Permission to Show Up

7. You Have Been Outsourcing Your Decisions to Everyone Except Yourself. Let's Fix That.

You asked your mum. You asked your husband. You asked your best friend, your neighbour, the Facebook group, three people in a networking event and you even asked a stranger. And then you still did not do the thing. Sound familiar? In this episode Kara gets honest about why women starting businesses or making big decisions often have the strategy completely sorted and the confidence completely missing. And why without confidence, nothing moves. Not the business. Not the decisions. Not you. This one is a love letter to the woman who already knows the answer and just needs to learn how to trust it and decide for herself.

6. People-Pleasing Is Not Kindness. It Is Control. And I Say That With Love.

This one is definitely NOT going to please everyone. Because people-pleasing feels like one of the nicest things about you. You are thoughtful. You are considerate. You put others first. But in this episode Kara is going to offer you a reframe that might just change everything. People-pleasing is not kindness. It is control. And it has been keeping you small, silent and stuck for a very long time. This is not a judgment. It is an invitation. To see the pattern clearly, understand where it actually came from, and start practising something different. With so much love

5. The One with an Inner Critic, A Police Station and an Eviction

Every woman has one. That voice in her head that says who do you think you are, put it away, you are not ready. In this episode Kara introduces you to hers. Her name is La Signora. She is a grumpy Italian nonna on a balcony and she has been living rent free in Kara's head for years. Kara shares the moment she was running past a police station in Noosa, training for a 10km she had signed up for reluctantly, and genuinely considered walking in to report her. This episode will make you laugh, make you think, and give you the one tool that changes everything. You cannot evict a tenant you have not named. Time to meet yours. Does your inner critic have a name? Give it a go, and share your inner critic's name in the comments below. I genuinely want to know!

4. The Good Girl Did Everything Right and Still Felt Empty. Sound Familiar?

You did everything right. The grades, the career, the responsible choices — every box ticked, every person proud. And then you arrived at the life that was supposed to feel like the destination, and something felt off. Not ungrateful. Not dramatic. Just quietly, persistently empty. In this episode, Kara gets honest about the good girl role so many high-achieving women have been playing since childhood — often without realising it — and exactly how that same pattern follows you into your business and keeps you stuck. If you are wondering why you delete the video, undercharge, over-deliver and wait to feel ready before you show up, this episode is going to name it for you. The good girl got you here. But she is not who builds what comes next.

3. I Know I Am the Only One Standing In My Own Way. So Why Am I Still Standing There?

You already know what you need to do. You have known for a while. So why are you still not doing it? In this episode of Permission to Show Up, Women's Empowerment Coach Kara De Kretser speaks directly to the gap that keeps capable, qualified, driven women completely stuck. Not the gap in their knowledge. Not the gap in their strategy. The gap between knowing and doing. And what it actually takes to close it. This is not a mums in business episode. This is a woman episode. Whether you are building a business, thinking about going back to work, staying in a job that is making you miserable, or avoiding a conversation you have needed to have for months, you will hear yourself in this one. Kara opens with something most coaches would never admit. She spent six months not launching this very podcast despite having everything she needed to do it. The topics, the stories, twelve years of material from the United Nations and a life she had completely redesigned from the ground up. And she still waited. Because she was doing the exact thing she coaches women not to do. She shares the moment a client said to her: Kara, I know I am the only one standing in my own way. And the silence that followed. And why that silence contains everything. In this episode Kara covers: - Why awareness alone will never be enough to create real change and what actually fills the gap between knowing and doing. The one thing that separates women who move from women who stay stuck. It is not talent, bravery or readiness. - Why the discomfort of staying still eventually becomes greater than the discomfort of moving and how to use that moment. - The truth about confidence and readiness that nobody tells you. That neither arrives before you act. Both arrive because you did. - Why your children watching you stand in front of your thing without doing it is the most powerful reframe available to any mother. - And the one small thing Kara is asking every listener to do today. Not tomorrow. Today. This episode will make you think. It might make you cry in your car. And it will give you permission to stop waiting for a feeling that was never going to arrive before the action did. This week's permission: you do not need to do the whole thing. You just need to do one thing today. You already know what it is. You knew before she asked. New episodes every week. Subscribe to Permission to Show Up so you never miss one. Connect with Kara at karadekretser.com or on Instagram @karadekretser