What Still Holds Value?

What’s Good Friend!

Whew, y’all… I know. It’s been a minute! My last Intentional Impact entry was August 19. Before that, May 17. And before that? April 19. So here I am on the first Sunday of Q4, staring at this draft and trying to figure out exactly what I’m supposed to say after being this inconsistent with something I genuinely value.

Do I apologize? Give you the whole rundown of where I’ve been? Pop back into your inbox like I was just here last Sunday? Somewhere between staring at the screen and trying to manufacture the perfect return, I realized maybe that is exactly what I needed to write about: value.

What makes something valuable to us? Does something stop mattering because we haven’t tended to it the way we intended? And maybe the harder question: do we somehow become less valuable during seasons when we aren’t producing, achieving, showing up, or performing at the level we expected of ourselves?

Because if we’re not careful, we can start using productivity as evidence of our worth. I did the thing, therefore I’m doing well. I stayed consistent, therefore I’m disciplined. I accomplished the goal, therefore I’m successful. People can see me doing something, therefore I must be becoming something. Baby… that is exhausting af.

These last few months, life has still been life-ing. I’ve been working, thinking, celebrating, questioning, growing, changing my mind, figuring some things out and, chile, probably becoming even more confused about some others. But I’ve also been paying attention to who I am underneath all of it. And now that Q4 is here, I don’t feel an urgency to make up for everything I didn’t do in Q1, Q2, or Q3.

Instead, I keep coming back to a different question: What still holds value?

And if something still matters, what would it look like to intentionally make room for it again? For me, this space is one of those things.

So, friend… I’m here.

What Are You Without the Receipts?

There is something about the final quarter of the year that can make us start pulling receipts on ourselves. We start looking at what we accomplished, how much we made, whether we lost the weight, launched the thing, kept the promise, or became who we said we were going to become by now.

Evaluation has value. Accountability has value. I believe deeply in both. But accountability without grace can quickly become punishment. And somewhere in all that measuring, we can begin confusing what we’ve done with who we are.

Our accomplishments become identity. Our titles become identity. Our relationships become identity. Our visibility becomes identity. Even being the dependable one, the strong one, the successful one, the one everybody calls when something needs to get done can become an identity. And maybe those things genuinely tell part of our story. The problem comes when we allow them to tell the whole story.

Because what happens when something changes? When the title disappears, when you need rest, when the relationship ends, when the thing you were once passionate about doesn’t fit anymore, or when you simply don’t have the capacity to perform yourself into feeling valuable?

Then who are you?

I think a healthy identity has to be able to survive a quiet season. It has to survive the months when there isn’t an announcement to make, the moments when you’re reconsidering what you want, and the seasons when you’re doing a whole lot of living but don’t necessarily have something shiny to show for it.

What I produce can demonstrate my value, but it cannot determine it.

And perhaps that’s part of what returning teaches us. When we come back to something after time away, we don’t have to return as the person who left. I’ve lived since April. I’ve changed since May. I’ve learned things since August. So returning to Intentional Impact doesn’t mean picking up exactly where I left off. It means bringing who I am now into something I still believe has value.

I think Q4 can be that for all of us. It doesn’t have to become three months of frantic catching up, an 88-day audition to determine whether 2026 was a “good year,” or a mad dash to become an entirely different human being by December 31 because somebody on Instagram told us there are only three months left. Please!!! 😂

What if, instead, we used these final months to get honest about what still matters? What deserves our attention? What have we outgrown? What are we ready to return to? And perhaps most importantly, who are we choosing to be as we do?

Maybe finishing strong doesn’t mean doing more. Maybe it means finishing true.

MY INTERNAL AUDIT

Before we start making the Q4 lists, buying another planner, or deciding you suddenly need seventeen new goals, I want us to sit with something:

If I removed my titles, accomplishments, productivity, relationships, and other people’s expectations of me, what would I still know to be true about who I am?

and then…

What would I do if I already knew I was going to be okay regardless?

THEN… Take it one step further. What still holds enough value in your life that you want to intentionally make room for it during these final months of the year? What are you holding onto simply because it used to matter? And what have you neglected that, if you’re honest with yourself, still matters deeply?

There is a difference between returning to something because you feel guilty and returning because you recognize its value.

One i feel is obligation. The other is choice.

MY INTENTIONAL PULSE

Your value did not disappear during the quiet, and your identity is bigger than your output.

You don’t have to spend Q4 proving who you are. Let these final months be about choosing what matters, releasing what doesn’t, and showing up for what remains as the person you are now.

I don’t know that I need to make some grand promise about never missing another Sunday. Part of what I’m learning is that intention isn’t found in grand declarations anyway; it’s found in choices. So here’s mine: I’m choosing to return to this space. To write. To think out loud with you. To challenge myself and you. To build community here again. And to allow Intentional Impact to continue evolving as I do.

Maybe there’s something you’ve been meaning to return to, too. Something that still matters, even though you haven’t touched it in a while. Something that belongs in the life you’re living now, even if you have to approach it differently than you did before.

You don’t need the perfect comeback. You absolutely can just come back.

With love + intention,
Shakeyla M. Ingram

P.S. N O L A N W E L L S