In this episode of Lessons from a Quitter, we tackle the hidden thought that’s keeping you stuck: What if this doesn’t work, and I waste my time? Too many of us are paralyzed by the need for a guarantee before we take action—whether it’s starting a business, changing careers, or even picking up a new hobby. But what if failure isn’t wasted time, but instead, the very thing that leads you to success? We break down how shifting your mindset around risk, failure, and growth can help you stop waiting for certainty and start building the life you truly want.
Ep. 341: Trying something new? Here's why it's worth it (even if it doesn't work out!)
Ep. 341
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Hello, my friends, and welcome to another episode. I'm so excited to have you here.
We're gonna talk about a topic that I think is really important because it has come to my attention that it is the secret killer of so many of your dreams, of so many people stopping themselves from going after the dream, starting the business, even a new hobby, trying something new. And it took me a while to recognize it, but I realize it now in every one of my clients. It comes up over and over again. And so I wanna address it once and for all so we can move past it and actually get out there and create our dream lives and try new things and grow and explore.
And it's this thought of what if this doesn't work and I waste my time. What if it's not worth it because it's not successful. So the underlying belief is that if I don't get the exact result I want, if it's not some huge success, then it won't be worth having done the work, right? So for so many of you, you end up wanting a guarantee, which you'll never get because it doesn't work like that, before you even start, right? You're like, if I'm gonna start this business, if I'm gonna change the job, if I'm to start that hobby or that side hustle or the Instagram account or write the book. I wanna know it's gonna work 'cause otherwise it won't be worth it. It won't be worth the effort. It won't be worth the time. It won't be worth the years that I put into it. And I don't wanna waste all that, quote unquote. And I want to let you know that it is worth it even if it doesn't turn
out the way you want. It is worth it, even if you don't get the result that you were dreaming of. And I know that that seems like impossible. Like, no, it's not. But I want you to really listen to how I want you to think about this, because I think it can change how you approach the entire journey of going after your dreams, the entire journey of going after these big goals, okay?
So here's the thing. We have a cultural obsession with success, right? We have, it has been
instilled in us from when we were children where the only goal is to get an A + like the only goal is to get as close to 100 % as possible and we are obsessed with kind of winners and losers and success and failure and it's very binary it's very black and white and in certain instances in certain paradigms it works maybe you know it is helpful I guess to know the winner in a soccer match or in a football game or in a race, it's not really helpful in the real world because that
is not the way that our lives work. It is not these binaries. It is not black and white is not success or failure. And yet for so many of us, we are so fixated on this one external achievement on like whether I will know something is going to be a success or not. And we're also obsessed with this idea of like having it instantly, right? Like getting rich quick, getting there quickly, having that success so I can prove to everybody that I'm as amazing as I think I am. And we have these, these, this fear that we're constantly behind, that we haven't gotten there yet, that we have to get these things in order to prove that we are good enough and that we're behind and like, so if I'm going to do this thing, I don't want to waste more time. I hear this all the time. Like I don't want to waste my time and I'm here to tell you that It is not a waste of time to try new things, to go after something new, to push yourself even if, like I said, you don't end up getting that external achievement that you want.
And here's why I think this for a number of reasons. The first reason is that this is how you learn anything. This is how human beings learn, right? We try something, we fail, we figure out what we did wrong, we figure out what didn't work, we learn from that and we grow, right? It is how success is built. You've heard the like all of the, you know, there's all these cliches, all of these like sayings like you want to increase your rate of success, double your rate of failure. There's constant examples of people who have continuously talked about like their failures and then
they get a success. It's not by chance. it's that you build on each one. It's that you learn like, huh, this worked, this didn't work. I'm going to keep kind of learning and adding it to the next thing. So I'm not starting over, I'm bringing that experience with me, and that will set me up for success. So even if I don't get it with this one, I am learning the skills that I need. I'm learning the qualities that I need. I'm becoming the person that needs to create the next thing and the next thing. If you think about children, imagine if a kid was like, "I don't wanna try riding a bike because I might fall." It's like, "No, you are gonna fall." I was like, "It's not gonna be worth my time if I go out there today for an hour and I fall all the time." Of course it will be worth your time because you're gonna fall the next day and the next day too and then eventually you're gonna learn how to ride that bike, it will only happen by you falling continuously, right? Until you figure it out. It's the same thing with literally anything that you do in your life. We've just been sold this lie that you're supposed to just jump on the bike and know exactly what you're doing. Like the first time you ever do it, you're supposed to start the business and all of a sudden it's supposed to be a success in six months and you're supposed to make a ton of money. And that's
just the way it's supposed to be says who, when, when has that ever happened? If you look at people that are "successful," you will see their path littered with tons of failures because they were willing to take that risk and try things and see what works and what doesn't. One of my favorite things is hearing stories of entrepreneurs where it's like, "I tried this business and I failed, and I tried that business and I failed, and then I tried this other business." It's each thing added to their knowledge base, which helped them ultimately become a success.
If you listened to last week's episode, I talked about my own journey and I talked about the journal entry that I saw from nine years ago that talked about my past business, which was my first foray into entrepreneurship, where I was building a photo booth business and ultimately I ended up shutting down that business. And you could say from a success failure standpoint that it wasn't quote unquote worth it because it didn't become a success, right? I ended up closing it before it ever really gained any traction. But it absolutely was not a failure because the everything that I learned in that business was what helped me make this business a success is what helped me make this business maybe a success faster than other people who started out with a coaching business without ever having run a business. When I did that photo with business, I learned how to market. I learned how to sell, I learned Instagram, I took courses on like how to sell on social media, I learned about branding, I learned about entrepreneurship, I learned the back end, I learned about you know taxes, I created an LLC, I had done all of this legwork and I could have looked at that and say like I put in four years into that business and it didn't go anywhere but it did. It was like invaluable information that I got that came with me, not all of it because I'm not doing manufacturing and I'm not making products anymore. But even that, it taught me to cold call and reach out to people and ask people for help and accept help and get rejected and get rejected again and again and again and be okay with that and start getting better at getting rejected. Right? I learned so much from that business. I'm so grateful for that business. It also helped clarify for me what I wanted. By taking action, I started figuring out what I like and what I don't like. In that business, it became really clear what parts of the business I did like and what parts I didn't. And when I did this business, it was because it was much more aligned with the parts of the business that I actually like. I didn't really like manufacturing and products and product development and that kind of stuff. I didn't want to have a product business. I could only know that once I did it, right? I could only get that data and that information because I'd done it and I saw what it took and I saw like what lights me up and what didn't. And so I learned so much about myself. I learned so much more about what I want and what I don't and the type of business I want to create and whether I do want to scale and do I want something that has to go nationally or that needs investment or do I want to create more of a lifestyle business. All of that came from doing something and getting more information about it, even if I didn't get the result I wanted, right? And so one of the reasons, the number one reason that I think you should do it, that I think it's worth it, is because you will learn so much about yourself, about the task, right? Even getting information that you don't like this thing is enough, is really good information to have. Like I think a lot of people think, if I start that hobby, let's say I think I wanna be an influencer, and I'm gonna start the Instagram, and I'm gonna work on it for like a year. And then I realize I actually hate it. I actually don't like being on social media and I really don't wanna deal with brands and I don't wanna do this. That's really valuable information. You don't have to spend for the next 10 years constantly telling yourself, what if you did it? You should have done it. Look at that person making all this money. You'd be like, I did it and it wasn't for me. It wasn't for my personality. Good to know. I also did learn a lot of stuff and I can bring that along with me, right?
The other thing I will say about what you learn along the way is so much about yourself and who you become. I know for me, when I did a lot of the things that I was, you know, whether it was the law degree I got or whether it was the previous business, so much of it shaped who I became. So like for me, I can look back and think was my law degree worth it because I don't practice the law anymore. And it's easy to say no. It's easy to say like, no, it was a waste
of time and it was a waste of money. But it fundamentally changed how I think it changed how I show up. It changed the people that I got to meet. It changed the networks that I met. It changed the communities that I built. It changed the people I talk to. I mean, it's the basis of this business, right? And so you look back at the ripple effects of the things that you've done and how it's created, like made you into who you are. Right? When I did the first business, it fundamentally shifted how I dealt with being seen and the fear of being judged and the fear of
embarrassment and the fear of, um, what other people think of me and rejection. I had, I was terrified to deal with those things and that business forced me to do it. And that ultimately fundamentally shifted how I see myself and what I'm allowed to do and what I'm allowed to go after. And so again, maybe that business in and of itself wasn't quote unquote worth it because it didn't go anywhere, but it was invaluable to me and how it helped me grow and how it helped me like learn more about myself and how it helped me develop characteristics that I wanted, it traits that I wanted. And so really it sort of comes down to like, how do we define success? Like, is it only a success because it made a certain amount of money or dollars? Or is there other things that come from this that are valuable in that journey that have nothing to do with whether you actually get to that destination or not, right? I think that you will gain so much by taking these risks, right? The compound effect of constantly taking risks, of dealing with your fears, of putting yourself out there, of building your own resilience of being able to deal with rejection of learning more about yourself like that Creates the person that you want to be in the future Creates the person that goes after risks creates the person that liberate themselves enough to do things that are scary They're fun that are joy -filled that aren't just like well Is it gonna be a success so everybody else can see me succeed or is it gonna be failure and I'm gonna be so terrified I'm never gonna try anything else again. You'll have to get out of this binary. There's so much more richness. There's so much more available to you other than whether you ultimately get to this one end result. Because let me tell you, even when you get there, you don't think you got there. Like you think, okay, if I make this much money, then I'm going to be happy, but you get there and then you'll just move the goalposts, then you're like, well, the business isn't really a success if I don't double it or triple it or whatnot. And so you have to sort of figure out like what, how am I defining this success in my life? Right? And so I think that again, the amount of information you get, you get to decide like this is worth it because of this journey I'm gonna go on. This is worth it regardless of what happens because I'm gonna know, you know, I'm gonna learn these things and I want you to do that as an exercise. Before you start whatever dream you're gonna go after I want you to ask that question. How can I know this will be worth it? What
am I going to gain from this journey, from doing this, right? I have my clients do this all the time. So let's say if I want to start a business and I ask myself that question. Because if, if my only success is if I make a certain amount of money, then yeah, it's very easy to see something as success failure. But if I have like, okay, I'm going to learn how to be disciplined and I'm going to learn how to do things that make me uncomfortable and I'm going to have to take up space and
I'm going to have to be seen and I'm going to have have to be okay with judgment and I'm gonna learn how to deal with my people pleasing because I'm gonna have to say no to people and I'm gonna have to learn to deal with my fear of rejection and I'm gonna have to learn to deal with my fear of embarrassment and I'm gonna have to learn sales and marketing and I'm gonna learn these new skills that I can transfer to anything else and and if you keep going and I'm gonna be an example for my kids I'm gonna be a role model that shows them what it's like to go after your dreams and I'm gonna develop resilience and I'm gonna develop it. There are so many things in this one thing. There's so many reasons to go after it that have nothing to do with whether you fin, you cross some finish line or not. And that is the point of going on it on that journey, right? Is all of those side effects, all of the ripple effects that you're going to get by doing this thing, that makes it worth it, right?
And And, you know, the other reason is that because like, that is the only way to be successful. Like no one can guarantee you that it's going to work and no one can tell you where it's going to go from there, but the only way to succeed at these things is to start and add on top and to keep going, right? To like keep adding these foundational things, lessons that you learn, even if it's a result of a quote unquote failure to build the next thing and the next thing.
The last thing I will say about this is that the reason it can be worth it is because you get to decide that it's worth it. So I want you to understand this concept, it's a little meta, it's a little bit like, you may not, it may take you a while to figure this out. But the thought, is it worth it, is just a thought. Okay, stick with me. It's just as true as it's not worth it. You just are thinking those thoughts. So I'm going to give you like an example. The feeling that you feel when you think those thoughts is regret, right? If you think it's not worth it, you regret it, you feel ashamed, you think you shouldn't have wasted your time, whatnot. Again, you get to just think, no, it was worth it because I got X, Y, and Z. So I talk about this a lot. I did an episode on regret as the same thing. You can sit and think thoughts that make you feel regret. I could sit and think I wasted my time when I went to law school. I wasted $100 ,000. I shouldn't have done it. You know, derailed me for three years and I did a career I didn't like for another seven and I lost that 10 years and I can think all those thoughts and I can create a lot of shame and I can create a lot of regret and I can create a lot of anger and I can get the results from that in my life, right? Where it's spinning about things or it's beating myself up or it's being mad at maybe my parents for guiding me in that way or the you know school counselors or whatever. And the result that that creates in my life is a whole lot of nothing. A whole lot of spinning, a whole lot of anger. It doesn't do anything. But I can choose not to regret it. I can decide just to think the thought like of course it was worth it for all the reasons I've said right for how it helped me grow for how it changed the way I think for the people that I met for who came into my life, for the experiences I had, for how I'm able to, you know, write my own contracts and review my own contracts. And I have this knowledge base that will help me for the rest of my life. And the fact that it has given me critical thinking
skills and all these other beautiful reasons that are there. And I get to think that, and even that is just a made up thought. But when I think that thought and I think, and I feel grateful and I feel proud of myself for going through that. How I show up in my life is much different, right? How I show up for the next set of challenges is different. How I approach a new risk is different without as much fear, because I've decided I'm not gonna regret it. I've decided that I'm gonna take whatever lessons are gonna come from it, and I'm gonna use that to also grow and get to the next thing, and the next thing, and the next thing. And so I want you to understand that it's a choice. You get to choose to think this. So when people ask me like, well, what if it's not worth it? And I'm like, you get to just choose if it's worth it or not. Even before you just do it, even before you even start it, you get to decide. You get to decide, let's say like, as an example, like relationships. You can choose that all past relationships that didn't work weren't worth it. It was just a waste of time. Or you get to choose But they were worth it because they taught you a lot of really important lessons about yourself, about the other person, about relationships, about dealing with people, about what you will accept, about boundaries, about tons of things. And so you get that choice. But the reality is, is that one way, one way you choose is going to create results in your life that have you constantly beating yourself up, constantly being upset, constantly feeling more stuck and scared, being terrified that you might make a mistake, being terrified that it won't work out. And the other way of choosing will allow you to open yourself up to any experience, to learning from things, to making mistakes, to failing at things, to seeing what you got from that instead of just, you know, painting Painting it with a broad brushstroke of a failure. It allows for so much more richness, which allows you to show up in your life less encumbered, less scared, less terrified of always making a mistake, less risk averse. So you get that choice. And so the reason I wanted to the, I want you to understand that you have that power of deciding and one of the things I do, one of the exercises I do that you can steal But before I start something, I write down all of the reasons of why it's going to be worth it. I choose intentionally to decide that it is going to be worth it, that the next couple of years that I'm going to dedicate to this project or I'm going to write the book or I'm going to start becoming a paid speaker, even if I don't end up getting, you know, any money for it. Even if I don't end up making it on big stages, why is Why is it gonna be worth it? What am I gonna learn from this? How is it gonna shape me? What is it gonna set me up for? How is it gonna affect my children, or my spouse, or my friends? What is it an example of? What if I, even if I don't decide that I hate it, what am I gonna learn from that? The more you learn how to like decide ahead of time that it is worth it, the more it will be worth it.
And so I want you to know that you can never know how it's going to turn out. You can never know what the results going to be. You can never predict all of the things that are going to come up, but you can choose that it will be worth it regardless. And it makes it so much more fun and it makes it so much more less pressured and it makes it so much more rich because there are so many lessons in the quote unquote failures or when things don't go the way that you want them to. So I hope as you move forward and as you think about your dreams and you think about your goals, that you don't let the worry of it not being worth it or being a waste of time, be the thing that stops you from going after those goals. I hope you go after them, even if you will never hit them, even if you, we don't even know what's going to happen. I hope that you know that it is worth it and that you can make it worth it.
If you want help going after those goals and learning why it's worth it and figuring out what you're gaining from it and changing how you think about these goals. I want you to join me in my membership, The Quitter Club. It is where we do this work. It is where I can coach you on your goals so that you don't give up over silly things like what if I fail? You can go to lessonsfromacquitter.com/quitterclub and join us there. All right, my friends, I hope you find this helpful and I will see you next week for another episode.
We're gonna talk about a topic that I think is really important because it has come to my attention that it is the secret killer of so many of your dreams, of so many people stopping themselves from going after the dream, starting the business, even a new hobby, trying something new. And it took me a while to recognize it, but I realize it now in every one of my clients. It comes up over and over again. And so I wanna address it once and for all so we can move past it and actually get out there and create our dream lives and try new things and grow and explore.
And it's this thought of what if this doesn't work and I waste my time. What if it's not worth it because it's not successful. So the underlying belief is that if I don't get the exact result I want, if it's not some huge success, then it won't be worth having done the work, right? So for so many of you, you end up wanting a guarantee, which you'll never get because it doesn't work like that, before you even start, right? You're like, if I'm gonna start this business, if I'm gonna change the job, if I'm to start that hobby or that side hustle or the Instagram account or write the book. I wanna know it's gonna work 'cause otherwise it won't be worth it. It won't be worth the effort. It won't be worth the time. It won't be worth the years that I put into it. And I don't wanna waste all that, quote unquote. And I want to let you know that it is worth it even if it doesn't turn
out the way you want. It is worth it, even if you don't get the result that you were dreaming of. And I know that that seems like impossible. Like, no, it's not. But I want you to really listen to how I want you to think about this, because I think it can change how you approach the entire journey of going after your dreams, the entire journey of going after these big goals, okay?
So here's the thing. We have a cultural obsession with success, right? We have, it has been
instilled in us from when we were children where the only goal is to get an A + like the only goal is to get as close to 100 % as possible and we are obsessed with kind of winners and losers and success and failure and it's very binary it's very black and white and in certain instances in certain paradigms it works maybe you know it is helpful I guess to know the winner in a soccer match or in a football game or in a race, it's not really helpful in the real world because that
is not the way that our lives work. It is not these binaries. It is not black and white is not success or failure. And yet for so many of us, we are so fixated on this one external achievement on like whether I will know something is going to be a success or not. And we're also obsessed with this idea of like having it instantly, right? Like getting rich quick, getting there quickly, having that success so I can prove to everybody that I'm as amazing as I think I am. And we have these, these, this fear that we're constantly behind, that we haven't gotten there yet, that we have to get these things in order to prove that we are good enough and that we're behind and like, so if I'm going to do this thing, I don't want to waste more time. I hear this all the time. Like I don't want to waste my time and I'm here to tell you that It is not a waste of time to try new things, to go after something new, to push yourself even if, like I said, you don't end up getting that external achievement that you want.
And here's why I think this for a number of reasons. The first reason is that this is how you learn anything. This is how human beings learn, right? We try something, we fail, we figure out what we did wrong, we figure out what didn't work, we learn from that and we grow, right? It is how success is built. You've heard the like all of the, you know, there's all these cliches, all of these like sayings like you want to increase your rate of success, double your rate of failure. There's constant examples of people who have continuously talked about like their failures and then
they get a success. It's not by chance. it's that you build on each one. It's that you learn like, huh, this worked, this didn't work. I'm going to keep kind of learning and adding it to the next thing. So I'm not starting over, I'm bringing that experience with me, and that will set me up for success. So even if I don't get it with this one, I am learning the skills that I need. I'm learning the qualities that I need. I'm becoming the person that needs to create the next thing and the next thing. If you think about children, imagine if a kid was like, "I don't wanna try riding a bike because I might fall." It's like, "No, you are gonna fall." I was like, "It's not gonna be worth my time if I go out there today for an hour and I fall all the time." Of course it will be worth your time because you're gonna fall the next day and the next day too and then eventually you're gonna learn how to ride that bike, it will only happen by you falling continuously, right? Until you figure it out. It's the same thing with literally anything that you do in your life. We've just been sold this lie that you're supposed to just jump on the bike and know exactly what you're doing. Like the first time you ever do it, you're supposed to start the business and all of a sudden it's supposed to be a success in six months and you're supposed to make a ton of money. And that's
just the way it's supposed to be says who, when, when has that ever happened? If you look at people that are "successful," you will see their path littered with tons of failures because they were willing to take that risk and try things and see what works and what doesn't. One of my favorite things is hearing stories of entrepreneurs where it's like, "I tried this business and I failed, and I tried that business and I failed, and then I tried this other business." It's each thing added to their knowledge base, which helped them ultimately become a success.
If you listened to last week's episode, I talked about my own journey and I talked about the journal entry that I saw from nine years ago that talked about my past business, which was my first foray into entrepreneurship, where I was building a photo booth business and ultimately I ended up shutting down that business. And you could say from a success failure standpoint that it wasn't quote unquote worth it because it didn't become a success, right? I ended up closing it before it ever really gained any traction. But it absolutely was not a failure because the everything that I learned in that business was what helped me make this business a success is what helped me make this business maybe a success faster than other people who started out with a coaching business without ever having run a business. When I did that photo with business, I learned how to market. I learned how to sell, I learned Instagram, I took courses on like how to sell on social media, I learned about branding, I learned about entrepreneurship, I learned the back end, I learned about you know taxes, I created an LLC, I had done all of this legwork and I could have looked at that and say like I put in four years into that business and it didn't go anywhere but it did. It was like invaluable information that I got that came with me, not all of it because I'm not doing manufacturing and I'm not making products anymore. But even that, it taught me to cold call and reach out to people and ask people for help and accept help and get rejected and get rejected again and again and again and be okay with that and start getting better at getting rejected. Right? I learned so much from that business. I'm so grateful for that business. It also helped clarify for me what I wanted. By taking action, I started figuring out what I like and what I don't like. In that business, it became really clear what parts of the business I did like and what parts I didn't. And when I did this business, it was because it was much more aligned with the parts of the business that I actually like. I didn't really like manufacturing and products and product development and that kind of stuff. I didn't want to have a product business. I could only know that once I did it, right? I could only get that data and that information because I'd done it and I saw what it took and I saw like what lights me up and what didn't. And so I learned so much about myself. I learned so much more about what I want and what I don't and the type of business I want to create and whether I do want to scale and do I want something that has to go nationally or that needs investment or do I want to create more of a lifestyle business. All of that came from doing something and getting more information about it, even if I didn't get the result I wanted, right? And so one of the reasons, the number one reason that I think you should do it, that I think it's worth it, is because you will learn so much about yourself, about the task, right? Even getting information that you don't like this thing is enough, is really good information to have. Like I think a lot of people think, if I start that hobby, let's say I think I wanna be an influencer, and I'm gonna start the Instagram, and I'm gonna work on it for like a year. And then I realize I actually hate it. I actually don't like being on social media and I really don't wanna deal with brands and I don't wanna do this. That's really valuable information. You don't have to spend for the next 10 years constantly telling yourself, what if you did it? You should have done it. Look at that person making all this money. You'd be like, I did it and it wasn't for me. It wasn't for my personality. Good to know. I also did learn a lot of stuff and I can bring that along with me, right?
The other thing I will say about what you learn along the way is so much about yourself and who you become. I know for me, when I did a lot of the things that I was, you know, whether it was the law degree I got or whether it was the previous business, so much of it shaped who I became. So like for me, I can look back and think was my law degree worth it because I don't practice the law anymore. And it's easy to say no. It's easy to say like, no, it was a waste
of time and it was a waste of money. But it fundamentally changed how I think it changed how I show up. It changed the people that I got to meet. It changed the networks that I met. It changed the communities that I built. It changed the people I talk to. I mean, it's the basis of this business, right? And so you look back at the ripple effects of the things that you've done and how it's created, like made you into who you are. Right? When I did the first business, it fundamentally shifted how I dealt with being seen and the fear of being judged and the fear of
embarrassment and the fear of, um, what other people think of me and rejection. I had, I was terrified to deal with those things and that business forced me to do it. And that ultimately fundamentally shifted how I see myself and what I'm allowed to do and what I'm allowed to go after. And so again, maybe that business in and of itself wasn't quote unquote worth it because it didn't go anywhere, but it was invaluable to me and how it helped me grow and how it helped me like learn more about myself and how it helped me develop characteristics that I wanted, it traits that I wanted. And so really it sort of comes down to like, how do we define success? Like, is it only a success because it made a certain amount of money or dollars? Or is there other things that come from this that are valuable in that journey that have nothing to do with whether you actually get to that destination or not, right? I think that you will gain so much by taking these risks, right? The compound effect of constantly taking risks, of dealing with your fears, of putting yourself out there, of building your own resilience of being able to deal with rejection of learning more about yourself like that Creates the person that you want to be in the future Creates the person that goes after risks creates the person that liberate themselves enough to do things that are scary They're fun that are joy -filled that aren't just like well Is it gonna be a success so everybody else can see me succeed or is it gonna be failure and I'm gonna be so terrified I'm never gonna try anything else again. You'll have to get out of this binary. There's so much more richness. There's so much more available to you other than whether you ultimately get to this one end result. Because let me tell you, even when you get there, you don't think you got there. Like you think, okay, if I make this much money, then I'm going to be happy, but you get there and then you'll just move the goalposts, then you're like, well, the business isn't really a success if I don't double it or triple it or whatnot. And so you have to sort of figure out like what, how am I defining this success in my life? Right? And so I think that again, the amount of information you get, you get to decide like this is worth it because of this journey I'm gonna go on. This is worth it regardless of what happens because I'm gonna know, you know, I'm gonna learn these things and I want you to do that as an exercise. Before you start whatever dream you're gonna go after I want you to ask that question. How can I know this will be worth it? What
am I going to gain from this journey, from doing this, right? I have my clients do this all the time. So let's say if I want to start a business and I ask myself that question. Because if, if my only success is if I make a certain amount of money, then yeah, it's very easy to see something as success failure. But if I have like, okay, I'm going to learn how to be disciplined and I'm going to learn how to do things that make me uncomfortable and I'm going to have to take up space and
I'm going to have to be seen and I'm going to have have to be okay with judgment and I'm gonna learn how to deal with my people pleasing because I'm gonna have to say no to people and I'm gonna have to learn to deal with my fear of rejection and I'm gonna have to learn to deal with my fear of embarrassment and I'm gonna have to learn sales and marketing and I'm gonna learn these new skills that I can transfer to anything else and and if you keep going and I'm gonna be an example for my kids I'm gonna be a role model that shows them what it's like to go after your dreams and I'm gonna develop resilience and I'm gonna develop it. There are so many things in this one thing. There's so many reasons to go after it that have nothing to do with whether you fin, you cross some finish line or not. And that is the point of going on it on that journey, right? Is all of those side effects, all of the ripple effects that you're going to get by doing this thing, that makes it worth it, right?
And And, you know, the other reason is that because like, that is the only way to be successful. Like no one can guarantee you that it's going to work and no one can tell you where it's going to go from there, but the only way to succeed at these things is to start and add on top and to keep going, right? To like keep adding these foundational things, lessons that you learn, even if it's a result of a quote unquote failure to build the next thing and the next thing.
The last thing I will say about this is that the reason it can be worth it is because you get to decide that it's worth it. So I want you to understand this concept, it's a little meta, it's a little bit like, you may not, it may take you a while to figure this out. But the thought, is it worth it, is just a thought. Okay, stick with me. It's just as true as it's not worth it. You just are thinking those thoughts. So I'm going to give you like an example. The feeling that you feel when you think those thoughts is regret, right? If you think it's not worth it, you regret it, you feel ashamed, you think you shouldn't have wasted your time, whatnot. Again, you get to just think, no, it was worth it because I got X, Y, and Z. So I talk about this a lot. I did an episode on regret as the same thing. You can sit and think thoughts that make you feel regret. I could sit and think I wasted my time when I went to law school. I wasted $100 ,000. I shouldn't have done it. You know, derailed me for three years and I did a career I didn't like for another seven and I lost that 10 years and I can think all those thoughts and I can create a lot of shame and I can create a lot of regret and I can create a lot of anger and I can get the results from that in my life, right? Where it's spinning about things or it's beating myself up or it's being mad at maybe my parents for guiding me in that way or the you know school counselors or whatever. And the result that that creates in my life is a whole lot of nothing. A whole lot of spinning, a whole lot of anger. It doesn't do anything. But I can choose not to regret it. I can decide just to think the thought like of course it was worth it for all the reasons I've said right for how it helped me grow for how it changed the way I think for the people that I met for who came into my life, for the experiences I had, for how I'm able to, you know, write my own contracts and review my own contracts. And I have this knowledge base that will help me for the rest of my life. And the fact that it has given me critical thinking
skills and all these other beautiful reasons that are there. And I get to think that, and even that is just a made up thought. But when I think that thought and I think, and I feel grateful and I feel proud of myself for going through that. How I show up in my life is much different, right? How I show up for the next set of challenges is different. How I approach a new risk is different without as much fear, because I've decided I'm not gonna regret it. I've decided that I'm gonna take whatever lessons are gonna come from it, and I'm gonna use that to also grow and get to the next thing, and the next thing, and the next thing. And so I want you to understand that it's a choice. You get to choose to think this. So when people ask me like, well, what if it's not worth it? And I'm like, you get to just choose if it's worth it or not. Even before you just do it, even before you even start it, you get to decide. You get to decide, let's say like, as an example, like relationships. You can choose that all past relationships that didn't work weren't worth it. It was just a waste of time. Or you get to choose But they were worth it because they taught you a lot of really important lessons about yourself, about the other person, about relationships, about dealing with people, about what you will accept, about boundaries, about tons of things. And so you get that choice. But the reality is, is that one way, one way you choose is going to create results in your life that have you constantly beating yourself up, constantly being upset, constantly feeling more stuck and scared, being terrified that you might make a mistake, being terrified that it won't work out. And the other way of choosing will allow you to open yourself up to any experience, to learning from things, to making mistakes, to failing at things, to seeing what you got from that instead of just, you know, painting Painting it with a broad brushstroke of a failure. It allows for so much more richness, which allows you to show up in your life less encumbered, less scared, less terrified of always making a mistake, less risk averse. So you get that choice. And so the reason I wanted to the, I want you to understand that you have that power of deciding and one of the things I do, one of the exercises I do that you can steal But before I start something, I write down all of the reasons of why it's going to be worth it. I choose intentionally to decide that it is going to be worth it, that the next couple of years that I'm going to dedicate to this project or I'm going to write the book or I'm going to start becoming a paid speaker, even if I don't end up getting, you know, any money for it. Even if I don't end up making it on big stages, why is Why is it gonna be worth it? What am I gonna learn from this? How is it gonna shape me? What is it gonna set me up for? How is it gonna affect my children, or my spouse, or my friends? What is it an example of? What if I, even if I don't decide that I hate it, what am I gonna learn from that? The more you learn how to like decide ahead of time that it is worth it, the more it will be worth it.
And so I want you to know that you can never know how it's going to turn out. You can never know what the results going to be. You can never predict all of the things that are going to come up, but you can choose that it will be worth it regardless. And it makes it so much more fun and it makes it so much more less pressured and it makes it so much more rich because there are so many lessons in the quote unquote failures or when things don't go the way that you want them to. So I hope as you move forward and as you think about your dreams and you think about your goals, that you don't let the worry of it not being worth it or being a waste of time, be the thing that stops you from going after those goals. I hope you go after them, even if you will never hit them, even if you, we don't even know what's going to happen. I hope that you know that it is worth it and that you can make it worth it.
If you want help going after those goals and learning why it's worth it and figuring out what you're gaining from it and changing how you think about these goals. I want you to join me in my membership, The Quitter Club. It is where we do this work. It is where I can coach you on your goals so that you don't give up over silly things like what if I fail? You can go to lessonsfromacquitter.com/quitterclub and join us there. All right, my friends, I hope you find this helpful and I will see you next week for another episode.
