In this episode of Lessons from a Quitter, we dive into how to handle conversations about your dreams with loved ones who may not fully understand or support them. Often, we seek validation from family and friends, hoping they’ll give us the green light. But instead, we discuss how to set clear boundaries, identify what you really need from these conversations, and gain the courage to pursue your goals without waiting for others’ approval. Plus, I share a personal story on launching this very podcast, showing the impact of standing by your dreams even when others can’t see your vision.
Ep. 331: Help! My family doesn't support my dreams!
Ep. 331
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Hey, welcome to Lessons From A Quitter, where we believe that it is never too late to start over. No matter how much time or energy you've spent getting to where you are. If ultimately you are unfulfilled, then it is time to get out. Join me each week for both inspiration and actionable tips so that we can get you on the road to your dreams.
Hello my friends and welcome to another episode. I'm so excited you are here. If you are new to this series, I'm doing a series of problems that a lot of my clients come to me with. I figured I will bring into the podcast. So if you want to check out the rest of the series, you can go to the YouTube channel and go to the playlist help, um, followed by whatever the problem is. And today we're gonna deal with one that I hear a lot.
It's help my family won't support me. That could be your spouse, your partner, your parents, just regular family or friends. It can mean anyone in your life honestly. You can even take the same advice past anybody, whether it's friends, groups, coworkers, people you've talked to who just don't understand why you wanna do the thing you do or don't support you. I want to help you think about this in a completely different way. Okay? So here is the thing. I think that what happens oftentimes is that you have a dream or you have a vision or you wanna try something. And for a lot of us, there's already uncertainty and doubt, right? When we don't know how it's gonna turn out. When you wanna start a business or you wanna change that career, you wanna jump to a new job. There is a possibility that you try it and it doesn't work or you don't like it or you realize you actually liked the thing that you did before.
You just didn't have that clarity. And for most of us, we know that there's no guarantee, right? There's no making a decision knowing like, hey, this is gonna be the thing that I'm the most passionate about. And so we already have a little bit of insecurity around this thing we want to do. This is important. I'm gonna get back to why that insecurity is important, but it's just important to know I already feel doubt. And then I go and tell people about it. I go talk about this business I wanna start or how I want to, you know, change careers and go into this completely different field. And then they start voicing their doubt, right? They start making judgements. They start saying things like, well, are you sure? I don't know, you didn't stick to that last business. Or You don't really know how to do that.
How would you start that? Or what if it doesn't work? Or what if you try this and it fails or right now in the economy is not a really good time or you know you're gonna lose everything or everyone's gonna judge you. You get the point. There's a lot of thoughts that other people like to put on you. And then for a lot of us, we get really defensive, right? We think like I have to defend this idea or we retreat into ourselves. We sort of decide like they're right, maybe it's stupid or I don't wanna talk about it anymore. And so we give up on that idea and I don't want either of those options to happen. So I want to talk to you about it in a way that you can maybe think about it differently. The first thing I want you to understand is that it comes from a place of love.
I know it doesn't seem like that in the moment, but oftentimes you are dealing with people who have their own limiting beliefs. They have also been raised in a society like you that taught them that there's one right way and that you have to do the secure thing and that you don't leave your job and you don't start something new. And so when someone wants to go against the status quo, when someone comes to them and says like, Hey, I wanna leave my job and start this side hustle, it instantly threatens their way of what they think is the quote unquote right way of you know, doing work or life or adulting. And so you're gonna get pushback because it goes against what they have been programmed to believe is the correct way. And usually when I say it comes from love is they want to protect you, they want you to be okay, right?
They are trying to think about like, well if you do fail or if it doesn't work or you lose money or you're gonna get judged, then that's gonna feel terrible for you. Um, it's gonna cause maybe some other problems. And so they wanna help you not deal with that. And so they're putting their fear that has been given to them by society onto you because they don't want you to feel that. Especially, you know, usually if it's like your spouse or whatnot or maybe parents, it's not, hopefully it's not that they hate you. If it is, then we have bigger problems and you should go to therapy for that, um, and figure out what to do. But usually it comes from a place of like, Ugh, I don't know about this. I don't want you to lose a bunch of money. I don't want you to like leave your job and regret it.
I don't want you to have to deal with whatever the pitfalls can come from this decision. And I say that just to say, 'cause I think a lot of times we get really defensive of like, why can't they just support my dreams? And I want you to just know when you look at it from this perspective of like they're coming from a good place. Maybe they, their delivery sucks, maybe they don't tell you the right way. Maybe it doesn't really, it's not really what you had asked for, but they're doing it because they don't want you to fail. And we can understand that. I think we can come to a place of like, I understand that they want what's best for me and they think this is the way to get what's best for me. We're on the same team here. They're not against me.
They simply do not understand why I want to do this thing. Okay? Which leads me to the second point. It's not their vision, it's not their job to understand it. They weren't given this desire. They don't know what you want to do. They are not in your head, right? That vision or that goal or that dream is yours. The excitement behind it is yours. It is not theirs. And so they are not going to see it the way that you see it. And so oftentimes we want them to like think of it the way that we think of it. We want them to get as excited as we get about it, but they don't have the same vision. That's your vision and that's great. They don't have to understand it. They don't don't have to get what you're doing. That's why they're not doing it right?
And I'm going to get to why you want them to do it next. But I think that it's really important for you to understand that everybody doesn't have to see or be as excited about the thing that you wanna be excited about. You have to. That's your vision. You have to be the one that keeps up the motivation like that sees where you're going with it. I'm gonna give you an example of how this played out in my life, but I want you to just really understand that like what if it's okay if they don't understand it? What if I don't need everybody to be fully on board and fully understand in order for me to do the thing I wanna do? And that takes me to number three is I want you to ask yourself why do you want them to quote unquote support you or understand?
Obviously I understand implicitly that it's easier, it would be nice for everybody, but I want you to really think about it. Why do I need them to be fully on board? Why do I need their support? Now again, another caveat. If they are financially supporting you, so let's say you live with your parents and you know you have to have a certain job or they're gonna cut you off. Or let's say you're talking to your spouse and your spouse doesn't want you to leave your job, then there are different conversations to be had and we can get into that. But for the purposes of this, I'm talking about a lot of people where they aren't actually financially dependent on anybody and it's their choice to do the thing they wanna do, but they're still stuck because they want everybody else to understand what they're doing and support it and be fully on board.
And I want you to really question why do I need that? And I'm gonna tell you the answer. Luckily you came to the right place. We want that permission from them because it silences that insecurity within us. So when I talked about when you are picking something new, you already have some insecurity around it, it's uncertain, there's doubt. We don't know how it's gonna work out, right? I already have those fears of what if it doesn't work, what if I regret it? What if I waste money? What if I waste time? What if I try this and I don't like it? What is everyone gonna think of me? We already have all of those thoughts and when someone else voices it, it triggers our own insecurity. It makes that voice louder. We can't ignore it as much. We can't hype ourselves up. We can't like use motivation to kind of push past it.
We have to confront it. And that's scary. And so we don't wanna hear it. We want when someone says, if I tell you my business idea and you say, oh my God, that's a great idea, you should totally do it. That soothes something within me that that soothes my own fear and doubt. Like, okay, this person also thinks that it's a good idea. Then maybe I'm onto something, then maybe all of my thoughts about it that are good about it are right. And I can continue doing this, right? But when someone says like, uh, I don't know if anybody would buy that. Are you sure? Like I don't think that that's that great of an idea. Or you've never run a business before. You don't know what you're doing. That triggers your own thought. Like you already know I've never been an entrepreneur before. I'm not sure I know how to do this.
I might fail at this. And a lot of us don't wanna deal with our own insecurity. We don't wanna deal with our own thoughts about it. That insecurity is really loud and we work really hard to kind of push past it. And so we worry that like when they bring it up, it's gonna trigger something in me. And so I don't wanna hear it. I want them to just tell me how wonderful this idea is and I want them to tell me that they'll support me no matter what. And I don't wanna think about how maybe they'll judge me later, you know? And so the work that you have to do is work on your own thoughts about it, not theirs. You don't have to convince anyone, you don't need them to support you. Would it be nice? Sure. Does it make it easier? Yeah, of course.
But if they don't, okay, they don't. They don't get it. It's not their vision. But I have to work on my own thoughts. Like if I have a lot of insecurity around it, if I have a lot of deep seated fears, if I think it won't work, then when someone else says it, it threatens to kind of throw me off balance. But if I work on my own thoughts about how could this be the best thing for me, even if it doesn't work, right? Like I want you to think about that. If your thoughts were like, you know what? I wanna do this because I'm gonna learn a ton and I'm gonna grow and I'm going to learn how to take up space and I wanna really deal with my fear of being seen and I wanna try something new and I wanna experiment and I wanna have this really big life, then when someone says like, oh my God, you might fail.
I'm like, yeah, maybe I will. It doesn't trigger as much of an insecurity to me 'cause that's not the reason I'm even doing this. Like yeah, I might be successful, I might not. But there's a whole host of other reasons that make this a worthwhile endeavor that I wanna try this out 'cause I am going to go on this adventure and I'm gonna learn a lot and it's gonna be amazing regardless of what happens when I have that belief, when I work on those thoughts of my own belief as to why I am doing it, when someone else brings up a random insecurity that they have about it and they say like, you might lose some money. I'm gonna be like, yeah, I might. All these other reasons are still reasons why I wanna do this. When I work on my own thoughts about why it's the best reason why I've sold myself on like this is the best reason other people's doubts don't creep in as much.
And so I say that to say like your work is not in convincing everybody else why it's the best thing your work is in convincing yourself why you should do it. The more you work on that, the easier it becomes to not let other people's doubts throw you off or other people's judgments. This is the work that you're gonna have to do regardless of when you put out. 'cause not everyone's gonna understand what you're doing. And so spend that time instead of trying to overly explain yourself to everybody and get everyone else on board. Get yourself on board, really think about why you wanna do this, what it means to you and what it might set you up for and what the future could hold and what you're gonna learn from it and how it could be the best thing for you. Get those thoughts in order.
And that leads me to the last thing that I really think you need to consider is what am I asking for from my family? Am I asking for support or am I asking for permission? I think oftentimes we don't realize that we're asking for permission, but that's what we're doing. We think if we go around and we ask everybody what they think, what they're going through, like if they think it's the best idea or not that I'm simply like looking for their support in this because I don't know, it would feel good. But oftentimes what we're asking for is like, because I have these insecurities, I want them to say like, yes, you may go ahead. This is a good enough idea for you to implement and you don't need that again unless they financially are, you know, involved in this. That's a different calculate calculation.
But for a lot of us it's simply, I'm gonna run to every single person I know, I'm gonna go to my parents and my best friend and my spouse and I'm gonna talk about this thing and I want them all to give me permission that it's okay. I say this because I know a lot of the people that come to my coaching calls and my membership, oftentimes they're trying to like explain to me what they wanna do because they want me to say like, yeah, you should go ahead. And I always ask them like, are you asking for my permission? If you can do this? Of course you can. You're an adult, you don't need my permission, but you want me to sort of give you the stamp of approval. Now that's not to say I get that. Like you know, you wanna see if there's holes in your ideas.
You wanna see if like, Hey, am I missing something? And that's okay to do, but be really clear that's what you're doing, right? When you're going into these conversations, be very clear what is it that I'm asking of them? Am I asking for their support? Am I asking for their permission? Am I asking for them to like see my blind spots? That's a wonderful way to go about a conversation. But know that that's what you're asking. So that when they do give you blind spots, when they do poke holes, you're not defensive about it. You're like, huh, yeah, you're right. I hadn't thought about that. This is how I would deal with that. Or I need to spend some time coming up with how I would deal with that pitfall. That could be a really wonderful collaborative experience. But I think for a lot of us, we don't even know what we are seeking from our family and friends.
We just go in there and we kind of like dump everything that we have within us where it's like, well I wanna do this business and I wanted to do this and and we want them to just be like, yeah, that sounds great, even though that's not what they think. And so I want you to be really intentional about what you're seeking. Do I feel like I need their permission for them to tell me it's okay to go forward with this? And if I don't, then can I emphasize that in the beginning for a lot of us, like when I said like, we already have our insecurities and so when you know I'm not seeking permission, I wanna do this thing, I can phrase that conversation much differently than me just saying like, Hey mom and dad or hey husband or so-and-So I'm gonna leave my job to start a flower shop and just let them say whatever they want.
I can go in there and say like, listen, I'm gonna tell you about a dream I have and it might not make sense to you. I get that you might be concerned for me, or you might think that this has came outta left field, but I've been thinking about it for a long time. And so I'm gonna tell you and I just need your support. You don't need to understand it. I can understand, you know, I'll ask you for your opinion on what you think I should work on, but for right now, I just need you to support me. You'll get a much different reaction from your family and friends than you will if you just go in and say like, Hey, I was thinking about starting this business. 'cause they think like, well, I'm just giving you all of my opinions about this business.
And of course a lot of my opinions are gonna be things that I'm concerned about. And then you get upset and it leads, you know, so like be very clear on like what am I asking from them and can I make that intentionally known? Especially if you're dealing with someone where like maybe they're naturally more negative or maybe they're constantly like judgmental or cutting things down. Like understand that before you're talking to the person, they're not gonna be your number one cheerleader. And I think like as an aside to this too, is that like be very intentional who you talk to about it. You don't have to talk to everyone about it. You don't need everyone's permission. Everyone doesn't need to know. Everyone doesn't need to have an opinion until you get to a place where you're able to handle those opinions, right? When you're able to deal with some of the judgment, kind of guarded a little bit with your heart, like know who you can talk to or who you need to talk to and who you don't, you don't have to go to every single person.
I'm gonna give you an example of what this looked like in my life and how it shifted a lot of things for me. So I talk about like after I'd quit the law, I wanted to get into entrepreneurship. I started a photo booth company and that photo booth company required manufacturing. So I would manufacture photo booths and then I would sell them and I would also do rentals. It was a physical product and it was in a, you know, very localized location at the time. And I'd also really been looking into like whether I was gonna scale it, whether I was gonna try to get some investment and make it like a franchise type business. So that was the type of business it was. At the time I had thought about this podcast, the idea for this podcast. I had muled over the idea for this podcast for two years.
I really wanted to do this podcast and I couldn't understand why I was so drawn to it at the time. I wasn't really aware of like a lot of my own feelings around it, but it kept gnawing at me and I kept checking at the time I would check Apple Podcasts to see if someone else had started something similar, you know, as if I couldn't start it if someone else had. But anyways, I would obsessively check all the time. And I remember when I would find things that were sort of similar, I would feel this like dread in my stomach like, oh, somebody else started this. And hey, that's a good indication that that's something that you wanna start. But I sat on this for a couple years 'cause I was building this other business. I had two young kids at at home. And so this idea for the podcast, I didn't really know what it was gonna turn into by the time I decided, I'd gotten to a point the beginning of 2018 where I was like, I am gonna explode if I don't start this podcast.
Like I have thought about this so much, it is driving me insane. I have to do this podcast. Something is pulling me towards it. And at the time I listened to a lot of podcasts and I did have some secret dreams about turning it into a business. I hadn't really been able to vocalize that part yet. And I remember I was having these conversations with my husband about it throughout the years. Like as I had been thinking about it, I kept thinking about doing this podcast. He wasn't a big podcast listener, he's not on social media. He didn't really understand why I wanted to do this. And at the time, what he was seeing was I was already kind of stretched thin trying to build this business while raising two young kids. And I didn't have a ton of extra time. And so of course now when I look back, it's of course at the time I was annoyed because he would constantly come up with like, yeah, I don't think it's the right time for you to do that.
Like focus on your business, like scale that business, you know, spend the time that you have or the energy you have on that why. And I remember him telling me like, why don't you start a podcast about that business? And I was like, 'cause I don't wanna talk about photo booths. Why would I start a podcast about that? You know? And I remember getting frustrated because he just wasn't seeing the vision of what I want to. And he kept saying like, yeah, I think it's a good idea, but like why are you taking on something else? You shouldn't be doing this right now. And I had let him influence me in not doing it. I was like, he's right. I don't have time. I keep pushing it back for months and months. And it got to the point where I was like, I don't care.
I want to do this podcast. I have to do it. I have to get it out there. Maybe it'll turn into a business. I don't know what it is. I just want to like jump on this idea. And I remember a conversation we had where I went to him and I said, listen, I totally understand that you're not gonna get this, that you think that the podcast is a waste of time for me right now and that I don't have a lot of extra time. And so I should use that time for the business. I get what you're saying, you're not wrong. But I have to start this podcast and I can't explain it to you, but there's something within me that will not quiet down and like I have to listen to this or I'm gonna lose my mind and I want to do this.
So what I need is for you to support me. I need you to not try to talk me out of it. I need you to not tell me that it's a bad idea. Even if it fails, I have to just put it out there. And he was like, okay, all right. I didn't know it was that serious. I won't say anything. Like, if you wanna do this, I will support you as long as you wanna do it and we'll see where it goes. And it was such an interesting conversation. It was such an interesting boundary that I'd never created before. And I started realizing like, oh, I had been waiting all of this time for him to tell me, you know what? It's a good idea. You should go forward and you should have this podcast. But I kept thinking like, he just doesn't understand what I wanna create.
I didn't really even understand fully what I wanted to create. And so when I took that burden off of him and I was like, he doesn't have to get it. He still fully doesn't understand what I do. He's still not on social media. He doesn't have an Instagram, he is never had, it doesn't have Facebook or TikTok or anything. The man, like I realize now looking back, the photo booth business made sense to him. 'cause he's an engineer and his business is a product based business. So he could understand that. So he was like, yeah, you've already built this. You have all the stuff in place. Let's like scale this on paper. That made sense in my heart. It did not. I did not like that business. I didn't feel passionate about it. I wasn't excited to grow it. I didn't wanna work on it as much.
I felt really passionate about this idea and I really wanted to see where it went. Now five years later, I have built a business that kind of took off, did much better than the photo booth business has ever done. Was really something I was passionate about that fundamentally changed a lot of my life. Obviously looking back, he can see that it was a good idea or he can acknowledge or he has praised me a lot for it. But he wasn't the one that had the vision. And so he didn't need to be the one that gave me permission. And when I realized that's what I'm waiting for, I keep talking to him about this because I'm hoping at some point he says, you know what? You should do the podcast. I was like, that's not gonna happen. So I have a choice to make. I either decide I'm still gonna do it whether he understands or not, or I'm gonna let it go.
And I wasn't ready to let it go. So I was like, all right, I gotta just have this conversation with him. It's also like I don't have to yell at him. I don't have to get defensive. I don't have to tell him like, you never support my dreams. You don't understand me. I just have to get like he's not gonna get it and that's okay. And I didn't share it with a lot of other people. I only shared it with him. 'cause I was like, I am not gonna let other people talk me out of this. 'cause I'm already terrified of doing this. I don't wanna put myself out there. I don't want people to judge me. This was like a very scary thing for me to do. But I was like, I'm called to do it and so I'm gonna do it. And then as I got closer, when I told people it was already a done deal, it was interesting that people weren't gonna say something when I'm like, oh, I'm launching a podcast.
I already picked the name. I already have it recorded. I'm gonna start it. It's like there's nothing else to ask them for. Like my family was like, all right, let us know what we can do. And so I say this from that experience that I think for a lot of us, we're waiting for people to kind of give us that stamp of approval for people to tell us that it's okay and then then we're allowed to start and go after our dreams. But you don't need that permission. You don't need them to understand. You don't need them to give you that stamp of approval. You get to decide. And then you get to know, you know, what is the relationship I wanna have with them in this project? How much do I wanna talk to them about it? How much support do I need from them?
And if we just talk about the other caveat that I made about like if they are financially involved, then it's a different calculation. Again, even within that, I think that you can ask yourself a question of like, how do I get them to support me? It's how can I make this work? So what I mean by that is like when I was doing the podcast, it's not that I wanted to completely disregard what my husband was saying. I understood that like what I did with the business did impact, you know, our income and what I was making. And so I can understand that, you know, he also had something riding on it and he wanted me to grow that business. I get that. And I think for some of you, if like let's say you wanna start a side hustle and your spouse has a problem with it because they don't want you to leave your job or whatnot, you can still have that conversation of like when I talked to him about it, it was a much longer conversation.
Part of it was I sort of showed him how I was gonna do it. I was like, listen, I'm only gonna dedicate two hours to it a week. I'm gonna record and this and I'm gonna edit and I'm gonna have this person help me and that's all I'm gonna do and I'm gonna still keep doing this business. And so when I had sort of explained to him how I knew I was gonna take care of it, there was less for him to be concerned about. Now if for instance, like you wanna quit a job, then that is a conversation that you need to have with your spouse about like, you know how you are going to set yourself up for that. Like whether that's savings, whether you guys have a runway, whether you're going to like replace your income before you leave so that the person understands that this isn't something that's like willy-nilly that you're like, oh, I think I'm just gonna quit my job and become a photographer.
You're kind of showing them like, I have thought this through, this is what my plan is and I need your support in it. It becomes a lot easier for them to give you that support rather than when it might seem like you don't really have a plan, you haven't really thought any of it through. So I think like the final maybe point in taking this home, I think a lot of times when people come to me and they say like, help me, like my family won't support me. I think they want me to give them a strategy to get their family to support them, but you don't control what other people think and feel. Unfortunately, if you did, you'd make a lot of money. , you could change the world, but we don't. And so the solution to this isn't like, how do I get my family to support me?
It's how can I decide what I wanna do, whether they support me or not? How can I make myself okay even if they don't support me, how can I decide what my next step is regardless of what they think about this vision? How do I focus on my vision and my thoughts about it and my insecurities and not on what they are thinking about it or saying about it? The more you do that, the more you focus on yourself, the more you come up with your plan, the more you ask people for what you need, the more you structure it in that way. The more you don't need their validation or their sample of approval, the easier it becomes to go after those dreams that you have, even if other people don't get it. So that's your work, my friends. Go out there and support yourself. I hope this was helpful. I will be back next week with another episode.
Hey, if you are looking for more in-depth help with your career, whether that's dealing with all of the stress, worry, and anxiety that's leading to burnout in your current career or figuring out what your dream career is and actually going after it, I want you to join me in the Quitter Club. It is where we quit what is no longer working like perfectionism, people pleasing imposter syndrome, and we start working on what does and we start taking action towards the career and the life that you actually want. We will take the concepts that we talk about on the podcast and apply them to your life and you will get the coaching tools and support that you need to actually make some real change. So go to lessonsfromaquitter.com/quitterclub and get on the wait list. Doors are closed right now, but they will be open soon.
Hello my friends and welcome to another episode. I'm so excited you are here. If you are new to this series, I'm doing a series of problems that a lot of my clients come to me with. I figured I will bring into the podcast. So if you want to check out the rest of the series, you can go to the YouTube channel and go to the playlist help, um, followed by whatever the problem is. And today we're gonna deal with one that I hear a lot.
It's help my family won't support me. That could be your spouse, your partner, your parents, just regular family or friends. It can mean anyone in your life honestly. You can even take the same advice past anybody, whether it's friends, groups, coworkers, people you've talked to who just don't understand why you wanna do the thing you do or don't support you. I want to help you think about this in a completely different way. Okay? So here is the thing. I think that what happens oftentimes is that you have a dream or you have a vision or you wanna try something. And for a lot of us, there's already uncertainty and doubt, right? When we don't know how it's gonna turn out. When you wanna start a business or you wanna change that career, you wanna jump to a new job. There is a possibility that you try it and it doesn't work or you don't like it or you realize you actually liked the thing that you did before.
You just didn't have that clarity. And for most of us, we know that there's no guarantee, right? There's no making a decision knowing like, hey, this is gonna be the thing that I'm the most passionate about. And so we already have a little bit of insecurity around this thing we want to do. This is important. I'm gonna get back to why that insecurity is important, but it's just important to know I already feel doubt. And then I go and tell people about it. I go talk about this business I wanna start or how I want to, you know, change careers and go into this completely different field. And then they start voicing their doubt, right? They start making judgements. They start saying things like, well, are you sure? I don't know, you didn't stick to that last business. Or You don't really know how to do that.
How would you start that? Or what if it doesn't work? Or what if you try this and it fails or right now in the economy is not a really good time or you know you're gonna lose everything or everyone's gonna judge you. You get the point. There's a lot of thoughts that other people like to put on you. And then for a lot of us, we get really defensive, right? We think like I have to defend this idea or we retreat into ourselves. We sort of decide like they're right, maybe it's stupid or I don't wanna talk about it anymore. And so we give up on that idea and I don't want either of those options to happen. So I want to talk to you about it in a way that you can maybe think about it differently. The first thing I want you to understand is that it comes from a place of love.
I know it doesn't seem like that in the moment, but oftentimes you are dealing with people who have their own limiting beliefs. They have also been raised in a society like you that taught them that there's one right way and that you have to do the secure thing and that you don't leave your job and you don't start something new. And so when someone wants to go against the status quo, when someone comes to them and says like, Hey, I wanna leave my job and start this side hustle, it instantly threatens their way of what they think is the quote unquote right way of you know, doing work or life or adulting. And so you're gonna get pushback because it goes against what they have been programmed to believe is the correct way. And usually when I say it comes from love is they want to protect you, they want you to be okay, right?
They are trying to think about like, well if you do fail or if it doesn't work or you lose money or you're gonna get judged, then that's gonna feel terrible for you. Um, it's gonna cause maybe some other problems. And so they wanna help you not deal with that. And so they're putting their fear that has been given to them by society onto you because they don't want you to feel that. Especially, you know, usually if it's like your spouse or whatnot or maybe parents, it's not, hopefully it's not that they hate you. If it is, then we have bigger problems and you should go to therapy for that, um, and figure out what to do. But usually it comes from a place of like, Ugh, I don't know about this. I don't want you to lose a bunch of money. I don't want you to like leave your job and regret it.
I don't want you to have to deal with whatever the pitfalls can come from this decision. And I say that just to say, 'cause I think a lot of times we get really defensive of like, why can't they just support my dreams? And I want you to just know when you look at it from this perspective of like they're coming from a good place. Maybe they, their delivery sucks, maybe they don't tell you the right way. Maybe it doesn't really, it's not really what you had asked for, but they're doing it because they don't want you to fail. And we can understand that. I think we can come to a place of like, I understand that they want what's best for me and they think this is the way to get what's best for me. We're on the same team here. They're not against me.
They simply do not understand why I want to do this thing. Okay? Which leads me to the second point. It's not their vision, it's not their job to understand it. They weren't given this desire. They don't know what you want to do. They are not in your head, right? That vision or that goal or that dream is yours. The excitement behind it is yours. It is not theirs. And so they are not going to see it the way that you see it. And so oftentimes we want them to like think of it the way that we think of it. We want them to get as excited as we get about it, but they don't have the same vision. That's your vision and that's great. They don't have to understand it. They don't don't have to get what you're doing. That's why they're not doing it right?
And I'm going to get to why you want them to do it next. But I think that it's really important for you to understand that everybody doesn't have to see or be as excited about the thing that you wanna be excited about. You have to. That's your vision. You have to be the one that keeps up the motivation like that sees where you're going with it. I'm gonna give you an example of how this played out in my life, but I want you to just really understand that like what if it's okay if they don't understand it? What if I don't need everybody to be fully on board and fully understand in order for me to do the thing I wanna do? And that takes me to number three is I want you to ask yourself why do you want them to quote unquote support you or understand?
Obviously I understand implicitly that it's easier, it would be nice for everybody, but I want you to really think about it. Why do I need them to be fully on board? Why do I need their support? Now again, another caveat. If they are financially supporting you, so let's say you live with your parents and you know you have to have a certain job or they're gonna cut you off. Or let's say you're talking to your spouse and your spouse doesn't want you to leave your job, then there are different conversations to be had and we can get into that. But for the purposes of this, I'm talking about a lot of people where they aren't actually financially dependent on anybody and it's their choice to do the thing they wanna do, but they're still stuck because they want everybody else to understand what they're doing and support it and be fully on board.
And I want you to really question why do I need that? And I'm gonna tell you the answer. Luckily you came to the right place. We want that permission from them because it silences that insecurity within us. So when I talked about when you are picking something new, you already have some insecurity around it, it's uncertain, there's doubt. We don't know how it's gonna work out, right? I already have those fears of what if it doesn't work, what if I regret it? What if I waste money? What if I waste time? What if I try this and I don't like it? What is everyone gonna think of me? We already have all of those thoughts and when someone else voices it, it triggers our own insecurity. It makes that voice louder. We can't ignore it as much. We can't hype ourselves up. We can't like use motivation to kind of push past it.
We have to confront it. And that's scary. And so we don't wanna hear it. We want when someone says, if I tell you my business idea and you say, oh my God, that's a great idea, you should totally do it. That soothes something within me that that soothes my own fear and doubt. Like, okay, this person also thinks that it's a good idea. Then maybe I'm onto something, then maybe all of my thoughts about it that are good about it are right. And I can continue doing this, right? But when someone says like, uh, I don't know if anybody would buy that. Are you sure? Like I don't think that that's that great of an idea. Or you've never run a business before. You don't know what you're doing. That triggers your own thought. Like you already know I've never been an entrepreneur before. I'm not sure I know how to do this.
I might fail at this. And a lot of us don't wanna deal with our own insecurity. We don't wanna deal with our own thoughts about it. That insecurity is really loud and we work really hard to kind of push past it. And so we worry that like when they bring it up, it's gonna trigger something in me. And so I don't wanna hear it. I want them to just tell me how wonderful this idea is and I want them to tell me that they'll support me no matter what. And I don't wanna think about how maybe they'll judge me later, you know? And so the work that you have to do is work on your own thoughts about it, not theirs. You don't have to convince anyone, you don't need them to support you. Would it be nice? Sure. Does it make it easier? Yeah, of course.
But if they don't, okay, they don't. They don't get it. It's not their vision. But I have to work on my own thoughts. Like if I have a lot of insecurity around it, if I have a lot of deep seated fears, if I think it won't work, then when someone else says it, it threatens to kind of throw me off balance. But if I work on my own thoughts about how could this be the best thing for me, even if it doesn't work, right? Like I want you to think about that. If your thoughts were like, you know what? I wanna do this because I'm gonna learn a ton and I'm gonna grow and I'm going to learn how to take up space and I wanna really deal with my fear of being seen and I wanna try something new and I wanna experiment and I wanna have this really big life, then when someone says like, oh my God, you might fail.
I'm like, yeah, maybe I will. It doesn't trigger as much of an insecurity to me 'cause that's not the reason I'm even doing this. Like yeah, I might be successful, I might not. But there's a whole host of other reasons that make this a worthwhile endeavor that I wanna try this out 'cause I am going to go on this adventure and I'm gonna learn a lot and it's gonna be amazing regardless of what happens when I have that belief, when I work on those thoughts of my own belief as to why I am doing it, when someone else brings up a random insecurity that they have about it and they say like, you might lose some money. I'm gonna be like, yeah, I might. All these other reasons are still reasons why I wanna do this. When I work on my own thoughts about why it's the best reason why I've sold myself on like this is the best reason other people's doubts don't creep in as much.
And so I say that to say like your work is not in convincing everybody else why it's the best thing your work is in convincing yourself why you should do it. The more you work on that, the easier it becomes to not let other people's doubts throw you off or other people's judgments. This is the work that you're gonna have to do regardless of when you put out. 'cause not everyone's gonna understand what you're doing. And so spend that time instead of trying to overly explain yourself to everybody and get everyone else on board. Get yourself on board, really think about why you wanna do this, what it means to you and what it might set you up for and what the future could hold and what you're gonna learn from it and how it could be the best thing for you. Get those thoughts in order.
And that leads me to the last thing that I really think you need to consider is what am I asking for from my family? Am I asking for support or am I asking for permission? I think oftentimes we don't realize that we're asking for permission, but that's what we're doing. We think if we go around and we ask everybody what they think, what they're going through, like if they think it's the best idea or not that I'm simply like looking for their support in this because I don't know, it would feel good. But oftentimes what we're asking for is like, because I have these insecurities, I want them to say like, yes, you may go ahead. This is a good enough idea for you to implement and you don't need that again unless they financially are, you know, involved in this. That's a different calculate calculation.
But for a lot of us it's simply, I'm gonna run to every single person I know, I'm gonna go to my parents and my best friend and my spouse and I'm gonna talk about this thing and I want them all to give me permission that it's okay. I say this because I know a lot of the people that come to my coaching calls and my membership, oftentimes they're trying to like explain to me what they wanna do because they want me to say like, yeah, you should go ahead. And I always ask them like, are you asking for my permission? If you can do this? Of course you can. You're an adult, you don't need my permission, but you want me to sort of give you the stamp of approval. Now that's not to say I get that. Like you know, you wanna see if there's holes in your ideas.
You wanna see if like, Hey, am I missing something? And that's okay to do, but be really clear that's what you're doing, right? When you're going into these conversations, be very clear what is it that I'm asking of them? Am I asking for their support? Am I asking for their permission? Am I asking for them to like see my blind spots? That's a wonderful way to go about a conversation. But know that that's what you're asking. So that when they do give you blind spots, when they do poke holes, you're not defensive about it. You're like, huh, yeah, you're right. I hadn't thought about that. This is how I would deal with that. Or I need to spend some time coming up with how I would deal with that pitfall. That could be a really wonderful collaborative experience. But I think for a lot of us, we don't even know what we are seeking from our family and friends.
We just go in there and we kind of like dump everything that we have within us where it's like, well I wanna do this business and I wanted to do this and and we want them to just be like, yeah, that sounds great, even though that's not what they think. And so I want you to be really intentional about what you're seeking. Do I feel like I need their permission for them to tell me it's okay to go forward with this? And if I don't, then can I emphasize that in the beginning for a lot of us, like when I said like, we already have our insecurities and so when you know I'm not seeking permission, I wanna do this thing, I can phrase that conversation much differently than me just saying like, Hey mom and dad or hey husband or so-and-So I'm gonna leave my job to start a flower shop and just let them say whatever they want.
I can go in there and say like, listen, I'm gonna tell you about a dream I have and it might not make sense to you. I get that you might be concerned for me, or you might think that this has came outta left field, but I've been thinking about it for a long time. And so I'm gonna tell you and I just need your support. You don't need to understand it. I can understand, you know, I'll ask you for your opinion on what you think I should work on, but for right now, I just need you to support me. You'll get a much different reaction from your family and friends than you will if you just go in and say like, Hey, I was thinking about starting this business. 'cause they think like, well, I'm just giving you all of my opinions about this business.
And of course a lot of my opinions are gonna be things that I'm concerned about. And then you get upset and it leads, you know, so like be very clear on like what am I asking from them and can I make that intentionally known? Especially if you're dealing with someone where like maybe they're naturally more negative or maybe they're constantly like judgmental or cutting things down. Like understand that before you're talking to the person, they're not gonna be your number one cheerleader. And I think like as an aside to this too, is that like be very intentional who you talk to about it. You don't have to talk to everyone about it. You don't need everyone's permission. Everyone doesn't need to know. Everyone doesn't need to have an opinion until you get to a place where you're able to handle those opinions, right? When you're able to deal with some of the judgment, kind of guarded a little bit with your heart, like know who you can talk to or who you need to talk to and who you don't, you don't have to go to every single person.
I'm gonna give you an example of what this looked like in my life and how it shifted a lot of things for me. So I talk about like after I'd quit the law, I wanted to get into entrepreneurship. I started a photo booth company and that photo booth company required manufacturing. So I would manufacture photo booths and then I would sell them and I would also do rentals. It was a physical product and it was in a, you know, very localized location at the time. And I'd also really been looking into like whether I was gonna scale it, whether I was gonna try to get some investment and make it like a franchise type business. So that was the type of business it was. At the time I had thought about this podcast, the idea for this podcast. I had muled over the idea for this podcast for two years.
I really wanted to do this podcast and I couldn't understand why I was so drawn to it at the time. I wasn't really aware of like a lot of my own feelings around it, but it kept gnawing at me and I kept checking at the time I would check Apple Podcasts to see if someone else had started something similar, you know, as if I couldn't start it if someone else had. But anyways, I would obsessively check all the time. And I remember when I would find things that were sort of similar, I would feel this like dread in my stomach like, oh, somebody else started this. And hey, that's a good indication that that's something that you wanna start. But I sat on this for a couple years 'cause I was building this other business. I had two young kids at at home. And so this idea for the podcast, I didn't really know what it was gonna turn into by the time I decided, I'd gotten to a point the beginning of 2018 where I was like, I am gonna explode if I don't start this podcast.
Like I have thought about this so much, it is driving me insane. I have to do this podcast. Something is pulling me towards it. And at the time I listened to a lot of podcasts and I did have some secret dreams about turning it into a business. I hadn't really been able to vocalize that part yet. And I remember I was having these conversations with my husband about it throughout the years. Like as I had been thinking about it, I kept thinking about doing this podcast. He wasn't a big podcast listener, he's not on social media. He didn't really understand why I wanted to do this. And at the time, what he was seeing was I was already kind of stretched thin trying to build this business while raising two young kids. And I didn't have a ton of extra time. And so of course now when I look back, it's of course at the time I was annoyed because he would constantly come up with like, yeah, I don't think it's the right time for you to do that.
Like focus on your business, like scale that business, you know, spend the time that you have or the energy you have on that why. And I remember him telling me like, why don't you start a podcast about that business? And I was like, 'cause I don't wanna talk about photo booths. Why would I start a podcast about that? You know? And I remember getting frustrated because he just wasn't seeing the vision of what I want to. And he kept saying like, yeah, I think it's a good idea, but like why are you taking on something else? You shouldn't be doing this right now. And I had let him influence me in not doing it. I was like, he's right. I don't have time. I keep pushing it back for months and months. And it got to the point where I was like, I don't care.
I want to do this podcast. I have to do it. I have to get it out there. Maybe it'll turn into a business. I don't know what it is. I just want to like jump on this idea. And I remember a conversation we had where I went to him and I said, listen, I totally understand that you're not gonna get this, that you think that the podcast is a waste of time for me right now and that I don't have a lot of extra time. And so I should use that time for the business. I get what you're saying, you're not wrong. But I have to start this podcast and I can't explain it to you, but there's something within me that will not quiet down and like I have to listen to this or I'm gonna lose my mind and I want to do this.
So what I need is for you to support me. I need you to not try to talk me out of it. I need you to not tell me that it's a bad idea. Even if it fails, I have to just put it out there. And he was like, okay, all right. I didn't know it was that serious. I won't say anything. Like, if you wanna do this, I will support you as long as you wanna do it and we'll see where it goes. And it was such an interesting conversation. It was such an interesting boundary that I'd never created before. And I started realizing like, oh, I had been waiting all of this time for him to tell me, you know what? It's a good idea. You should go forward and you should have this podcast. But I kept thinking like, he just doesn't understand what I wanna create.
I didn't really even understand fully what I wanted to create. And so when I took that burden off of him and I was like, he doesn't have to get it. He still fully doesn't understand what I do. He's still not on social media. He doesn't have an Instagram, he is never had, it doesn't have Facebook or TikTok or anything. The man, like I realize now looking back, the photo booth business made sense to him. 'cause he's an engineer and his business is a product based business. So he could understand that. So he was like, yeah, you've already built this. You have all the stuff in place. Let's like scale this on paper. That made sense in my heart. It did not. I did not like that business. I didn't feel passionate about it. I wasn't excited to grow it. I didn't wanna work on it as much.
I felt really passionate about this idea and I really wanted to see where it went. Now five years later, I have built a business that kind of took off, did much better than the photo booth business has ever done. Was really something I was passionate about that fundamentally changed a lot of my life. Obviously looking back, he can see that it was a good idea or he can acknowledge or he has praised me a lot for it. But he wasn't the one that had the vision. And so he didn't need to be the one that gave me permission. And when I realized that's what I'm waiting for, I keep talking to him about this because I'm hoping at some point he says, you know what? You should do the podcast. I was like, that's not gonna happen. So I have a choice to make. I either decide I'm still gonna do it whether he understands or not, or I'm gonna let it go.
And I wasn't ready to let it go. So I was like, all right, I gotta just have this conversation with him. It's also like I don't have to yell at him. I don't have to get defensive. I don't have to tell him like, you never support my dreams. You don't understand me. I just have to get like he's not gonna get it and that's okay. And I didn't share it with a lot of other people. I only shared it with him. 'cause I was like, I am not gonna let other people talk me out of this. 'cause I'm already terrified of doing this. I don't wanna put myself out there. I don't want people to judge me. This was like a very scary thing for me to do. But I was like, I'm called to do it and so I'm gonna do it. And then as I got closer, when I told people it was already a done deal, it was interesting that people weren't gonna say something when I'm like, oh, I'm launching a podcast.
I already picked the name. I already have it recorded. I'm gonna start it. It's like there's nothing else to ask them for. Like my family was like, all right, let us know what we can do. And so I say this from that experience that I think for a lot of us, we're waiting for people to kind of give us that stamp of approval for people to tell us that it's okay and then then we're allowed to start and go after our dreams. But you don't need that permission. You don't need them to understand. You don't need them to give you that stamp of approval. You get to decide. And then you get to know, you know, what is the relationship I wanna have with them in this project? How much do I wanna talk to them about it? How much support do I need from them?
And if we just talk about the other caveat that I made about like if they are financially involved, then it's a different calculation. Again, even within that, I think that you can ask yourself a question of like, how do I get them to support me? It's how can I make this work? So what I mean by that is like when I was doing the podcast, it's not that I wanted to completely disregard what my husband was saying. I understood that like what I did with the business did impact, you know, our income and what I was making. And so I can understand that, you know, he also had something riding on it and he wanted me to grow that business. I get that. And I think for some of you, if like let's say you wanna start a side hustle and your spouse has a problem with it because they don't want you to leave your job or whatnot, you can still have that conversation of like when I talked to him about it, it was a much longer conversation.
Part of it was I sort of showed him how I was gonna do it. I was like, listen, I'm only gonna dedicate two hours to it a week. I'm gonna record and this and I'm gonna edit and I'm gonna have this person help me and that's all I'm gonna do and I'm gonna still keep doing this business. And so when I had sort of explained to him how I knew I was gonna take care of it, there was less for him to be concerned about. Now if for instance, like you wanna quit a job, then that is a conversation that you need to have with your spouse about like, you know how you are going to set yourself up for that. Like whether that's savings, whether you guys have a runway, whether you're going to like replace your income before you leave so that the person understands that this isn't something that's like willy-nilly that you're like, oh, I think I'm just gonna quit my job and become a photographer.
You're kind of showing them like, I have thought this through, this is what my plan is and I need your support in it. It becomes a lot easier for them to give you that support rather than when it might seem like you don't really have a plan, you haven't really thought any of it through. So I think like the final maybe point in taking this home, I think a lot of times when people come to me and they say like, help me, like my family won't support me. I think they want me to give them a strategy to get their family to support them, but you don't control what other people think and feel. Unfortunately, if you did, you'd make a lot of money. , you could change the world, but we don't. And so the solution to this isn't like, how do I get my family to support me?
It's how can I decide what I wanna do, whether they support me or not? How can I make myself okay even if they don't support me, how can I decide what my next step is regardless of what they think about this vision? How do I focus on my vision and my thoughts about it and my insecurities and not on what they are thinking about it or saying about it? The more you do that, the more you focus on yourself, the more you come up with your plan, the more you ask people for what you need, the more you structure it in that way. The more you don't need their validation or their sample of approval, the easier it becomes to go after those dreams that you have, even if other people don't get it. So that's your work, my friends. Go out there and support yourself. I hope this was helpful. I will be back next week with another episode.
Hey, if you are looking for more in-depth help with your career, whether that's dealing with all of the stress, worry, and anxiety that's leading to burnout in your current career or figuring out what your dream career is and actually going after it, I want you to join me in the Quitter Club. It is where we quit what is no longer working like perfectionism, people pleasing imposter syndrome, and we start working on what does and we start taking action towards the career and the life that you actually want. We will take the concepts that we talk about on the podcast and apply them to your life and you will get the coaching tools and support that you need to actually make some real change. So go to lessonsfromaquitter.com/quitterclub and get on the wait list. Doors are closed right now, but they will be open soon.
