Episode #043
I Was Lying To Myself
Most public conversations about change are retrospective. This one is coming to you in real time.
In the last episode, I announced my latest offer, an opportunity to join me for an intimate in-person gathering in the fall. This episode walks back on that offer.
Instead of saying "everything happens for a reason" or pushing through because "anything worth having is worth working for," I share the deeply personal decision making process, including: the hesitation, conflicting desires, how to feel about sunk costs, treading through embarrassment, relief that comes from making the right, and hard decisions.
Why turn around and release this the same week? Why not wait to see how registration goes? I share answers to those questions and more, offering a rare glimpse into the messy middle that we miss when consuming stories from the other side.
Realizing I Didn’t Actually Want to Sell the Thing I’d Just Announced
The day before I recorded this episode, I was supposed to be promoting an offer I'd just announced.
I had spent months thinking about the next iteration of The Bench, the community I'd run for a year. I knew I didn't want to continue maintaining an ongoing membership. I love being in person, and I work best when I can put everything into something for a concentrated period of time. So I decided I had the answer: two intimate, in-person gatherings a year.
I wrote the sales page. Something felt off, so I rewrote it. Then I rewrote it again. The decision was holding up my website because I couldn't figure out how this offer fit with everything else I was building. There was also a smaller thought I kept pushing aside: I'm not sure this is going to be profitable.
Then it became: I don't want to promote this. And eventually: Maybe nobody will sign up and then I'll have an out.
I had recorded an entire podcast episode explaining the idea and why I believed in creating space for women to work on the things that mattered to them. I still believed everything I'd said about that. But when the episode went live and it was time to actually sell the gathering, I didn't want anyone to see my promotion.
“I could feel this intense feeling in my gut of, I don't want to do this. I don't want anyone to see this. This is wrong.”
For the first time, I admitted what I'd been talking around for months: I didn't want the pressure of filling those seats.
The Difference Between Fear and Knowing Something Is Wrong
I reached out to a couple of people I trust and said it out loud: I don't think I want to do this. That mattered because I've had to learn the difference between being afraid of something and knowing I don't want it anymore.
Fear has stopped me before. For years, I avoided launching a group program because I worried only three people would sign up. What would they think? Would I have to cancel? Would everyone realize I'd been talking a big game?
Eventually, I launched The Bench anyway. I've also hosted five retreats after spending years afraid to do that. This felt different.
The resistance wasn't coming from the possibility that the gathering could fail. I was hoping I wouldn't have to do it at all.
That realization forced me to look at the story I'd been telling myself about what my business needed next. I'd decided I wasn't doing one-on-one work the way I'd done it before. I'd decided the yearlong version of The Bench wasn't right anymore. Somewhere along the way, I turned those decisions into a new problem I needed to solve immediately. If those things were gone, I needed something to replace them. Except I didn't.
My summer was already full of things I'd deliberately chosen: time with my kids, helping my mom move, friendships, the podcast, my new role with the library foundation, and finally releasing the book I'd spent nearly two years writing.
The story that I was telling about myself, that I had to fill this space, it's not actually true.
Walking Away After You’ve Already Invested Time and Money
There was still the uncomfortable question of everything I'd already put into the idea.
I'd collected testimonials. I'd written and rewritten copy. I'd spent months trying to determine how The Bench fit into my business. I'd reserved the house where the gathering would take place. Had I wasted all of that?
This is where sunk costs can make changing direction especially difficult. There's the actual investment, and then there's the public commitment.
I said I was going to do this.
I just started.
I'm known for this.
People will think I'm flaky, indecisive, all over the place.
I've heard versions of those fears from other people, and I've had them myself. This time, I canceled the house, took the offer off my website, and decided to talk about it publicly while I was still processing the decision. I even considered deleting the previous podcast episode. Instead, I left it up.
Most stories about changing direction are told once we know where the change led. I wanted both episodes to exist because this is what the process actually looked like: I believed something, moved forward with it, announced it, and then learned something by getting close enough to the idea to realize I didn't want it anymore.
Changing Your Mind Without Waiting to See If You Fail
I could have waited.
I could have promoted the gathering for a few weeks, watched registration, and canceled if it didn't sell. In some ways, that would have been easier. Then the market would have made the decision for me.
Instead, I canceled before I knew whether other people wanted it. That meant I couldn't blame the decision on low registration or anything outside of myself. I had to trust the information I already had. That's the part of changing direction I'm trying to get better at: stopping once I know.
There are projects we never start because we're scared. There are also things we keep pushing forward because we've already told people we're doing them. We can spend months resenting the work, the people involved, and eventually ourselves because admitting we changed our mind feels worse than continuing.
What I’m trying to untangle, now and forever, is when am I convincing myself to keep moving forward even though I know it's not the right next step?
I don't have The Bench figured out from here. It may come back in another form. For now, it's off the table. I thought it was. Now I realize it wasn't. Maybe another time.
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