I start new projects with a lot of enthusiasm. I am always the person in the room jumping up and down with excitement at the chance to learn something new or tackle a new project. More often than not, they are my ideas.
Let’s renovate the bathroom.
Let’s learn to ski.
Let’s plan a picnic, write a book or put on a show.
Let’s start a company.
Over the years, I’ve learned to tamp down my enthusiasm and my excitement. Why? Two reasons really. First, I’ve been burned before. Second, I’ve started so, so many projects that haven’t worked out as planned.
There was the bathroom in our old house. “Let’s paint it grey,” I said. “It will be beautiful and calming.” So off Eric and I went to the paint store to select a rich, dark grey. I swear, it looked great in my head but once on the walls? Dark, dreary and awful. It took four coats of white to paint over it.
But I had been so excited. It had been so beautiful in my mind.
When I was in law school, I started a business making screen-printed t-shirts. The printer ripped us off, stole our designs and never delivered the shirts.
But I had been so excited. It had been so successful in my mind.
And so I’ve been burned before. I’ve started a dozen businesses that haven’t worked. I’ve written a hundred articles that were terrible. I’ve begun at least six books that never got completed. I’ve hosted parties that were flops, taken trips that have been disasters and cooked dinners that were inedible.
I’ve made parenting mistakes, relationship mistakes, business mistakes. And don’t even get me started about the “diets” that have failed.
All of this truly can tamp down your enthusiasm. Because when I think of something new, when I take on a new project, now there is that little voice in my head that says “well, sister, it hasn’t worked before, so what in the world makes you think it will work this time?”
I always want to share my enthusiasm and bring others along for the ride. With pretty much the single exception of my book Walk Your Way to Better, most of my projects involve a “let’s” or a “we” or an “us.” And sometimes those projects don’t work out. And people think “oh, there she goes again.” It’s embarrassing to fail and, frankly, the more enthusiastic you are about a project, and the more you share that enthusiasm, the more embarrassing it can be.
So you learn to tamp down your enthusiasm. To quiet your voice. To put a lid on your excitement. You have the little voice in your head saying “just think about all of the things that haven’t worked before and remember, this one might fail too” and the other voice that says “it will be so embarrassing to tell everyone you are doing this and then for them to see you fail.”
A couple years ago, I attended the funeral of a spectacular man. He was the father of a dear family friend who impacted all of those he touched and among the many lessons to be learned from his life, one stood out for me.
As the pastor closed the service, she told one final story. At 85, Ed had been diagnosed with a serious heart problem and he had two choices: he could opt for medication which would likely extend his life but compromise its quality or elect to have a risky surgery that, if successful, would give him a good quality of life for years. After weighing the options, he opted for the surgery. The pastor went to visit him the day before the surgery. They talked and laughed and prayed together. And they also talked about Ed’s decision to go forward with the surgery. “I’m all in,” he said. And that was how he led his life: all in. When he took on a challenge, made a decision or saw someone who needed help, he was “all in.”
Those voices in your head that tell you you can’t do something? Ignore them.
The fear that bringing your full self to a project, taking the biggest swing you can, sharing your enthusiasm will all who will listen and then failing will be embarrassing? Ignore it.
Be all in. Go all in.
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