🧪 How to take risks without losing it all

👋 Hey, it's Susan, your favorite spicy career coach. Welcome to better work - a personal development newsletter for high-performers who put themselves first so that they can show up for the people they love.

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Want to know the secret to happiness? 👉 Lower your expectations.

If you expect something to be shitty, then you can only go up from there. 💩

While lowering your expectations to increase your chance of happiness works well for low-stakes situations like picking a movie for date night, it feels impossible to do this when it comes to our performance.

We try something new with zero experience and expect to get it on the first try. When we don't ace it, we quit.

High expectations come with a lot of pressure, usually self-inflicted. We shy away from taking bigger risks because there's a high chance of failure.

But it's not the failure that hurts us. Failure is just data of what didn't work.

👹 What wrecks us is the disappointment.

So how do we stay ambitious without lowering our expectations? How do we take risks without losing everything we worked so hard to build?

🧪 We need to think like scientists.

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Read the full newsletter below.

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Wanting it all without losing it all

You checked all the boxes. You have a reputable career that supports your lifestyle. You're prioritizing your health and your family.

Everything is fine.

...But you want more.

The tension of wanting to protect everything you've built and taking risks for more is excruciating.

This tension stems from our default: all-or-nothing. Everything I do, I give 150%.

While your high-performance drive served you well up until this point, it's now keeping you paralyzed.

🛠️ You worked sixty hours a week and pushed your body to the limit - when you were in your twenties.

💸 You took a pay cut or went on a gap year - before lifestyle creep locked you in.

❤️‍🩹 You kept choosing work to provide for your family - until you noticed that you barely spend time with them.

The all-or-nothing approach that was once your ace card is now a fool's gamble. What made you successful is now keeping you stuck.

An alternative approach that allows you to move forward without risking it all is to think like a scientist.

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Your life as a science project

Scientists don't find a solution after one trial. If scientists gave up after the first failed experiment, then we would still be living in the dark ages. They are constantly testing and tweaking to get closer to what they're looking for.

Sometimes, they get something they weren't looking for. These are happy surprises, like penicillin and Post-It Notes (both equally essential).

Even if you're not a science-y person, you still have experience with experiments. Remember those science fair projects with the tri-fold boards?

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Science fair projects start with a hypothesis.

The key part of that definition is the starting point. You're not expected to have everything planned out from the beginning. You start with what you know and run a bunch of tests at a low-risk level.

Rather than obsessing over each failure, experimenting lets you zoom out and focus on the net outcome.

In the context of work, you're not betting your career on one decision. You're gathering data to make lots of informed decisions along the way.

There is a similar business concept called small bets, popularized by Daniel Vasallo: "deliberately trying out multiple ideas with the smallest amount of effort necessary to de-risk your journey."

De-risking doesn't eliminate risk; it allows more room for error, more grace for yourself, and more opportunities to learn along the way.

✏️ Let's put this into context: people hire me when they need help navigating the next phase of their career. They are burned out or bored out of their current role. They reached their ceiling and are unsure where to go from there. When they're asked "What do you want?" or "What's next?" they freeze.

We start by creating a hypothesis based on what they're curious about exploring and their past experiences that we can leverage. We also set parameters, aka non-negotiables: maintain certain income, won't restart at entry level if they pivot industries, and not sacrificing time with their families.

Then we experiment together for twelve weeks. They're the lead scientist and I'm their advisor. We look for rooms that they could be in, events they could attend, people they could meet. We track how they respond to each interaction and activity. When their expectations aren't met [right away], I stop them from falling into a spiral. When they doubt themselves, I provide an outside perspective to reframe their thinking.

Within six to twelve months after working with me, every client made a significant shift: up to $50,000 salary increase, intentional pivots to new industries, and/or more time with their families while building generational wealth.

The key was to test before they invested fully into the transition. If this is the kind of support you're looking for, then click here to learn more about my coaching service.

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Every experiment has a blind spot

Running small experiments sound straightforward. The difficult part is not the experiments themselves, but the waiting.

When your progress doesn't move at your desired pace, your brain tries to 'fix it,' rather than accepting the natural pace of growth.

Is there something else I should be doing right now?

Is nothing happening because something is wrong?

Not knowing when to start, stop, or pivot is also known as tension. On one hand, you logically know you need more time and should stay the course. On the other hand, you feel like you should do something because the needle isn't moving fast enough. You're being pulled in two directions and that tension is overwhelming.

This is a blind spot I refer to as tolerance.

Tolerance is the tension between external pace and internal peace. Ignore it and you'll either quit before giving your experiments a real chance, or white-knuckle your way through (hello, anxiety).

Both result in being too hard on yourself about things outside your control, and not being hard enough about the things within your control.

To better understand your tolerance blind spot and learn how to manage it, use this free resource.

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How to make better decisions

Pros-and-cons lists work for simple decisions, but they ignore the weight of each item.

You're trying to figure out what to do with your career - there's a lot at stake here! Lists are for grocery shopping and tasks, not making major life decisions.

Rather than a pros-and-cons list, use these two questions:

1. "What's holding me?"
2. "What's pulling me?"

If golden handcuffs are holding you, look at your finances. How much money do you actually need per year to cover expenses and save? Know your numbers.

If a creative idea is pulling you, then find people in your network doing something similar. Ask them what they did well and what they wish they knew when they started. There isn't a prize for figuring it out on your own.

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Three tips for a better experiment

Speaking of learning from others, here are three tips that helped me and my clients avoid self-sabotage and run better experiments:

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1. Be objective.

Emotions can skew results and you could miss something vital. Having an outside perspective works well here. Avoid asking friends and family members because the more they love you, the more biased they are.

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2. Move messily.

High standards aren't your enemy - overcorrecting is. It's quicksand. People don't notice the things you obsess over, and the ones worth listening to will gently guide you. Execute now, polish later.

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3. Lengthen your runway.

Time kills unmet expectations. Double the length of time you think you'll need. Resist the urge to quit because it's taking longer than expected. That time is going to pass whether you use it or not.

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You don't have to lower what you expect from yourself to avoid disappointment. You have to change how you expect yourself to show up.

Stop pressuring yourself with "What's next? What do I want?"

Ask instead, "What's holding me? What's pulling me?"

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🥕 One Thing Thursday

Before you go, I wanted you to be the first to know that I'm hosting a live accountability session on Nov 6th. If you love better work, then this session is basically a real-life version of it.

Bring one thing that will make real progress towards your goals. We're getting it done.

There are limited seats. It's free (for now). You can sign up here.

If you're unable to attend this time, then reply back and tell me: what is something you want to work on and be held accountable for?

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Thank you for reading issue #20 of better work.

🫡 See you on November 6th. Stay safe out there.

Take care of yourself,

Susan

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Susan Lee

Career coach for high-performers

Founder of Hey Ms. Lee, LLC

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P.S. 👀 If you're still feeling stuck despite your success, then find out what's actually getting in the way.

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