I talk with women every day who say that each day feels like a "little death." They feel lost, or confused and anxious, or downright hopeless. They dream of feeling peaceful and happy while doing work they absolutely love.

And when I ask them what they're doing to achieve their dream, their answer almost always breaks my heart.

They're so overwhelmed by their daily struggles that they don't even have the time or energy to figure out what they would actually love to do.

There's a huge discrepancy between what they say they want and what they're actually doing. They want peace, but their focus is on their struggles. They want to find their purpose, but they're always looking somewhere "out there" and it always seems just out of reach.

Of course, I understand because that used to be me. And if that's you, if you're also one of those women who wants to find your peace or your purpose, but don't feel close to whatever that is, then you probably feel like there's something wrong with you.

You probably think you're lazy or unmotivated. Maybe you think you don't want it that much, or that you are somehow broken.

Well, here's what you need to know. (Be sure to write this down.)

There is nothing wrong with you.

You are not broken. You're not unmotivated. You're not lazy. And it's not hopeless.

Whether you know what inner peace or your purpose is or not, if you're in pain it's because you've tried things before and they didn't work. And when you think of trying again it hurts too much.

If you feel like every day is a struggle, you're experiencing what I would call a breakdown. But I want you to know that's really good news.

There's actual real scientific evidence to back this up. Scientists explain it as chaos theory, the universal theory of change… that major breakthroughs are always preceded by major breakdowns.

Thanks to your current breakdown, you are now ready to usher in a new and better way of being.

Dee Hock once said: "The problem is not to get new ideas, because these come effortlessly. The problem is to let go of the old ones – and that does not happen without a conscious effort."

Since life – by its own nature – always goes towards growth and expansion, we often get pushed out of our old beliefs by a crisis or a series of crises. Yes, the process can be incredibly painful but it's even more painful to resist the change than to surrender and learn from it.

My belief is that, if we resist, another crisis will always arise. And another, and another – until we finally get it. Again, this is a central tenet in chaos theory: any system will evolve when it is exposed to external challenges, but as these challenges build up, it gets harder and harder for the system – and this applies to any system, from an organism to an ecosystem, to a scientific theory – to maintain its equilibrium.

Under stress, the disorder in a system builds up until it reaches a "bifurcation point," where the system has only two possibilities open to it: a breakthrough – in which the system learns to thrive under the new conditions – or a breakdown, in which the system loses its equilibrium entirely, and the components of the system begin to separate and suffer accordingly.

So the question is: What will be your life path? Will you let the challenges you face lead you along the path to transformation and freedom – to a breakthrough – or into a continuous cycle of breakdowns?

Think about the caterpillar as it becomes the butterfly. A few days after forming the chrysalis, the caterpillar is gone. It has lost its skin, its shape, and its life as a caterpillar, and it's now only a sort of goop. To survive, the organism can only move toward its destined form, the butterfly.

This is truly what transformation is all about: liberating the butterfly out of the caterpillar, and doing so in a way that allows no going back. Transformation is not about adding things to you but about shedding the things that define and limit you right now so you can take on the form you are destined to achieve. In other words, the secret to personal transformation is letting go.

Of course, there's a big difference between you and the butterfly: the caterpillar doesn't have to make a conscious choice to let go of its life. It just does it. But in order for you to transform, you're going to have to make a conscious choice to do so.

You really do get to choose.

So write this down: What is your breakdown? How are your thoughts about the challenges you face – the series of crises you're dealing with – limiting your ability to transform? And: how can you set yourself free?