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Now, what we're going to be discussing is how to pivot when things are not going the way that we hope that they're going. And one of the things that I think is important to note is that a lot of times we can get emotionally hung up on the idea of something working, or even hung up on the idea of it was working in the past and that it should be working now, even though it's become clear that now it's not really working very well for us.
I think when discussing this, it's important to know that a lot of times we can get emotionally married to our ideas.
And the danger in that is if you keep trying to plug along with something that's not working, it will end up becoming more and more frustrating and then you will lose more and more motivation and hope that then will make it even harder if you do have to pivot and you do want to try to change something because even though you haven't really tried to change anything yet, those negative emotions of something not working still carry on even when you start trying to do that new thing.
And there's so many different things that happen in life that change the course of the direction that we're going that even though this can be a difficult concept, it's something that's very important for us to be able to grasp onto and to use pretty regularly. Oh, for sure. And I think this is a place that even our family right now is about to pivot in one of the co-ops that we decided to be a part of this year.
And it's a hard decision for me to make But as we've noticed this year, we're part of two different co-ops and we also really got busy, which you've heard about if you've been listening to the podcast.
We've really gotten busy with a couple of different sports and our kids are just getting to that age and stage where we want to be really mindful of the activities that we're putting them in, that it is really enriching their lives and it's aligning with our mission as a family and it's not taking away from that mission. And so we joined a different co-op this year, and it really has been a great co-op. And there's some really cool classes that my kids have gotten to be a part of.
But we've realized that for our family, this probably isn't the best fit for us. And it has nothing to do with the co-op itself. But we've realized that having to set aside a whole other day for this co-op is taking away a lot of peace from our own family and what we want to strive for in our own family. So granted, there are a lot of different enrichment classes that they're able to be a part of on this day.
But because we're saying yes to this, we're saying no to a lot of other things that we want to do. A lot of other field trips that we want to do with our primary co-op and our main community of friends. As well as we're saying no to being able to be at home a whole other day and really work on the papers that we need to get done. and some homeschooling things that we need to get done. And just the exhaustion that I've seen in the kids after we're coming home from that day.
For our family, I'm seeing that it's not really the right fit. And this is a really important thing to note when we're talking about pivoting, that you are recognizing what is right for you and for your family. You're not doing this based on the opinions of others. You're not doing it based off of external influences, but you're really kind of honing in and taking the time to realize what is right for you because it's not going to be the same for everybody and that's okay and you have to.
Unapologetically be able to make decisions for your family and protect your family and recognize what's best for them even if maybe external people will tell you why it's a great decision or this has been so great for my family and I absolutely believe that it has been great for their family But just recognizing and sticking to your guns once you realize something isn't working. Well, I think interesting talking about this co-op, right, looking at it from an idealistic standpoint, right?
Is it enriching? Do the kids get access to more things that they don't in other areas? For sure. And I remember when we talked about it before we got into it, I said, OK, this all sounds good. Can we actually manage this? Is this actually going to be something that we can keep following through with? Idealistically, again, it shouldn't be a problem. We had the time for it. It looks good for the family and everything.
But then when it came down to the practical application of, hey, we're trying this, we've done it. And then how's everybody feeling about it? Most everybody's feeling exhausted or like it's more of a chore a lot of times. And again, it's not all bad. There was good to it. But the downsides ended up outweighing the benefits that we are getting from that. And so when we look at things, when we think about pivoting, a lot of times people get too hung up on the idealistic idea of it.
Well, it should be like this and it should be great because of this. But then the practical applications on the ground was it was exhausting and it was keeping us from doing other things to a degree of excellence. And even though the kids liked lots of portions of it, they were feeling overwhelmed and too tired from all the stuff that they were doing.
And so a lot of times when it comes to that pivoting idea, it's understanding that, okay, there's this idealized version of what it would be, but now an actual application, this is more what it looks like. And it ends up looking like the juice isn't worth the squeeze at this point. And so then we're just going to stop squeezing because we're not getting enough benefit out of it. And it ends up being more wasted energy than the benefit.
That's a funny statement. I've never heard that statement before. Oh yeah. Well, think about it, right? The juice isn't worth the squeeze. If you're squeezing out an orange and you get one teaspoon of juice out of that orange, you're not going to squeeze 50 oranges to try to make a cup of orange juice. It's just not worth that effort. Oh, no, I totally agree. And I can see it. But that is just such a funny statement. I feel like you're always doing that.
You're always throwing out these idioms that I've never heard before, but they make me laugh. I actually really love them. I don't know why, but they just really connect with me. And so I like to use them. And I think another thing to add on is that our circumstances have changed. We added in another commitment with one of our daughters being a part of the swim team, and that's a huge commitment. And usually my kids want to be a part of everything.
But when we talk to them individually and collectively, all of them express like that they're going to miss certain parts of it. And I think that's okay. These are good conversations to have to know that as we're pivoting, it's not always this black and white thing. It's not always all or nothing like this is so clearly bad for a family or this is so clearly something that we have to change. But there are parts of it that I'm going to miss.
There are parts of it that they're going to miss. And there are people that they're going to miss in this shift. But the benefits and the gains that we're going to get from making this decision is going to shift and make a bigger difference for our family and really benefit us in more ways than if we just kept pushing through and stuck to our guns and was like, no, we made this decision.
This is what we're going to do. And we really do value being people of our word and completing things that we say we're going to start. But when we signed up for this, you and I had talked about how we're going to take a look at it again and every so often see if this really is still a good fit for our family. And I think being able to pivot, one of the really good things about that is that it gives you the ability to adapt to changing circumstances or new information that you get.
And basically, that's what life is. It's this constant churn of, are you able to adapt to life throwing things at you that you aren't expecting or life not going the way that you initially expected that it would go?
And it's good to plan but ultimately the best planning in the world is always going to require at least a plan b and probably a plan c and maybe even d and f after that and it doesn't mean that you've made a failure that you've had to pivot it's just i sat down i looked at the information at hand and then i made the best decision with the information that i had at hand but at best everybody's operating from incomplete information and then
as more information comes in you being able to then reassess and then adapt to that new information is really paramount to trying to be successful in life. Another thing that I wanted to address is as you decide whether or not you need to pivot in certain areas of your life, you have to be careful.
I think you mentioned not to be emotionally married to the decisions, but I think another consideration is to be financially married to decisions where you then are stuck and you feel like I cannot pivot because I've already invested this much into it.
I know in the past you've talked about the idea of diminishing returns and sometimes we can feel like oh man I've already put this money into it I just gotta keep pushing through and do it but when we do that we're just sticking through because of the financial aspect of it and we're not looking at the whole picture. Maybe we're not getting the returns in other areas that are of more value to us. And I think the other idea that goes along with this too is just what you're saying.
So you might be getting diminishing returns, but it also, there's this idea, it's called the sunk cost fallacy. Because I've already paid into this thing, then that means I have to see it through to the end versus saying, okay, well, I put in money into it, but it's not producing what I hoped it would. And so then I'm going to just stop doing this thing because I'm not really getting
the value out of it. Should I then make myself finish, even though I'm not getting the value because I put the money in? Or should I just say, well, I'm going to chalk that up to a little bit of a loss here. And then I'm just going to go and I'm going to invest that time and effort into something else that does have more of a probability of giving me more of a return.
And I think not even a full loss, recognizing that based on the things you're learning, you're going to make different decisions next time. And I think that's a good idea, too. is a lot of times because something doesn't work out, people will categorize it as a total loss versus saying, well, there was some benefits to it, but not enough to keep going on. So it's not a total loss. It could even be like a 51-49 situation where it's like, well.
You know, it's 49% beneficial, but 51% not beneficial. That's not a, oh, that was a complete disaster or awful, or I'm a terrible person. I made an awful choice. It's just that this didn't quite meet up to the parameters that I need to keep moving forward.
And so then we're going to cut our losses and just move on from this and i think a lot of times people get stuck on that idea that it says something bad about me as a person that the thing that i thought would work out didn't work out the way that i was hoping it would it doesn't say anything bad about you as a person at all because everybody makes different choices. At certain points don't work out the way that they had anticipated them. And that's just a part of being a human being.
And I think this is where it's really important to look at having set reflection points, whether it's quarterly or it's your monthly family meeting that you have, or it's your annual check-in. At some point, you want to make sure that you are having these set check-in points so that you are stopping and seeing, hey, is this working in our business? Is this working in our family? Is this working spiritually? Is this working emotionally?
Is this working in our social life? And these set check-in points can really help. But then also making sure that you're stopping as you see need. Maybe it's not a set check-in point, but you're recognizing. Hey, this really isn't working for us right now. Do I need to take a minute to reflect and to see what is going on with our family? And I think, too, re-evaluating goals is also an important thing.
There's a time where I was working three jobs and I was seeing 70 clients a week and it was very exhausting but I was also working six days a week the family didn't see me as much and the nice part was we were making money kind of hand over fist it was wonderful but then it really took a toll on my relationship with the kids and then the time that Ruth and I had together and so even though in one aspect is being successful it was detracting from another aspect.
And so then I remember after that, Ruth, you're like, nope, you're never working Saturdays again. We're not going to do that. And I totally agree. I didn't like working Saturdays. But for me, I saw myself getting caught too much up in, hey, this is a good financial place for us. And I actually remember one of the jobs we were talking about quitting and I'm more slow to pick up on things. And we had just had a meeting with our tax guy and we're like, okay, it's looking good.
And I was thinking in another couple of months, maybe I'll resign. And then you went home and you wrote my letter of resignation and you brought it back to me at work. And then I ended up handing it in that day. And it ended up being a great decision. It was difficult for me because again, I was kind of married to that idea of how much money we were making at that time and really enjoying the financial benefits from it.
But also I was exhausted. I was burning out and I got a lot of more years that I have to be working. And so if I burn out, that's not a great idea. And then also, if I'm missing out on everything in our family, then that's also not a great thing. And so it was a good thing. But also at the time, it was taking a toll on me, it was taking a toll on the family. And it wasn't the direction we really wanted to keep our lives going. And we had discussed that.
And it wasn't you coming and forcing me to quit, but it was you helping me to enact something that I was more emotionally tied to than you were. And it really is looking at the whole picture and looking at, does all of this align with your values and your beliefs as a family because it was aligning financially for sure and
But in other areas, it was not as beneficial. And I could see you working so hard for our family, but that at some point it became detrimental to the overall picture of what our goals are. And so for sure, it wasn't me trying to come in and say, hey, this is what you're doing, but I really want to support you in this. And even the logistical task of having to sit down and write a resignation letter, I was like, hey, that's something easy I can do and support him in it.
And he can turn it in when he's ready, preferably right now. And it totally ended up being right now. But it was something that I think together we could see it just wasn't sustainable over the course of time. Yeah. And honestly, I was able to push it further than the original goal was to push it. And a part of this, too, this is a little bit of a personality difference is you are much more comfortable with change and I'm much less comfortable with
change. And so going along with that change, although the numbers were there. Like I said earlier, I was more married to the idea. This feels safer. This feels more comfortable to me, not from the amount I was working, but from a financial standpoint, it felt much more safe.
And so to that degree right that was a strength that you had where i had a little bit of weakness where i struggled at making that shift because also at that time i had just left just a couple months earlier i'd left a full-time job and then this was a contracted job and then after this then i was full-time in our private practice and so this was the shift from working for somebody else to the contractor were to completely working for myself under my total own purview and to me that was
a little bit scary because it's like okay now it's all on me right if i mess this up or i can't figure this out, we're going to be in more of a financially difficult position. But I think that's a lot of times where your optimism comes in. And I think this is also an important aspect about being able to pivot is the more pessimistic you are, the harder pivoting is going to be. The more optimistic you are, the easier pivoting is going to be.
Right. And I think another great point you just made was that pivoting doesn't have to be all or nothing, right? It doesn't have to be this black and white shift, which we talked about a little bit earlier, but I just want to bring it back to that point. Because when we left that full-time job, it wasn't this full-time job straight to now private practice. We pivoted in a different direction and a little bit, which was still safe and secure for you and for our family.
But it helped us pivot toward the direction of what we wanted as far as being self-employed and having different hours and different benefits of what we needed for our family. And so it wasn't this full-on shift that was black or white. And even today, as we were talking about shifting out of this co-op, right before we got on here, I thought I had this black and white shift that had to have happened.
But right before we started recording, you mentioned something that made me think of, oh, actually, there's this other shift that we can make in timing that would make better sense for our family. And it wasn't this all or nothing thinking. I think one thing that can kind of be the enemy of pivoting is this fear of the unknown.
And that can really hold you back. And a lot of times what ends up happening, and I remember hearing the study about businesses where when businesses are struggling, a lot of times they're worried about making a pivot because they're worried about making the wrong choice.
But the direction they're already going is causing the business to be on the decline and what oftentimes ends up happening is they wait until they absolutely have to pivot but by the time they absolutely have to pivot it's too late and then the damage is done and then the company ends up not making it because they weren't willing to take the risk a little bit earlier when they're in a little bit more of a safe position and so in your life too stopping and thinking like okay
I don't want to wait until the absolute last moment to pivot or to try to shift things let's start seeing like okay it's struggling right now now the first sign of struggling doesn't mean you have to pivot is this just something happening is this just gonna pass and then are we gonna just slide back into when it was working better or hey no now this is seeming like a trend now we really do have to consider can we do something different to make this work better can we pivot
in some way shape or form to make this more effective for us. But a lot of times that really does come from that pessimism and thinking, if we change, it's going to go poorly, or I have no idea what it's going to look like on the other side. But then that's not a bad thing. That can be a great thing. Not knowing what's going to happen on the other side, it's a possibility it might not work out good.
But then there's also that possibility that it could work out wonderfully and that it can work out better than you could possibly imagine. And so as we close out the podcast today, take some time and really stop and think, what are some things that might need consideration of pivoting?
What are some things that maybe haven't been working well for a while that might need to pivot and that we could maybe try to go in a little bit of a different direction to see if we can make our life better and so that we can get our life more in line with the goals and directions that we want to be going. And then on top of that, taking a little bit of time and saying like, okay, what are my fears about pivoting?
But then also then going and playing devil's advocate with yourself and saying, okay, well, how could this actually really go well? What could possibly this look like if it goes the way that I hope that it goes? And then stopping and thinking like, okay, when can I start trying to pivot and actually start putting a timeline on it? Because if you don't put a timeline on it, that fear of the unknown will cause you to keep kicking that can down the road.
And then you're going to keep getting the negative effects of not pivoting on something that you should. All right, guys, thank you so much for listening. And remember, your mind is a powerful thing. Music. Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of Mr. and Mrs. Therapy. We hope that you enjoyed today's episode and found it helpful. If so, would you take 30 seconds and share it with a friend? Also, we'd love for you to leave us a review on Apple Podcast.
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