You've done the vision boards. Mapped the revenue goals. Created the quarterly plans. And by March, you're hitting your numbers, but something doesn't fully feel right.

You're building something beautiful. But if you're honest? It doesn't quite feel like yours.

Here's what I've learned working with accomplished women entrepreneurs: You can accomplish everything on your list and still feel empty. You can hit every revenue goal and still feel exhausted. You can build something impressive and still feel like you're operating from someone else's blueprint.

In this episode, I'm inviting you to design your year differently, not from borrowed strategies, tactics, and default patterns, but from devotion to who you're actually here to be.

Because sustainable success isn't created by doing more. It's created by leading from your specific design.

Inside This Episode:

1. Why designing from identity matters more than setting goals
2. The shadow patterns that keep successful women trapped in borrowed strategies (distraction, control, half-heartedness)
3. Real examples of how your Meaning Code reveals what makes success feel delicious for you specifically
4. How to explore your own Meaning Code and begin designing from devotion, not default

Resource Mentioned

Explore your free Gene Keys blueprint to uncover your Meaning Code and the frequencies that guide your fulfillment and leadership.

→ genekeys.com/free-profile

Ready to Design From Devotion?

If you're standing at a threshold — feeling a new identity emerging, or ready to build on your own foundation instead of someone else's — ILLUMINATE is for you.

This is my signature 90-minute Gene Keys experience where we decode your Mission, Money, Meaning, and Magnetism codes. Crystal clarity on your shadows, your gifts, and the precise moves that leverage your unique design.

For accomplished women whose success has outpaced their soul — this is where devotional leadership begins.

→ Explore ILLUMINATE

If This Episode Resonated

Leave a five-star review to help other visionary women discover devotional leadership.

Stay Connected

Continue the conversation on Instagram @alexia_usgaard

or explore my work at alexiausgaard.com

And of course, until next time, I hope you elevate your life, one intentional day at a time.

With love & devotion,

Alexia

Let me paint a picture. You've done the vision boards, you've mapped out your revenue numbers, you've worked on your quarterly plans, and maybe you're hitting your milestones. Yet you get to march, and even though you're doing the things you said you wanted to, even though you're accomplishing what you wanted to accomplish, in truth, you feel a sense of emptiness. There's a lack of deliciousness, there's a lack of joy on the journey, there's a lack of feeling, actually, the ease.

And in many ways, there's that undercurrent energy of how am I going to keep this going? Welcome to Elevate Daily, the podcast for those ready to elevate their life one intentional day at a time. I'm your host, Alexia Usgard, here to give you a permission slip to unapologetically savor the beauty and richness of life. Join me as we explore modern rituals, self-leadership, the gene keys and the art of elevating your health, wealth, love and leadership.

It's time to elevate, let's dive in. Hello, hello and welcome back to Elevate Daily. I'm Alexia Usgaard and as always, I am so honored to have you here. And here we are in that January energy.

That energy, that New Year energy, that I mean, there's a reason why there's so many ad campaigns that talk about New Year, new you. It's that blank canvas energy. It's that moment where we all feel like there's this world of possibility. We can like taste the freshness of the new year. And what I find is at the same time that we get to experience this beautiful blank canvas energy and we get to feel like there's this reset opportunity.

It's also where we can often make the mistake of getting so fixated on all of the pressure for New Year's resolutions, for our goals, for everything linked to our metrics, to our KPIs, to our revenue numbers. And I don't diminish that part of the story, but what I find is that it's actually even more important to focus on one piece first. It's often the missing piece of the puzzle. And that's that instead of asking yourself first, what...

am I going to do? What am I going to accomplish? What do I want to achieve? What are my goals? Instead, to have your planning structured first around who do I want to be this year? What do I want to become this year? What identity am I called to really embody this year? Because what I find is the more you honor the being first, the more that you are deeply supported in taking aligned action.

You leverage your energy instead of finding yourself depleted in a million and one directions and you more than anything, actually something I watched with myself and my clients is we're not focused on you taking a hundred actions. I'm focused on what is the million dollar move? What is the one move that makes everything more useful? That makes everything more expansive. That makes everything even more joyful in the process. And that comes from what I find really focusing on

what frequency you're here to embody, what identity you're here to embody first. So in today's episode, I actually wanna go through and share with you how I go about doing this, the way I guide my clients to do this, and why it's absolutely essential to do this. So because I'm here for the visual, let me paint a picture. You've done the vision boards, you've mapped out your revenue numbers, you've worked on your quarterly plans, and maybe you're hitting

your milestones. Yet you get to march and even though you're doing the things you said you wanted to, even though you're accomplishing what you wanted to accomplish, in truth, you feel a sense of emptiness. There's a lack of deliciousness. There's a lack of joy on the journey. There's a lack of feeling, actually, the ease. And in many ways, there's that undercurrent energy of how am I going to keep this going? And

What I find is why this happens is because successful entrepreneurs end up getting caught in their default patterns. They get caught following the strategies that other people shared is their five-step tactic, their marketing strategy that works for them. They get caught in other people's playbooks, other people's business models, because that's what the industry has shown works. Yet in all honesty, even if you go and you do everything according to

what someone else sees as successful. And even if it gets you to a certain level of success, I find there becomes this moment that you notice that you're at a moment of plateau, a moment of a threshold. And it might not be that your revenue numbers are struggling or suffering from it, but it could be that your body, your health, your relationships, you're really desiring to call in a romantic partner. And in all truth, there's just not been space for any of that energy to really be given the devotion it's wanted.

And so what I really like to invite you into, especially when we come into New Year energy, and I also like to name, New Year energy doesn't have to be January. You could do it in February, March, you could be listening to this in July. You might be someone whose New Year happens on your birthday. But what I wanna invite you into is to consistently remember that if you aren't intentionally knowing and connecting to your design, if you're not intentionally designing according to your authentic blueprint,

then the natural tendency and the natural way is to get caught in default patterns, in conditioning, in trying to follow everyone else's different strategies and blueprints. And if we go a bit deeper and I name like, is a default pattern and what causes or what links to all of this, when I speak of a tool called the Gene Keys and the Gene Keys gives you a roadmap to really know who you are in a soul level, to honor how you can best show up in your highest potential.

in all areas of your life. It gives you a key code to understand what are your highest gifts that you're here to embody that are also what are here to support you in being the best steward of wealth, of leadership, of legacy, of everything you desire. And at the same time, the beautiful thing it also gives us is our shadows, the parts of ourselves that sabotage us, the parts of ourselves that can get really caught in conditioned ideas of success. And as I was sharing,

the different routes we can get caught in following someone else's playbook or strategies. When you really connect to your shadows, when you know your shadows, it's amazing to witness how no longer can that part of you subconsciously and unconsciously control how you lead or basically drive the car of your life. In many ways, it's like, always think about clients who always say to me, Lex, I can't unsee what you've shown me.

And when you know those shadows, you know the spot where you can most likely go into your blind spots, where you can be most taken advantage of, where you can find that you don't actually lead effectively with your team, where you can find you give away your power, where you find in relational dynamics that you sabotage dynamics, where things play into these patterns on repeat that just never seem to give you the ease and the melt and the, that you desire to feel.

And so actually want to share with you a couple examples of what I've seen as how I've seen successful entrepreneurs and clients I work with navigate specific shadows. So for example, one shadow in the gene keys is the shadow of distraction. And so for a successful entrepreneur who has that gene key, it's very helpful for them to realize they're the type who has more of a likelihood if they go into default for getting caught in shiny opportunity.

Syndrome, right? Like anytime a new shiny opportunity comes their way, they just get bright-eyed and want to try it out. But the problem is it's at the cost of them really refining and knowing what is actually what they're meant to be doing. It can hold them back from actually focusing on building something that they feel like their truest self is creating. They don't give the time, they don't give the energy that that creates. And they find themselves oftentimes spread very thin.

I find those who have that shadow, it's like, yep, that's true Lex. I find that I definitely have a tendency to go to a mastermind, to a group and immediately feel like I should start a podcast, I should start a YouTube channel. And they just always can find that there's always new things they wanna try and they can get really caught in consistently doing these new things instead of really focusing on what they're uniquely here to do. Another shadow dynamic is the shadow of halfheartedness.

And so for someone that's a successful entrepreneur with this gene key, it's very important for them to know that part of themselves that can not fully commit to things. They can keep too many tabs open. I always think about it in the gene keys, the way they talk about this gene key is there's this dynamic where luck can only favor commitment. So if you never commit to something, luck can't really come into momentum and support you. And so someone with this shadow dynamic,

can really lead themselves to not let things flow in their favor, attract things with more ease, because they never fully let their whole heart, their whole body, their whole being commit to it. And then the last shadow I also wanted to talk about is for those who have the shadow of control, as an example, where their dynamic is they can find they get.

very perfectionistic about things. They can overthink a lot. They wanna fixate on their team. They wanna fixate on how everything's supposed to happen, the way it's supposed to happen. They can diminish the possibility of what can come their way because they're thinking smaller than what is actually available to them. And so these are three shadows, all different shadow dynamics, but for every person I've seen who gets to know their unique shadow dynamics and gets to have

an intimate relationship with them and comes to realize that with every shadow there's also a gift that they're here to activate, I find it really ensures that you're not naturally controlled by a lot of the external world, a lot of the external shininess, a lot of the external distractions that can actually keep you from really being the pioneer that you're here to be, from really creating the body of work that's long lasting, creating the body of work that's just so authentic to who you are.

Because if there's anything I know that's the antidote of stress, it's authenticity. When you know your design, when you know your blueprint, it gives you a very solid foundation. And when we think about this, of course, because I think analogies, when we think about it, how often people are building businesses, lives, leadership, relationships, almost like a house of cards without a strong foundation, without strong roots, that

What happens in that situation is they make themselves very susceptible where like, you know, a storm, one little gust of wind comes and the whole thing can fall down because it didn't have the real deep, true roots that keep you in it and keep you feeling so supported on the journey long-term. One health thing comes their way. One relationship thing comes their way. And it's like almost like everything can just fall apart or feel really shaky. Whereas when you build your house,

with strong roots. It's like no matter what comes your way, which life is full of unexpected uncertainty as we all know, especially in the entrepreneurial game with the rate at which AI is changing, with the rate of industry is changing left, right and center. But when you focus on having strong roots, you can walk into any room and find your unshakable. You can walk into any new environment and you're so clear on what you uniquely bring to the table. You're so clear on what you also lovingly

don't need to bring to the table, which is just as valuable as knowing what you do bring to the table. And I just really love to invite you because if you start noticing in this constant production culture we're conditioned into, we get shown so many examples where the houses are not built on solid foundations, or honestly, how often I've watched it, where the house someone builds for themselves is literally in a city they don't even want to live in, or in an environment that they actually don't love being in.

And that that long-term has such a significant ripple effect on all areas of how they experience their journey. So then what changes everything? For me, what I've seen over and over again, when you operate from your energetic blueprint and you know your gene keys, this is where it becomes so clear for you to know what frequencies you're here to embody. What are the gifts you're naturally here to share and to show up in the world with?

It shares with you how you can circulate wealth in a very easeful way where you stand as that steward of prosperity and feel the richness in the journey. It offers insights into how do you most melt and show up in authentic ways in love, in all relationship. How do you network in effective ways? How do you find meaning on the journey? These are just some of the examples of what is so easily and so clearly and precisely

shared when you operate and know your unique design. And I wanna give an example. So in my methodology that I do in my Illuminate experiences, which is that signature experience I do is the first place you can come into working with me. And in Illuminate, I really focus on four specific codes, four specific gene keys in your design, because I have found when you really focus on these four,

They ground you with again, that foundation, the roots for your house to be built on so beautifully and effectively. And that's your mission code, your money code, your meaning code, and your magnetism code. Like when you really know your design on those four, it's wild to watch how much can elevate, how much can expand, and how much also can just be easefully welcomed and allowed in your life.

So as an example, because we're in this new year energy, and I think something I really love to focus on is, again, what makes your success feel delicious? And so much of that is rooted in what makes it so deeply meaningful for you. And all of us are unique this way. And so I wanna go into, I'm gonna give a couple examples of what I've seen and what has happened for myself and for clients when we really know our meaning code, and then show you how you can actually figure

out and get a taste of this for yourself. So for one of my clients, her meaning code, the gift frequency is simplicity. And this is so powerful in how she makes decisions in choices that I support her with as she's frankly someone who is leading a very big life. Her business, she's a multiple seven figure entrepreneur. She has big dreams, like she is just getting started and her schedule is very full on. Her travel schedule is full on.

She manages her team and she just has a lot on her plate in many ways. And though, because we know her meaning code is simplicity, whenever she's making choices and honestly for what she's created, she has still created it with a lot of simplicity in mind. There's a lot of opportunities she could have had to get caught in her shadow of this gene key, which is complexity. And to have added a bunch of extra fluff to situations, try to do.

too many different marketing strategies, tried to make it so she had to do all the things, but instead, as we have gone through the journey together, we've consistently come back to, okay, what is the simplest path forward? What is the simplest path forward? Does this decision you're about to make, does it also feel rooted in a space where you can exhale, because you feel spacious? And so for her,

it's really been a key code and something that we've held a vision for throughout all of how she goes and all of how she expands is, are we still giving her the space to feel like none of it's too heavy in complexity and all of it feels lighter in simplicity? For me as an example, my meaning code, the gift frequency is freedom. So for me, and it is just so true if we think about it, right? I'm someone who lives,

and I completely, like literally on the other side of the world from where I'm from, I'm someone who worked in Silicon Valley but left to go and become an entrepreneur because I love having freedom of my schedule. So already, right, I like freedom of my time. I love freedom of my location. It's been a huge part of my decision because I've had multiple opportunities that have come my way to create physical spaces and physical space elements of my business. And yet at least for

the ways they've been presented so far when I would tune into myself in all honesty, and I always ask myself this question because this is my meaning code, will I feel free in this experience? Will I be free to grow and expand in the ways that I know I'm here for in this opportunity that's coming my way? And I wouldn't feel yeses. And so it's been a huge way that's given me a great discernment filter.

to ensure that as I'm growing, as I make my choices, I also do it in a way that I know I will be fulfilled and find purpose and meaning on the journey. And then the last example I wanted to name is a client who has the gift of patience as her meaning code. So for her, pace is a huge thing that impacts how she finds joy on her journey. So for her in particular, she has to just be so mindful that she doesn't feel

caught in any of the time scarcity dynamics that she doesn't make it so she for her I often will say let's zoom out let's keep looking at the bigger picture let's see how what you're creating just wants to be given more space more patience to be allowed to grow in even more beautiful ways than we can imagine so for her there's been a lot of dynamics of adding in these beautiful rituals and slower morning so she can really cultivate that frequency of patience

of patience in her body and her being. And what I've watched is the more she's allowed this, the more she's tuned into this, the more not only have I felt her nervous system relax so much more, I have found that then she's actually seen that she's been so much more receptive to the experiences that are truly meant for her and not just shiny things that come her way or things that she would have just said yes to because they felt like the quick fix or the easy next step or what everyone else was saying.

made sense for her in that moment. And so can you see with three different entrepreneurs how unique they are, right? We all have very different core frequencies that make us feel a sense of meaning on our journey. This is why it's so important that we know our design and we're not fixated on all the borrowed strategies because, you know, if I, as an example, am trying to be like somebody else or trying to, you if I think one of my codes is

someone else's, then I'm gonna just consistently think, I should just be happy. I should just be grateful. It seems to work for them. So it should work for me. And then in the process of it, I lose all the joy. And even if I create, again, the most beautiful house in the world from what I've always wanted, if it's not a strong foundation, it's not in the place I wanna be, it's not aligned with the rhythm and the pace and the way I wanna operate in the world. It just becomes a giant trap is what I find that actually ends up making us feel.

really restricted instead of expansive in the way like we really on a soul level know we're here for. And so I of course would love to give you an invitation and that invitation is to explore your meaning code. And to take a moment to, I have the link below if you don't already, if you already have your Gene Keys blueprint, then this will be easeful. But if you don't have any, if you're called to do this, I'll put the link below where you can actually download your Gene Keys profile.

And you'll look at the sphere, the circle at the bottom of your profile. And you'll see that there's three words. And to look at the middle word. And to ask yourself, because that's your gift frequency, to ask yourself, how does this frequency feel in my body? In what ways am I being invited to really honor this frequency?

In what ways can I let this frequency be a guide for me this year and how I choose consciously to make my decisions? And so really want to invite you to just tune into this. And then when you've taken a moment with this, just to first off, invite it into yourself, to really set yourself up as I always love to honor with a ritual of some nature. So whether that's lighting a candle in honor of the particular frequency of your gift that you're here to bring forward, to maybe take a deep breath,

and really take a moment to receive your frequency. And again, exhale off anything that keeps you from freely connecting with that part of yourself and your authentically designed way of being on this planet. And to really invite yourself to notice what comes up for you, what expansion is available for you when you allow yourself to honor that you came here with a unique design, the unique way of being that only you can show up as

And to name what relief do you find when you actually connect with this gift frequency and realize that anything that's not that isn't aligned. It helps to make your decisions just so much cleaner and clearer and faster in that way. And if you're at a time where you're going Lex, I would personally love to have your support in terms of going through my four core gene keys.

I would love to invite you to check out my signature space, the Illuminate Experience. This is where we go through and I specifically give you not just insights, but very practical ways to integrate your gifts and navigate where the shadows play out in your life and really tap you into what are the most aligned decisions for you right now. What is that one move that could change everything and elevate everything?

If you're trying to make multiple decisions, if you feel like you're at a big threshold where you know there's a new identity that wants to come through you and yet you haven't fully stepped into it, or if you just find honestly you've been on the depletion cycle for some time and you're going, would really love to be reminded. It's all very specific to you. And so if this resonates, I would love for you to check out also the link in my show notes. I always do a few spots.

every month and would be an honor to walk with you in that journey and to really make this year one that elevates everything for you. And more than anything, I honor that this time of year can be a time of year that can bring up a lot of pressure for many. Yet, if there's anything I hope you receive from today, it's the reminder that there's so much ease and so much easeful expansion available to you. The invitation I love to consistently give you is to remember to connect.

with your authentic design and know that when you do, there's so much more that's available for you in that experience. And as always, until next time, I hope you continue to elevate your life one intentional day at a time. Big heart hugs always.

If this podcast has added something meaningful to your day, it would mean the world to me if you could take 30 seconds to do these three things. First, please follow or subscribe to Elevate Daily on your favorite podcast platform. When you do, you'll never miss an episode and it helps us keep bringing you the intentional inspiration you love. Just tap the plus sign or click follow on the show page wherever you listen. Second, if you're feeling generous, leave a quick five star rating and review.

Your words mean so much and help others discover this space where we elevate our lives together. And finally, share this episode with someone who could use a little elevation today. And most importantly, thank you so much for being you. Thank you for being here. We're really on this journey together. Until next time, I hope you elevate your life one intentional day at a time.