The blog

The Practice

Stories and insights for living with intention — one decision at a time.

Featured post

A New Chapter

April 12, 2026

If you believe every chapter of life deserves intention, you're in the right place. This is where I share what I'm learning as the founder of 5 Great Decisions® — and where I continue doing the work that has always driven me: helping people get specific about the future they want, and giving them a framework to move toward it.

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Recent posts
March 26, 2026

All Things You

In my last post, I shared how my three books work together — each one meeting people at a different place in their journey. That was All Things Patrice. Now I want to turn the camera around.

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March 14, 2026

All Things Patrice

As 5 Great Decisions gets ready for publication this May, I've been working with a marketing specialist, Andrea, to help spread the word. When she first looked at my website, she said, "It's all things Patrice." I've been sitting with what that actually means.

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February 17, 2026

5 Great Decisions: A Way to Do Hard Things

I'm more than halfway through my sabbatical year of exploring 5 Great Decisions. As I've been preparing vision and mission statements for the next five years, one statement surfaced that captures what 5GD actually does: it's a way to do hard things.

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January 4, 2026

New Year's Resolutions vs 5 Great Decisions: A Different Approach

January 1st rolls around, and we make our declarations: "This is the year I'll finally…" We've all been there. Here's what I've learned: the problem isn't our willpower. The problem is that resolutions ask us to sustain motivation for an entire year.

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December 15, 2025

On the Right Side of the Counter

The past several weeks I've been spending a lot of time in my favorite coffee shops while I work on my next book. This past week, I found myself wondering what it would be like to work part-time as a barista. The idea was prompted by a recent conversation with a 75-year-old man who'd just retired.

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November 10, 2025

From Freedom to Intention: Creating Your Retirement Days

Last month, we talked about the paradox of retirement freedom: you finally have time to design your days, but endless free time doesn't automatically become meaningful time. Without intention, days can slip into autopilot — same routine, same chair, same shows.

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October 12, 2025

Freedom + Direction = Opportunity

Each month, I'll be sharing updates about 5 Great Decisions and how this practice connects to the opportunities and challenges we navigate in retirement. Why does 5GD matter for retirement? Because it directly addresses one of retirement's central paradoxes.

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September 16, 2025

Keeping Up With 5 Great Decisions

Last month I introduced you to 5 Great Decisions — my year-long exploration into what happens when we approach decision-making as a practice of intentional living. My mission is to understand why this simple concept has the power to reshape how we show up in the world.

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August 18, 2025

Introducing 5 Great Decisions

Have you ever had an idea that you believed had real value and needed to be shared with others? Not something grand or complicated — sometimes it's the simplest concepts that hold the most power. That happened to me 20 years ago with something I call 5 Great Decisions.

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