The Daring Decision

Friday 14 August 2026 | 04:00 PM

You are not exhausted from a lack of effort. You are exhausted from a lack of focus.

Picture yourself in the second week of November. You have been working the whole time since August, and you cannot point to one thing in the business that actually moved.

It is not that you did not try hard enough. It is that when everything on your list looks equally reasonable, you give a little of yourself to each item. That feels responsible but it finishes nothing.

Nobody taught you to choose using your own criteria. Especially if until now, a manager, an organisation or a role description always did it for you.

It takes courage to stop and choose one direction. It takes as much courage to say it out loud. That is what these three hours are for.

Solange Lipcin and Sofía Silva Berenguer are co-facilitating a small, in-person session on the Gold Coast for women in the first year or two of building their own business.

What we do together

• Park what you are carrying. Before anything else, you write down and set aside the worries and the to-do list. You cannot make a good decision while holding all of it.
• Name what you are building. A short, structured piece of work on the business you are actually trying to build, and the life it is meant to fit inside. You will say it out loud to someone else in the room.
• Find the gaps. We take you through a diagnosis of where your business actually is right now, and what that stage genuinely needs from you, which is often not what you have been working on.
• Build your own filter. This is the centre of the session. You build two sets of criteria: what impact actually means for you, and what an initiative really costs you, in time, money, energy, health, or the people around you. Then you apply them to your real list and sort it: keep, park, let go. For anything you park, you name the condition that would bring it back, so it is a decision rather than avoidance.
• You will not be handed a prioritisation system. You build your own, from your own business. That is harder than being given one, and it is why it still works when you are back at your desk on Monday.
• Find the time it needs. We close with a guided exercise on what is actually available in your week once real life is accounted for.

What you leave with

• Your own criteria - The three things that count as impact for you, and the one or two constraints that genuinely bind you right now.
• Your list, sorted - What you are keeping, what you are parking and on what condition, and what you are letting go of on purpose.
• One initiative for the next ninety days, chosen on those criteria and said out loud in the room.
• A weekly time budget -The hours you actually have, so the things you decided to keep get done.
• An accountability partner from the room, and a check-in date about six weeks out, which is early enough to still do something about it.
• A printed workbook holding all of it, and a date to reread it.

To be straight with you: three hours gives you a decision and the criteria behind it. It does not guarantee the decision holds the first time something goes sideways. That is what the accountability partner and the six-week check-in are for.

This workshop is for women a couple of years into building their own business whether that is full-time or alongside a job.

You are carrying more initiatives than one person can hold, and you cannot tell which one actually matters most. You are working hard and you have stopped being able to see what it is adding up to.

If you have not started yet but you are close, you are welcome. The filter works on a list you are still assembling.

Bring a friend if you can. This work lands differently when someone who already knows your business is sitting next to you.

Getting there

Consider using public transport or active travel. Plan your trip with Translink's journey planner.

Parking may be limited. For metered parking, use the EasyPark app to start, end, and extend your parking direct from your phone to avoid fines. For more information visit City of Gold Coast's Parking page.