Victory Begins When You Stop Choosing the Backup Life

The 8 Pillars of Wealth: The Pillar of Victory, Success & Achievement

When you achieve something you have worked hard for, pause, take a deep belly breath, and CELEBRATE it, HONOR it...Let yourself ACTUALLY FEEL the victory.

Too often, we reach a goal and immediately move on to the next thing without letting the achievement land in our bodies. But success deserves to be witnessed. Victory deserves to be marked. Achievement deserves ceremony. And I am not talking adoration and acknowledgment from the outside world. No girl, I am talking about celebrating yourself, even if its by yourself. Especially by yourself.

Maybe that looks like taking yourself on a trip. Maybe it looks like booking a photoshoot. Maybe it looks like a spa day, a beautiful dinner, a solo date, a new outfit, a piece of jewelry, a framed photo, a journal entry, or simply standing in front of the mirror and saying: I did that. I worked for this. I became her.

Because celebration matters. Celebration teaches your body that hard work can lead to joy. It reminds you that the healing was real. It lets the woman who fought for the victory actually receive it. That is part of the Pillar of Victory, Success & Achievement. The work. The devotion. The goal. The celebration. Relish in it. Bask in the glow. And enjoy your victory...because eventually, once the high wears off and your confidence and self-love peaks...so too will your next mountain.

Here is the deeper thing I have learned about victory: When you reach the top of one mountain, the view changes. You can see farther. You can see what your old self could not see yet. And sometimes, after you celebrate the achievement, life asks you a new question: What now? Who are you becoming next? What does this victory make possible?

Because achievement is not the end of the story.

Sometimes achievement becomes a portal and the celebration becomes an initiation. Sometimes the victory you worked so hard for reveals the next version of your calling....and it asks you to leave behind what no longer applies to your forward movement in this lifetime.

STORY TIME.

My path into Victory, Success & Achievement did not start with my business. It started with me at the end of 2022... Lil old Danielle Rae Terhune, a mid-30 something year old woman, newly single after after leaving a tumultuous nine-year relationship, 40 lbs overweight, depressed, lost, borderline alcoholic, moving back in with her parents after selling off her home to completely dissolve her relationship with her ex.

But as low as low felt, it was also the first time in nearly a decade, I had space to focus on myself.

My body. My mind. My healing. My spirituality. My confidence. My joy. My self-love.

For so many years, I had been tied to a relationship that made me feel less-than, stuck, and unworthy of pursuing my dreams. And when it ended, I had to learn who I was again without that dynamic defining my daily life.

In 2023 and 2024, working on myself became my greatest goal. I hired a personal trainer for my body, started pursuing personal growth and mentorship with a mindset coach, and became part of a vegan fitness community where other women were on the same path to greatness.

I was not trying to become someone else. I was trying to come back to myself. So I started with the easiest and most transparent aspect of personal growth: I worked on my physical fitness. And as my fitness and health improved it made space for me to improve my relationship with my body. And when you heal your relationship with your body and begin to trust, then mental health starts to fall into place. And when you start to escape survival mode reconnecting with joy, spirituality, and creativity begin to activate.

I started becoming healthy again...strong again. I started feeling beautiful to myself again. I started realizing that the life I wanted was going to require a version of me who was willing to choose herself. By the end of 2024, going into 2025, I felt proud of the woman I had become. I felt powerful and sexy in my body that I worked so hard to make healthy, strong, and beautiful. I felt like I had achieved something sacred. And I wanted to celebrate that.

What I achieved wasn't small, it was a VICTORY.

Sometimes we rush past the healing because we are already looking for the next milestone, but becoming yourself again after years of losing yourself is achievement.

Coming back to your body is ACHIEVEMENT.

Choosing yourself after years of choosing survival is SUCCESS.

Rebuilding your life after heartbreak, confusion, pain, OR disconnection is ALL THREE.

That was my first mountain.

THE SECOND MOUNTAIN IS IN PROGRESS

In February 2025, I booked a boudoir photoshoot in Florida for September. At first, it was booked as a celebration. A celebration of my body. A celebration of my healing, my self-love, my physical transformation and my soveriegnty.

A celebration of the woman I had spent the last two years becoming. I wanted to honor the body that had carried me through everything. I wanted to document the confidence I had rebuilt. I wanted to celebrate my divine feminine power, my sensuality, my strength, and my self-expression.

That photoshoot was my way of saying: I made it back to myself. I did the work. I am proud of who I have become. That alone would have been enough. Because victory deserves to be celebrated. But after I scheduled that photoshoot, something started shifting quickly. My mindset expanded. My vision expanded. My future started opening. And what began as a celebration of the woman I had become slowly turned into an initiation into the woman I was being called to become next.

When One Mountain Reveals the Next

There is something powerful that happens when you reach the top of one mountain. After I scheduled the photoshoot, my mindset began shifting rapidly.

I had spent years getting good at healing, rebuilding my body, reconnecting with my spirituality. I had started feeling alive again. And then I realized I did not just want to celebrate my own healing and call it a day. I wanted to help other women come back to themselves too.

I started realizing that so many women lose track of their joy, their self-love, their spirituality, their bodies, their creativity, and their own inner knowing because I had personally experience ALL of those things. I started realizing that part of my healing had given me wisdom I wanted to share.

I started realizing that I wished I had had a godmother in my life. Not necessarily in the fairytale way, but in the real-life way. A woman who was worldly, who understood healing. A woman who could say, “You are not crazy. You are becoming.” A woman who could help lead me back to myself. And as I started meeting incredible women, mentors, soul sisters, and guides, I realized something inside me was waking up.

I had a calling.

I wanted to help lead women back to themselves.

LivnLife Was Born While I Was Still in the Old Life

Around that time, I saw an ad for a life coaching program. So I followed my intuitive nudge and I took a masterclass. And something in me lit up. By the end of March 2025, I had started my LLC and LivnLife Consulting was born..BUT... I had no business plan, no idea what I was exactly going to do, or in which way or medium I was going to help. I just followed the nudge of the Universe.

....Also I was still working my corporate sales job, my good old 9-to-5. I was still showing up to the old life while slowly building the new one behind the scenes. I started investing in a website. I started learning. I started figuring out and building the infrastructure for my business. I got a divine download to start working on a creative project to reach women through my favorite medium...cooking...and since it was summer....an ice cream cookbook, Scoop Like a Goddess was born. I had so much fun building that cookbook, I immediately started developing recipes for a larger vegan cookbook based on wholesome meals and magic, Eat Like a Goddess. I began imagining a brand that could support women through nourishment, mindset, body connection, spirituality, self-love, and creative expression.

At first, I thought I was just making cookbooks. Entertaining a new hobby while figuring out my business plan. But the more I created, the more I realized the cookbooks were not just cookbooks.They were tools. They were entry points. And I knew I was onto something bigger when I burst into tears the day I finalized my Ice Cream PDF for publishing. Not because I was sad it had come to an end, because it was the starting point of the LivnLife empire. And the first of many products that would make nourishment and the healing journey feel beautiful, intentional, feminine, and healing again.

By early September, the month of my photo shoot, I was still working my corporate job during the day and then working on my cookbook, recipes, website, and business at night. Many nights, I worked until 2 a.m. And I had done that consistently for months. That season taught me something about devotion. That it feels effortless, joyful, and gets you out of bed in the morning excited for the what the day would bring and what growth would happen! When you are building the thing you are called to build, the energy feels different.

I thought I would feel tired, but I was lit up! I thought to myself "This is a lot!", but the ideas and downloads kept flowing. And the only time I felt drained or emotionally hijacked was working my 9-5....and still doing the practical thing by keeping my job. But my joy was coming from the creative work. My aliveness was coming from LivnLife. And my future was starting to pull on me.

When Security Starts Feeling Like a Cage

My corporate job has always felt like security. I spent 15 years building my experience in the construction industry and my specialty within it was and still is very niche. I was proud of the skills and knowledge I had built over the years. It gave me solid income, health benefits. It gave me a familiar identity. I was always so grateful for my career and still am to this day.

However....it gave me something to fall back on. A contingency plan of sorts. And for a while, that made sense. If this endeavor didn't work out...I could always go back to selling windows and doors. But as my business started growing in my heart, my corporate job started feeling different. It started feeling less like support and more like a drain. Less like stability and more like a tether. It even started to feel....selfish. Because when God shows you your gifts and starts implanting ideas on how to serve others...a job that only benefits your bank account and not the greater good feels hollow. And God told me it doesn't have to be one or the other....he told me I could have both.

But being told, feeling it, believing it is one thing. Saying "Fuck it! Jesus take the wheel!" is something else entirely. I could literally feel my purpose pulling me. My higher self, the woman I was becoming started asking for more of me.

But, I also wanted to hold on to the job. Because let’s be honest. Security is seductive. A steady paycheck is "smart". Health benefits are a thing here in the US. Knowing what to expect is safe. But having a backup plan...contingency plan, the “just in case this does not work” life...that was like telling the universe I trust you...I know you're promising to teach me how to swim....but please don't take away my life jacket...just in case you let me drown. So is that really trust? Or is that fear and doubt?

I started to realize my contingency plan was sometimes quietly giving me permission to not fully jump in.

Having a contingency plan....Sometimes it becomes the place you keep returning to mentally when faith asks you to move forward. Sometimes it allows you to stay half in, half out. Half committed to the calling. It puts you on a path with one foot in the old identity and one in the new. And the Universe doesn't respond to indecision, it responds to clarity.

God Asked Me to Choose my Timeline

As the Florida photoshoot got closer, I started seeing two timelines in front of me. One timeline was safe, predictable, familiar, respectable...and honestly SUPER BORING. I could keep the corporate job. Make decent money. Have benefits. Work the 9-to-5. Go on vacation once a year, maybe. Live close to my means. Eventually retire. Live a quiet, basic life. And from the outside, that probably would have looked fine. And if that's the life that appeals to you...that is 100% okay. Sometimes a chaotic beginning to life, calls for a stable, quiet, and predictable one for the back end. But inside, I knew it was not the fullness of what I was being called into.

The other timeline was uncertain. But it was alive. It was creative. It was risky. It was spiritual. It was service. It was cookbooks, content, art, photos, writing, coaching, serving women, having a mission, a calling and a purpose. She was calling to me...The Godmother of Women. It was the life that scared me (and to be honest, still does) because it requires all of me.

And I think this is where success becomes deeply spiritual. Because success is not always about choosing the option that makes the most sense on paper. Sometimes success is choosing the option that your soul recognizes. Sometimes achievement is not proving anything. Sometimes achievement is refusing to betray the future God keeps whispering into your spirit. And when you hear that on repeat, daily... you begin to realize...if you're unwilling, someone else will be ready to take your place and your possible future.

So when the Universe calls, you go.

Florida Became the Initiation

The Florida photoshoot started as a celebration of the woman I had become. But by the time it arrived, it had become an initiation into the woman I was being called to step into next. It was no longer just about celebrating my body. It was no longer just about honoring my physical transformation. It was no longer just about documenting my confidence.

It had become a threshold moment. What started off as just being a plan for a sexy photoshoot had developed in my mind into a way to shoot my aesthetic, my journey, my brand, and my art. I wanted it to represent the stages of healing. Each set for the shoot represented different archetypes and rights of passage through the healing journey.

The Mirror Remembers- Self Reflection and Remembering I am Worth It

The Healing Journey Begins - Love & Light, What Makes Me Happy?

The Veil is Ripped Away and the Bonds are Broken - Righteous Anger, The Old Identity Burns to the Ground

The Soul Remembers - Baptism - The New Identity is Birthed, Welcome Godmother of Women

The Goddess in Repose - Divine Rest, Trust, and Surrender

It became a doorway, a visual ceremony. A moment where the woman I had been building in private had to be seen in public.

And I knew I was going to use those photos for my art, my social media, my cookbooks, my brand, and whatever else this movement became. Because what I am building is a celebration of the female form. A celebration not just of me, but of women. A celebration of empowerment and sovereignty. A celebration of self-love. A celebration of the body as art, altar, evidence, and home.

I could feel the symbolism getting louder as each day approached. And I knew one thing for a fact. I could not walk into that Florida photoshoot with one foot in and one foot out. I had to quit my 9-5. I could not claim that body, that art, that divine feminine power, that new identity, and still be gripping the old timeline with both hands. I could not initiate into the new timeline while still holding the old one as my backup plan.

The Pinnacle Moment

I did not plan it this way. When I scheduled the photoshoot in February, I did not know that I would be starting my own business and that by September I would be quitting my job. I did not know that the celebration would become a threshold. I did not know that the victory would ask for another victory. But one week before my photoshoot, I hit the pinnacle moment.

My hands were shaking as I sent my resignation email and decided to fully leap into my future and leave my past behind. I quit my corporate job and did the ultimate trust fall into the hands of the Universe.

Not because every detail was perfectly figured out.

Not because I had endless security waiting for me.

Not because it was the easy choice. It was terrifying.

But because I had to choose and I had to make a declaration. "Yes, God, I accept this path."

I had to trust the universe. I had to trust myself, my experiences, and my gifts - both inherited and earned. I had to trust that the calling was not random and I had to trust that a mission rooted in service would be supported.

And I had to trust myself enough to stop building an exit ramp back to a life that no longer fit.

Where I Am Now

Today, I am not standing at the end of the success story. I am standing inside the build. And that matters.

Because sometimes we think victory only counts once everything is polished, profitable, proven, and publicly validated. But that is not true. There is victory in starting, continuing, the investing in the dream before the dream has fully taken flight.

There is victory in building the thing you know will one day hold more women than you can currently see.

Today, my team is growing. I have two cookbooks, (Scoop Like a Goddess & Eat Like a Goddess), I am developing my first nervous system based sustainable weightloss program, Awakened Weightloss™️, I have a LivnLife headquarters -- a dedicated space where I can create, write, film, plan, build, dream, and bring this vision into the physical world.

Scoop Like A Goddess

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Eat Like A Goddess

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And no, I do not have everything figured out. I am still learning the social media game. I am still learning how to get my books into the right hands. I am still learning how to communicate the fullness of this mission. I am still building programs, creating systems and planting seeds.

I am still nurturing the business and I am still getting this thing off the ground.

But the important thing is this: I started. I took the leap of faith. And I continue to invest in the dream I know is becoming real.

Right now, I am building my business the same way I built my body and my mental health.

With devotion.

With consistency.

With faith.

With patience.

With practice.

There are days where I feel powerful, and there are days where I feel unsure.

But every day I see the vision clearly and I keep going.

I have to remind myself that growth is still happening even when the results are not instant, when my videos only get 3 likes, and I don't make a cookbook sales that day.

But I know I have already achieved so much, I am still in the sacred middle. And that's where the beauty happens. Where faith is a discipline and dreames are nurtured by consisitenly showing up.

And I know the success, victory, and triumph of this business is my future. Where millions of women are able to come back to themselves empowered, loved, and radiant is the impact of this business, this purpose and this calling.

✨️ Godmother Reflection ✨️

How far have you come? Let's celebrate it now! I want to hear about your personal victories and achievements. Tell me in the comments section below.

What mountain have you climbed? And what new mountain is calling you now?

Sometimes the backup plan is wise for a season. Sometimes we need structure. Sometimes we need stability. Sometimes we need time to build. And that is something I support. Only you know when you will be ready to take the leap. But there comes a point when the thing that once protected you starts limiting you. There comes a point when the old life starts taking energy from the new one. There comes a point when you have to decide if you are going to keep preparing for failure or fully devote yourself to victory. But that is life's great adventure!

Love you very much.

You got this.

Danielle Rae | Godmother of Women