved recognition, time, and attention and at the very least, to be spoken. For example, I had a goal to meet my father. I hadn’t seen him since I was a toddler and obviously did not remember it, and unfortunately, due to his own life decisions, it was not very possible at certain points in time. I think before working through this framework, I wouldn’t have been able to articulate that goal at that stage in my life and even if I could, I don’t know that it would’ve had a safe place to land. Flash forward to my early 30s, I had a more robust set of goals across all parts of who I was. I just wasn’t sure how they all connected, aka if they were even possible to be met simultaneously. Another thing that I brought to the framework that I did not necessarily have refined when I did it in high school was a core set of values, and in doing the exercise, I could see where some of the things that I said I valued and were important for me to instill in my child were not showing up in my goals. That realization led to a real intentionality to make sure that the life that I was working to create was fully reflective of my spiritual values.

Did the genogram or vision board exercises illuminate any patterns, influences, or relational insights that shaped your goal-setting or growth?

When I did the genogram, I was young and I viewed it from a lens of trials that have been repeated within my family structure and I only did it that one time. As I’ve grown, and I’m sitting here as a 37-year-old woman looking back to that exercise, cognitively speaking it’s routine for me, but now in a way in which I find power from it. I believe that this perspective change is due to my goals for mothering: to create and sustain an emotional connection with my child, to learn to advocate for myself so that I can better advocate for my child. Through the genogram framework, I look at the economic improvement from generation to generation within the women in my family and I view my ability to show up for my child emotionally in ways that prior generations could not due to the movement from survival to thriving. And so for me it’s a little less about the actual genogram that I did and more so the framework teaching me what a genogram is, why it matters, and what you can draw from it. So, while I haven’t gone back and redid a genogram, those concepts that Donna Moody has created help me on a frequent basis to draw inspiration and give grace to myself as I continue my mothering journey.

What new opportunities, whether internal (e.g., self-awareness) or external (e.g., career, relationships) came into focus during your engagement with the book?

One of the things that came out pretty strongly when I did the goals in my 30s was that I was very clear on what I did not want. I had grown from the high school version of me who did the goals and, as expected, completed every single goal on the sheet within the next decade, to a woman who wanted to do things on her own terms and strongly rejected things that did not feel right to me. I think when I look back on the arch of my life so far, it started very heavily based on other people‘s expectations of me, to realizing that those expectations of me could not fulfill me, to really trying to articulate and craft what is for me. And I see that throughout the changes in the framework that I did during those different time points. While I have not completed everything that is on my second goal chart from five years ago, I have completed many and I see the path forward for those that are outstanding. None of it feels outside of my reach, and even without looking at my goals every day or every month—which are pinned on my wall—I find when I return to them that I have made progress towards them. From establishing my company to flexible work arrangements, the work done in my early 30s from Donna’s framework has been like the guiding star to be able to use my strong voice that I have developed in the last couple decades to say no to what’s not for me and to know what to say yes to.

Which specific activity, framework, or artifact (e.g., goal chart, vision board, journaling prompt) had the most measurable impact on your trajectory?

I’m gonna tweak this question a little bit; I would not say that the vision board had the most measurable impact on my trajectory, but I would say that doing this vision board was different than any other vision board I had done. And by that, I mean more purposeful. Other times that I’ve done vision board activities with friends of mine or myself, I’ve gathered all the supplies and sat down, and I had a glass of wine and made cutouts of the pictures and the quotes that I liked. It was whatever popped out to me in the 10 to 20 pages that I looked through. When I did the vision board in my early 30s as a part of this framework, it was after I did my goals and I knew what I was looking for. I knew and had clarity around what my goals were, and I was looking for things that reflected that. And so, it was not a rush or easy to pick just random things that spoke to me in that moment. I was able to select things that spoke to me at my most authentic core. This vision board hangs in my room, and I do regularly look at it. It reminds me to advocate for girls and women as I build my career in technology. It reflects to me the importance of nourishment and movement and care for myself. It reminds me of the importance of fathers when I am facing coparenting trials. It really centers who I am and who I aspire to be in a way that keeps me focused on the goal.

How would you describe where you are now: emotionally, intellectually, or vocationally compared to when you began?

Through a combination of the Densofit framework and my own work in talk therapy, I’ve become much more aligned with my authentic self. I trust my instincts more. I move with greater clarity and less hesitation, anchored in a deeper relationship with God, not just as a concept, but as a Father who actively cares for me. More so than when I was in high school, even though at that time I was faithfully attending church and teaching Sunday school.