Make It Smaller

Jun 05, 2024

The hardest thing about going after what you want is your fear that you won’t get it.

It’s really unpleasant to sit in that middle place where half your brain is saying, “We really want this!!”…

…and the other half of your brain is saying, “But there’s no way this is going to happen.”

When you really, really want something AND you think you won’t get it, you PRE-experience all the inadequacy and sadness and disappointment you think will happen in the future…

…and the pre-experience of all those emotions makes you not even want to try.

Not because you “don’t want it badly enough” or are lazy or uncommitted or any of those things.

But because your brain is trying to protect you from those uncomfortable emotions.

But here’s the thing about not trying…

When you don’t try at all in order to protect yourself from disappointment…

…you guarantee that you’ll be disappointed.

Because not trying at all = 0% chance of success.

And trying even a little bit = >0% chance of success.

Now, if you’re anything like me, you can know that intellectually…

…and still, when you sit down to actually do the work, your fear of failure flares up big time and it’s really hard to focus and problem-solve and step into Expert Mode and do your best work.

So here’s my advice for when you’re trying to go after that big thing you really want and half your brain is fully panicking.

Make it smaller.

I’m currently working on a digital course for all of you guys.

I want it to be the best thing ever and provide everything you need and have the perfect business model and make millions of dollars and make me an icon in the industry and AHHHH!!!! That is SO scary to go after because my brain is terrified that I’ll fail!!

If I try to achieve all that in one fell swoop, I get scared and confused and spin around in circles.

That doesn’t mean I need to edit down my ambitions. I still want all of those things, and I’m still aiming for all of it.

But when I freak myself out with the magnitude of my goal, all my brain sees are the problems and the unknowns and the what-if’s and everything I DON’T have confidence in.

And if I try to answer the 1 million fear-based questions that my brain has (What about this? And what about THIS? And what about THAT?)…

I will lose myself in a rabbit hole of confusion and make zero progress.

So instead of answering all my brain’s fears, I redirect it by asking:

What DO I know for sure? What AM I clear on? What DO I have confidence in?

For me, the answer to those questions is this:
I know I want to make the course. And I know I want to run 10 people through it for free.

That feels doable. And it feels like a clear and compelling next step toward the overall vision I’m trying to accomplish.

And YES there are still a ton of unknowns, but I have a place to park them.

For every new question or fear or what-if that my brain gives me, I can say: “Great question! Let’s run 10 people through the course first, and that will give us SO much more information that we’ll be able to figure that out.”

The bigger goal still freaks me out. But I don’t have to focus on that.

I can focus on the clear, compelling, and doable thing that’s right in front of me.

(Side note: This is a repost of a newsletter I wrote about a year ago. I’ve now run 25+ people through the free version of my course and my course is launching very soon!! :D)

Let me give you some more examples.

I used to write detailed recap emails after every client session. It took me hours, had me working every weekend, and severely limited the number of clients I could take on at any given time.

After a year, I didn’t really want to do them anymore.

But the thought of just stopping terrified me. What if all my clients were furious at me and demanded refunds and told everyone they knew how awful I was?

So I made it smaller.

Rather than stopping all at once, I ran an experiment where, for 20 client sessions, I emailed the client afterward and said “Let me know if you want a write-up.” I made it on-demand rather than by default.

Guess what? No one asked for a write-up. And just like that, recaps were out.

I’d like to drink less. I love winding down with a glass or two of wine, but inevitably when I drink, I get snacky, eat a bunch of junk food, sleep terribly, and wake up feeling mildly gross the next day.

But the thought of never drinking ever again feels awful. NEVER? But what about Fridays? And vacations? And when I meet people for a drink? And on sunny afternoons??

So I made it smaller.

I’m not drinking at this specific event tonight. That’s it. After that, we’ll see.

My entire pivot from my corporate career to coaching was made through a series of “make it smaller” steps.

In the beginning, all I knew was:

I wanted to do something that involved writing.
I wanted to help people.
I wanted full intellectual independence.
Oh, and by the way, I also wanted to make plenty of money and not trade down on my expected post-business-school career trajectory in any way.

Uh…where does that exist?? Trying to figure that out all at once was terrifying and impossible.

But at each juncture, even when 99.9% of everything was totally unknown, I could think of ONE thing I could do that WAS known, WAS compelling, and WOULD move me forward.

My steps were:

First three months: Make a small email list of friends. Send them a finished piece of writing two times a week.
- My goal was to do that 100 times and then look backward and see what it was I was trying to say and how I might shape that into a career or product.

Next six months: Do a coach certification. Practice-coach with every person in my cohort every week. Write to my email list about what I was learning.
- My goal was to figure out whether coaching was a good fit for me, or whether I needed to find a more directly “writing-y” path.
Next two months: Coach 10 people for free for six weeks each. I wasn’t ready to charge people yet — that was too big of a leap.
- My goal was to gain confidence and experience coaching real clients in a lower-stakes environment, so I could build up to charging people.

And I’m still taking “make it smaller” steps as I figure out the next stage of my business.

So if you’re currently caught in the middle space where half of you wants to do this thing so badly…and the other half of you is paralyzed with fear that you’ll totally flop.

Don’t stay stuck in indecision and inaction.

Instead, make it smaller.

Don’t “look for your future spouse” (too big!).
Make it small: Meet new people on a regular basis.

Don’t “get funding for your startup” (too big!).
Make it small: Schedule 3 meetings with mentors to practice your pitch.

Don’t “figure out what you want to do next in your career” (too big!).
Make it small: Have 5 coffee chats with 5 friends in different industries and ask for advice.

Action creates clarity.

Action creates motivation.

Action updates your self-image and makes you feel like you’re becoming who you want to be.

Making it too big keeps you stuck in inaction.

Making it small gets you moving.

And I don’t want you to just GET moving.

I want you to STAY moving.

The path to creating the life you actually want…

The career you want, the relationships you want, the habits you want, the emotional experience you want…

That path is full of roadblocks and obstacles and dead ends and uncharted sections you have to hack through yourself.

I don’t say that to depress you.

I say that to tell you that if you’ve been feeling stuck, or going backwards, or wandering around in circles feeling confused…

Nothing is going wrong here.

That’s your journey going RIGHT.

You don’t need to blame yourself or second-guess your decisions or squash your desires down and do what you’re supposed to do.

You just need to get appropriate support for the path ahead.

Nobody thinks they’re weak or uncommitted for not being able to climb Mt. Everest alone. Summiting Mt. Everest is a journey that requires external structure and support.

In the same way, YOU are not weak or uncommitted or “not trying hard enough” if you’re feeling stuck right now.

This path IS challenging. It genuinely DOES require this much problem-solving to figure out. There ARE a lot of false starts and dead ends that can be tricky to navigate.

It’s not a You Problem. It’s a Process Problem.

So adjust the process.

Get yourself the support you need to keep moving forward.

Come talk to me, and let’s get started :)

Book a free coaching consult

What my clients have to say…

“Everything we talked about was actionable.

It never felt like there was something fuzzy where I walked away and had to sort of wonder how this is ever going to impact my life.

At the end of each session, it was very clear what I was going to go away and do differently the next day.”

—Client | Head of Business Development at MedTech Company

Less Stress, More Flow with Pooja V.

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