A friend messaged: lunch and rollerblading?

In my head the answer was already no. My brain had started calculating. Getting there. The gear. The time. I’ve never done that route. Too complicated.

I said yes anyway. The metro was closed, so I took a scooter. I was ten minutes late. It was one of the best afternoons I’ve had in months.

When I sent my first mailer after ten months of silence, I was sure people would unsubscribe. Surely everyone had moved on and wouldn’t want to hear from me anymore.

I didn’t want to look at the stats. I looked. Nobody unsubscribed.

Last week I accidentally sent a message to 400 clients at 6 in the morning. I pictured 400 people responding in rage that we woke them up with nonsense. No one replied.

I’ve journaled for 15 years. When you do it that long, you start seeing your own repeats. This is one of mine:

My brain is a bad estimator. And it’s wrong in one direction.

It overstates how hard things will be. It overstates how badly they’ll go.

This isn’t positive thinking. I’m not telling myself it’ll be fine. I just have years of evidence, in my own handwriting, that my forecast is off in exactly this way.

So I do two things now:

1. I discount the dread. When something feels too big, I assume my estimate is inflated and start anyway. The start is the hardest part. Once I’m in, I usually love it.

2. I say yes to invitations. Even when my body is shaking from discomfort.

The real cost isn’t the work I don’t finish. It’s the invitations I decline. The trips I don’t book. The things I never try because my brain said it would be a mission.

I almost said no to that afternoon of rollerblading.

Enjoy your weekend. Say yes to something.

Marnus