402: Permission to Evolve: 2026 Podcast Transformation

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Courtney Townley 0:00
Welcome to the Grace and Grit Podcast made for women who want their healthiest years to be ahead of them, not behind them. Join your host Courtney Townley right now as she breaks down the fairy tale health story you have been chasing all of your life into sensible action steps and lasting change.

Courtney Townley 0:28
Hello, my friends, and welcome to the Grace and Grit Podcast. I’m Courtney Townley, your host for the show, and I am delighted that you’re here. Man, we have had a busy, busy month in the grace and grit world. Over the past few weeks, we crossed the 400th episode of the grace and grit podcast, and I launched my first book on November 5, The Consistency Code: A Midlife Woman’s Guide to Deep Health and Happiness. So I have a lot of reason to celebrate.

Courtney Townley 0:57
I feel so proud of both of these things, the podcast, making it as far as it has. And this book, I just put my everything into it, and I feel so proud of what I created, and I sure hope you will go out and buy a copy. You will share the message with your family and friends, and that if you think it’s worthy, you will leave a review, because reviews help us to get the book into the hands of more women. So please, please, please consider doing that favor for me, and thank you in advance.

Courtney Townley 1:29
So I have a big announcement today. I have been chewing on this for actually a couple of years, and because of the point, we’ve arrived at 400 episodes, this is actually the 400 and second episode, to be exact, and the launch of my book, I just feel like now’s a really good time to pivot. And so this podcast is actually going to turn into a daily podcast going into 2026 so it is going to be a daily hit of grace and grit. They will be very short and sweet episodes that offer you a little bit of inspiration, education and motivation.

Courtney Townley 2:14
I have long wanted to do this because I like listening to shows that I can touch base with every day, just getting a small touch point around something I care about, and I hope that thing that you care about is you, and helping you to get traction and stay the course with your commitments and really help you to continue to reframe and reconsider what health even means to you at this age and stage of your life. So I am really excited to be offering you daily five to 10 minute episodes starting January 1 of 2026 and there will still be the occasional long form interview. I will still do a few interviews throughout the year, and I will simply drop those as bonus episodes.

Courtney Townley 3:02
There’s a few reasons I wanted to make this shift. First and foremost, it’s just something that I have felt really fired up about for quite a long time. Like I said, I like listening to certain shows that I listen to every single day, and it just gives me a touch point. It gives me a way of resetting and reframing my own mind. And I want to offer something similar to you.

Courtney Townley 3:28
I also think that the landscape of podcasting is changing. There are so many more podcasts than there used to be, of course, when I first came on the scene 10 years ago. And I also think that the attention span and the bandwidth of the listener has changed. So while, of course, I am always going to be an advocate for in depth conversations, that’s largely the work that I do inside of my Rumble and Rise community and in the courses that I teach, but the podcast, I feel like sometimes we just need a little bit of a hit, right? We just need a little bit of inspiration, a tiny bit of education, because we’re living in the world, or a world where there is just so much information at our disposal. And of course, our resources are more limited than ever, our time energy, our mental bandwidth.

Courtney Townley 4:18
So I really wanted to create a show that just took into consideration all of those elements and really allowed me to get into your ear on a more frequent basis, and allow you to maybe consume a little bit less per episode, but still feel like you’re reaping a lot of value to stay the course with your commitments.

Courtney Townley 4:43
I have long been a proponent of giving yourself permission to evolve. In fact, I have done so many podcasts on this show, so many episodes on this show about the grace. And kindness of extending yourself permission to evolve, and that’s really what I’m doing here, when we don’t give ourselves permission to evolve and grow. Of course, that does not bode well for our health or our happiness, and I want to offer to you that evolution, whether it’s through a podcast or it’s something in our personal lives, it doesn’t mean we abandon what we built. So me making a shift with this show does not, by any stretch of the imagination, mean I am abandoning the show.

Courtney Townley 5:36
The way that I look at it is it’s really honoring the show and letting it continue to grow by allowing it to transform. And I learned this kind of the hard way in my career. Many of you know I was a trainer. I was a fat loss coach for many, many years, and I got to a point where I knew it was time to evolve. I knew it was time to move on to bigger conversations than diet and exercise. But when you’ve built a career out of talking about diet and exercise and helping people with diet and exercise, it feels really risky to move out of that conversation, and I knew about five years before I gave myself permission to change that I wanted to change that I wanted to evolve.

Courtney Townley 6:34
And once I finally did, I felt so much happier and healthier as a human, and that’s the way that I see the evolution. Of the show. I am so proud of what I’ve built over 400 episodes. I believe so deeply in every conversation that we have had on this show, over 400 episodes. And I’ve known for a while that it’s time to evolve and change, for my sake, for your sake, for the sake of the show itself, when we stay stuck or fixated on what used to work, and we’re attached to the idea that it should always look that way no matter what, I think it can really prevent us from stepping into our full potential. And so change is always risky.

Courtney Townley 7:21
I don’t know how this is going to work, but it is definitely an experiment worth running, right? I’m excited about it. I feel like it’s going to infuse some new life into the show. Hopefully it’s going to bring you some new energy and maybe even some new information and inspiration that you haven’t heard before on this show, and I am embracing the courage that it takes to shift directions, right? So there will still be a Grace and Grit Podcast. We are just shaking up the way that we’re doing it, and I hope you’re as excited about that prospect as I am.

Courtney Townley 7:56
So what you can expect in 2026 is there will be daily drops of this show, starting on January 1. They will be quick, actionable pieces of content that will help you to live your day with, of course, more grace and more grit and yeah, by the end of the year, you’re going to have 365 amazing little mini shows, which I think is going to be an incredible resource for all of us. So this is actually going to be my very last podcast for 2025 obviously, I need a little time to reset and regroup and recalibrate for what’s coming in 2026 and to be totally honest, I need a little I need a little rest. Building up to launch of my book was a really big push and an awful lot of work that I was so happy to do. It was such an enjoyable experience. And I also knew I was going to be really tired on the other side of my launch, and that has proven to be true. So I am so excited to see you in 2026 I hope you will come back to take in what this new offer is.

Courtney Townley 9:08
In the meantime, there are 400 episodes of this show waiting for you to listen to. Many of you have been with me from the beginning, but those of you who have not, there is plenty of content to absorb already housed in this podcast. And also there’s the book, right? The book was literally my way of consolidating 400 episodes of a podcast into one offer. So you wouldn’t necessarily have to listen to 400 episodes of a show. So I hope you will go out again, like I said at the beginning, beginning of this episode today, go out and buy the book, share it with the women in your life who you think could benefit from the message, please leave a review, whether you’re listening to it through audible or you’re reading the paperback version or the Kindle version, please leave a review wherever you bought the book, because it certainly helps. Helps the book and the algorithms and all the things to get out in front of more people.

Courtney Townley 10:07
Thank you so much for being with me on this journey so far, I am just so full of gratitude. I feel so blessed to be able to have a show that has lasted a decade, and I cannot wait to see what is in store in the evolution of this show. So I will see you on January 1 for your first Hit of Grace and Grit, your first Daily Hit of Grace and Grit. And I wish you a very strong and powerful and meaningful finish to 2025 thank you so much, my friends, and I will see you very soon. Take care.

Courtney Townley 10:51
Thank you for listening to the Grace and Grit Podcast. It is time to mend the fabric of the female health story, and it starts with you taking radical responsibility for your own self-care. You are worth the effort, and with a little grace and grit, anything is possible.