![]() I'm not sure where I'll land, but I'm learning things every day. My entrepreneurial setback was an opportunity to be a novice again, and I began sampling careers from writing to nonprofit work to real-estate management. Instead of pouring my energy and savings into finding a "product-market fit" for a startup I liked only in theory, I devoted my attention to finding a "life fit" with activities where working hard felt purposeful and joyous. Seven months after leaving my corporate job, I tried a new approach. The wrong way is dictating what must happen and believing you've failed if it doesn't go as planned. She's been in therapy for anxiety about spending time off incorrectly. Never did I think, "This is a step toward a greeting-card business." Never did I say, "If I improve by 20 seconds a week, I'll eventually hit a six-minute mile." It was glorious. I joined a gym and ran the fastest mile of my life - it felt like I was flying, a new experience because I was overweight for most of my childhood. I handmade cards for people I appreciated, which filled me with unexpected delight. Painfully and with much pleading, I broke up with my dreams. ![]() A gap year, while possible for college students or millennial tech workers, is a luxury for most Americans whose median bank account balance is about $5,300. I still have a backache from how little I worked.Ĭompounding my shame was the guilt of knowing that time off was a privilege most Americans couldn't afford. I tried rewarding myself with a massage for meeting certain deadlines. I tried limiting my time working after reading about a guy who went to the gym for weeks but didn't allow himself to work out, then lost 100 pounds. I subscribed to a web-development platform. I set a rule for watching Netflix only on the treadmill (like Arianna Huffington), believing that before long, I would run my first marathon.ĭesperate, I tried every hack. I would start with two minutes a day on my startup, knowing that soon I'd be coding for hours on end. I craved the heartbreak we're all inspired by: Oprah Winfrey when she got demoted as a news reporter, Sara Blakely, who bombed the LSAT twice before founding Spanx, and Min Jin Lee, the author of "Pachinko" who had two manuscripts rejected before publishing her first book 12 years after quitting her job as a corporate lawyer.īrimming with Instagram wisdom, I believed even the smallest changes could be transformative. ![]() The worst part is I even planned for failure.
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