Hover: Pause, scan, realign
During my '5 Days to Getting Ahead by Being More, Not Less, of You' challenge, a client had an epiphany: “I now realise I’ve spent my whole life trying to be liked… that’s how I survived growing up.”
That moment of awareness changed everything. The conversation was about work, but it also wasn't. Rather, it was about the invisible script they’d been following their whole life - one that told them belonging and being accepted depended on being agreeable.
It made me think of how many of us are living by scripts we never wrote.
The power of Hover
In my Becoming Unapologetically You framework, the first step is Hover - and it’s my favourite step because it’s the one most people skip.
Hover is about awareness, not hesitation or indecisiveness.
It’s that deliberate pause before you push forward - the space where you observe without rushing to fix or justify. Traditional approaches to growth often tell us to “act fast” or “fake it till you make it,” but genuine growth starts with curiosity, not performance.
When we hover, as I encouraged my client to do on Day Two of the challenge, we take a time-agnostic view at our lives. We hold still long enough to reconnect with who we are, where we've been, what has shaped us and nourishes us. When we do this, we start to identify the touchpoints of a pattern that was previously invisible.
That’s what Hover allows. It helps you see how the fragments - your upbringing, your fears, your learned habits - come together to form the patterns shaping your decisions today.
When who you are and who you pretend to be don’t match
As my client started to articulate the pieces, the patterns emerged and another truth came into focus, one that many of us wrestle with quietly: “When there’s incongruence between who you are truly meant to be and who you purport to be, you end up feeling stuck.”
That’s exactly what happens when we live by other people’s expectations for too long. The misalignment creates friction: a kind of emotional gridlock that shows up as fatigue, frustration or that haunting sense of “something’s off.” It’s like driving with the handbrake on: you’re moving, but it’s exhausting and unsustainable.
Hovering gives you the tools to look under the hood of your life - to name that incongruence for what it is and to choose alignment over approval.
Hovering for courage and clarity
The next reflection from the past week connects directly to what happens after awareness:
“Putting yourself out there is scary, but what’s even scarier is wondering what could have been had you chosen not to.”
Hovering gives you the clarity to act courageously - even when the fear lingers. Because when you pause long enough to see your patterns and understand your motives, the path ahead becomes clearer.
You’re no longer reacting; you’re responding. You’re no longer trying to fit in; you’re aligning with who you were meant to be.
Hover is what turns fear into focus.
The invitation
So here’s my invitation for you this week:
Hover before you act.
Notice the patterns behind your choices.
Ask yourself:
What belief might be guiding this decision? Is it truly mine?
What’s one decision you can Hover on today? Name it, own it and let it guide you.
So when clarity comes, move. With courage, not fear.
Because awareness without action is just observation. But action without awareness is simply busyness.
Final reflection
You can’t Hold, Harness, Hasten or Harvest until you’ve had the courage to Hover — to sit in that uncomfortable but powerful space between who you’ve been and who you’re meant to be.
And if you stay in that space long enough, you might just realise: the stillness wasn’t a pause in your progress, it was the beginning of it.
