I’ve always had a bit of a twitch when someone uses the word impossible. Like a little internal eyebrow raise followed by a mental, “Oh? Is it, though?”
Don’t get me wrong—I’m not some overly confident motivational speaker wearing a headset mic and pacing across a stage in sneakers. I don’t wake up every day and karate-chop the air while whispering, I can do hard things. Sometimes I wake up and karate-chop the snooze button three times before I remember where I am.
But I’ll say this: if you want to see me light up like a Walmart Christmas display in mid-October, tell me something can’t be done. Tell me it’s too complex, too ambitious, too bold, too messy, too “we’ve never done that before.” That’s when my brain tilts its head, smirks, and says, “Game on.”
Because here’s the thing: “It’s kind of fun to do the impossible,” as Walt Disney once said. And it’s even more fun when everyone at the table didn’t think you could.
Let’s be real—Walt Disney was wildly underestimated in his time. Fired from a newspaper for “lacking imagination.” Told no one would ever sit through a full-length animated film. Warned that a theme park based on fairy tales was doomed to fail. And now? Well, good luck finding a child (or adult) who doesn’t know the opening notes of “When You Wish Upon a Star.”
Impossible doesn’t always mean no. Sometimes it just means not yet.
Some of my best ideas—the ones that made people pause or tilt their heads or immediately say “Nope”—started at the kitchen table. Not a leadership retreat. Not a brainstorm with snacks and sticky notes and a laminated agenda. Nope. The kitchen table. Probably with laundry nearby. Maybe some unpaid bills under a candle. Maybe someone yelling from the other room that we’re out of toilet paper.
That’s the kind of energy most “impossible” things are born from. Not polish. Not confidence. Just a hunch. A spark. A quiet, annoying feeling that this thing matters, even if you can’t prove it yet. So you write it down on a napkin. Or text your best friend. Or mumble something like, “This might sound ridiculous, but…”
And sometimes it is ridiculous. And sometimes it turns into something that changes everything.
Nobody talks about this part—the part where the big idea starts out awkward. Where you pitch it to the dog first. Where it sounds cooler in your head. Where you second-guess it before you’ve even shared it. But honestly? I trust the messy ideas more than the shiny ones. The shiny ones are usually safe. The messy ones might just be the start of something real.
I don’t know when it started, but somewhere along the way, a lot of us started getting called too something.
Too much.
Too ambitious.
Too emotional.
Too bold.
Too sensitive.
Too difficult.
Too confident. (Which is rich, considering we were just told to “believe in ourselves” ten minutes ago.)
And the wild part is—none of these things are flaws.
You care deeply? That’s not a weakness. That’s awareness.
You want to build something better? That’s not bossy. That’s vision.
You cry at work? Okay, so your tear ducts function. Cool.
I’ve spent a good chunk of my adult life trying to translate people’s weird labels so they don’t stick to me. And most of the time, “too ___” is just someone else saying, “You’re different from how I would do it, and that makes me uncomfortable.”
Cool. Let them be uncomfortable. You don’t owe anyone smallness. Especially not when the thing you’re dreaming up is going to make the room, the team, the system, or the world a little bit better.
Some of the best work I’ve ever been part of started with a group of people saying, “Well, this might not work.” Sometimes we had limited resources. Sometimes the team was already stretched thin. Sometimes leadership wasn’t fully bought in. Sometimes I wasn’t even sure I was the right person to lead it.
But I’ve learned over the years that bold ideas rarely come with perfect conditions. They usually come when you’re already behind on emails, someone just reheated fish in the office microwave, and your brain is fighting for custody of your last functioning brain cell.
And yet—something inside you knows this matters.
If we hadn’t pushed forward on a few of those “might not work” ideas? The culture, momentum, and overall impact would’ve stayed small. Manageable, sure. But forgettable. And we don’t always need manageable. We need meaningful.
Doing the impossible doesn’t look like a movie montage.
It looks like a spreadsheet with too many tabs. A whiteboard full of half-erased scribbles. A Post-it note that keeps falling off the wall no matter how many times you re-stick it. It looks like a weirdly timed breakthrough after a caffeine crash and a cry in the bathroom. It looks like the moment you almost gave up and didn’t.
And tucked somewhere in all that chaos is usually one laugh, one little win, one good meeting that reminds you why you cared in the first place. And that spark? That’s what keeps you going. Not applause. Not recognition. Not a perfect five-year plan. Just the spark.
If you’ve ever pitched an idea and been met with polite blinking…
If you’ve ever been told, “That’s not how we do it here”…
If you’ve ever been labeled “too much” for simply being awake and aware…
I hope you keep going.
Because sometimes the thing that gets dismissed at first? The thing that gets called impractical or dramatic or “not a priority right now”? That’s the thing that could actually change everything.
So keep showing up with your wild ideas. Keep dreaming out loud, even when your voice wobbles. Keep bringing sticky notes to meetings, even if nobody else is ready to write.
You’re not too late.
You’re not too loud.
You’re not imagining it.
You’re not alone.
Because let’s be honest—impossible is just that coworker who says, “That’ll never work,” before you’ve even finished the sentence. You know the one. They’ve never tried anything new, but they’ve got a lot of opinions. Their favorite hobby is poking holes in things they don’t understand. They think caution is a strategy and eye rolls are feedback.
Bless their hearts.
Let them sit in their swivel chair of doubt. You’re building it anyway. You’re not here for perfect. You’re here for possible.
And possible? Well, possible is already shaking in its boots.
And if the impossible shows up again tomorrow?
Smile. Roll up your sleeves. This is not your cue to quit. It’s your reminder that you’re the kind of person who keeps showing up anyway. Let it underestimate you. You’ve got heart. You’ve got ideas. And you’ve made magic out of less.
So let it come. Let it doubt. You’ll still be here. Still standing. Still dreaming. Still building anyway.
Rachel L. Richard is a small-town farm girl turned suburbanite, a delightfully irreverent optimist, Mrs & Mama, floppy dog ear scratcher, lifelong learner, channel surfer, wanderer, believer, occasional creative, out-of-practice musician, cupcake addict, book devourer, and lover of all people.
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