132. Bad First Drafts
What do updating your resume, emailing a client about an overdue invoice, and discussing boundaries with your teen daughter have in common?
Well, for one, you might be avoiding all these tasks, and maybe a few others too. ;)
But good news: you can use the tool of creating a bad first draft to get moving on all of them.
And guess what - once you get moving, it’s a lot easier to actually get done with each of these.
And any other tasks you’re also avoiding.
The idea of getting started with a “shitty first draft” comes from a book about writing by Anne Lamott.
But it’s a concept that can be helpful with all kinds of tasks besides writing.
Anything you’re not doing.
Especially if you’re not doing it because you think you’ll be bad at it.
You can use the concept of starting with a bad first draft to develop deeper relationships.
Climb the corporate ladder.
Build multiple businesses.
Being willing to suck at things actually makes it much easier to 1. do them and 2. get really fucking good at them.
Humans are so good at fantasizing about perfection.
The deeply connected relationship where you never feel misunderstood or fight.
The job you’re super good at that’s also challenging enough to be interesting (but never so hard you feel anxious or afraid).
Parenting your kid well every time, following all the current advice and it actually working like a charm.
I get why you might indulge in these fantasies.
It can feel so yummy to imagine it all going well.
To imagine being so effortlessly good at everything.
But the fastest way to get the things you want?
It’s by being willing to do a bad first draft.
So tune in this week to learn how to embrace bad first drafts and use them to create more of what you want in every area of your life and career.
I’m creating a brand new coaching offering that is not for the faint of heart called Unhinged AF! This is going to be a yearlong coaching program where we can work on anything and everything you want to makeover your entire life. It’s a huge investment at a price tag of $30,000, and it’s going to have huge payoffs. Click here for more details!
If you want to supercharge your capacity to create a life that blows your mind, I have some one-on-one coaching slots opening up soon. Send me an email and let's talk about it or click here to schedule a call with me and we’ll see if we’re a good fit to start working together!
Satisfied AF is officially open for enrollment! Click here to get on a consult call and talk about what it would be like for you to be Satisfied AF in your life and career.
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN FROM THIS EPISODE:
How the concept of a bad first draft applies to so many things in life.
What it looks like to have a bad first draft.
Why you have to give yourself permission to be bad at something.
What happens if you think you have to be perfect at the things you want to go after in life.
How to create the things in life that you want but don’t have yet.
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE:
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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
This week we’re talking about bad first drafts.
You are listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It, the podcast for ambitious, high-achieving women who are ready to stop feeling stressed about work and kiss burnout goodbye forever. Whether you’re starting a business or staying in your day job, this show will give you the coaching and guidance you need to start loving your work today. Here’s your host, Career Coach, Kori Linn.
Hey, y’all. Happy Wednesday. I am back after a few weeks of not recording podcasts. I know you’ve been getting them every week because I record them in advance. But last week here in the real world I was actually on the California coast, which was lovely.
And we went to Carmel-by-the-Sea, and we went to Big Sur, and then we spent a few days with Alex’s aunt and uncle outside of Santa Cruz. And it was so nice to see the ocean. But also, Alex Luchini caught a cold, and I had a cold a few weeks before that. So we’ve been sick, but now we’re better. And spring is springing, and a lot of really nice things are going on.
Anyways, that’s what I’ve been up to. And I also have some really sad news, which I know many of y’all who have been following along for a while know that Alex and I had a beautiful, wonderful dog named Ranger. And sadly, we had to put him over the rainbow bridge recently, which he was getting older, so it made sense.
It was the right time, but it’s such a bummer and we’re super sad and we miss him a lot. And yes, putting him over the rainbow bridge is a euphemism for, yeah, we put him down. So lots of good things going on here, but also some hard stuff.
And that’s life, I’ve been using some of my own coaching tools, I’ve been having a lot of sadness and negative emotion and taking every day as it comes and just experiencing the grief of having an animal we truly loved and now he’s gone. It’s also like, I don’t know, I just think it’s really weird that kind of transition where you're just used to seeing someone every day.
And yes, I’m referring to our dog as someone because to us he was someone. He's a person to us, he’s a character in our lives. I realize dogs aren’t actually people, but come with me on this linguistic expression, that's how I think about it.
And yeah, it's like at first after he was gone I would see shadows and be like, “Oh, it's Ranger.” Or I'd be like, “Where's that dog?” Because he used to hide behind this one chair. And it's just so weird to me that someone can be there one day, and then just not. Just not there anymore. It's a hard thing to grapple with, I think.
So that's what's been going on in our neck of the woods. And now we're petless and we're pretty sad about it. But it also opens up some possibilities for some other things we've been maybe interested in doing, like traveling and stuff like that. But not super excited about the traveling or anything yet because mostly we're still in the phase where we're sad. And that's okay, because sadness is part of life, right? Sadness is a feeling to feel, not a problem to fix.
Okay, that doesn't relate at all to what we're talking about today. What we're talking about today is bad first drafts, or you might have heard the phrase before shitty first drafts, which is a pretty well-known phrase. I think it's from an essay, I think it's by Anne Lamott, about how writing a bad first draft is a really important part of writing.
If you want to be a person who writes, there's this idea that you’ve got to be willing to write a bad first draft. And I think that is a really powerful teaching for writing, but I also think this teaching relates to so many other things in life. And I want to offer it to you for something you can think about for all kinds of areas. So, again, this is not just for writers.
So what does it look like to have a shitty first draft in something that's not writing? Well, actually, first, let's talk about what it's like in writing, right? So it's like maybe if you want a new job, you do a shitty first draft of your resume. Maybe if you want to ask your boss for a promotion, you do a shitty first draft of your promotion pitch or your promotion document.
Maybe if you want to learn a new skill, whether it's writing code or writing some kind of technical documentation, or learning a new software, you do a shitty first draft of that. So a shitty first draft of code, a shitty first draft of technical documentation, or a shitty first draft type of effort at whatever a new software is.
You can also do shitty first drafts behaviorally, right? So if you are having a lot of conflict with your significant other and you want to become someone who, as I've talked about on the podcast before, can use conflict to create intimacy or who can have ruptures and repairs in their relationships, you can have a shitty first draft of effective conflict. Or you can have a shitty first draft at rupture and repair. You’ve probably had a lot of drafts of rupture, but you can have a shitty first draft at repair, right?
And the idea with this teaching is that a lot of people don't try things unless they're already certain they can be good at them. But it's really hard to be good at things that you don't try or haven't tried. And even sometimes, once we already know how to do things, we still have to be willing to do the not as great version of it.
Like Anne Lamott is a pretty famous writer, and still saying shitty first drafts are important. That's an important step of writing a good later draft is to be able to write a shitty first draft. And I love that idea because I do think sometimes people think once you have expertise or experience in something, then you're always good at it every time.
But what if you're not? And what if being willing to have bad first drafts of things, maybe forever, is actually a big part of the experience of creating incredible work? Like if you want to be someone who's really prolific, who literally writes a lot of books, or has a lot of really close, deep relationships, or climbs that corporate ladder to the executive level, or builds a business really successfully, or multiple businesses.
You could have shitty first drafts at a business where you're like, my first draft of this business, like your first business plan and your first vision for the business doesn't actually have to be very good for that business to then go on to be something incredible. And if you build multiple businesses, you might go through that again and again each time, just like a writer might have a shitty first draft of every single book, every single short story, every single chapter that they're writing.
So the basic idea here is what if it's okay to be willing to be bad? Now, that sounds so basic that I feel like a lot of people are going to be like, “What?” That's so easy. It's so obvious.” But here's what I see over and over again, both with my coaching clients but also with people in my personal life, like friends, whatever, people don't try.
We're really good at fantasizing. We're really good at imagining. We're really good at thinking about the day when it's all perfect and great or imagining our book that's already written and finished and perfect and a New York Times bestseller. And I get it because that part feels really fun and delicious. It's like yum, yum, yum, what a wonderful time that will be.
But if you actually want to write the book, if you actually want to get the new job, if you actually want to start the business, if you actually want to have effective conflict in your relationship versus just fantasize about a relationship where you always get along with the other person, I would invite you to consider that a key ingredient to that is being willing to be less good at it. Being willing to be shitty at it. Being willing to be bad at it and do it anyways. And that the sooner you're willing to write a bad first draft, the faster you're going to get to an amazing final draft.
Here's another magical thing, too. I think a lot of times we kind of work ourselves up about how bad we're going to be at something and then we actually turn out to be maybe not that bad. Maybe your shitty first draft is actually quite shitty. And if so, good job, you did the assignment right. Then you just keep editing and revising until it gets to be something wonderful, something you can be proud of.
But a lot of times we do what we expect to be a shitty first draft and it's not that bad. It's pretty good. Maybe we have to floss it a little, we’ve got to polish it, clean it up. And sometimes you do what you expect to be a shitty first draft and it's actually fucking fantastic, right?
So I think what this is getting at is at the heart of this is the fear of being bad. And the fear of being bad is actually kind of the problematic part, right? When you give yourself permission to be bad at something, then you can actually do the thing.
When you do the thing, you can actually figure out what level you're at. If you are bad, congratulations, you did the assignment right. If you're not bad, congratulations, you're closer to your goal than you thought and then you can go from there.
I think it's so easy for so many of us to get stuck in fantasy mode where we're fantasizing about being at that beautiful, final, perfect, glorious, final draft. And we're not willing to do literally anything to go towards that. And listen, I'm not just calling y'all out here. This happens to me sometimes still.
Just because I'm a coach and I teach these concepts doesn't mean they don't also apply to me because being a coach doesn't magically remove me from the human experience. It just means I know some shit about the human experience. I still have to navigate these paths just like y'all do. And I hire my own coaches to help me navigate them.
But what I want for you is for you to at least have the option. I want for you to have the option of writing the book. I want for you to have the option of getting a new job. I want for you to have the option of launching the business or launching six businesses, one after the other if that's what you want to do.
I want for you the option of having effective conflict in your relationship and being able to do rupture and repair. I want for you the capacity to build friendships and community as an adult, because actually that's something I've been coaching on recently. And something I've been working on recently too, is building community. And people talk all the time about how hard it is to build community and how hard it is to make friends as an adult.
Well, what if you gave yourself permission to just do a shitty first draft, right? And maybe it's a shitty first draft of a Bumble BFF account, and then you keep doing it better. Maybe it's a shitty first draft of asking someone to coffee. And then if you ask enough people to coffee, you're probably going to get better at it.
Or a shitty first draft of some other way of connecting with other people. A shitty first draft of friendship. You don't have to be the perfect friend to be a friend. And you're allowed to kind of do it badly and then keep learning and keep going. And yeah, we're going to also apologize and be accountable.
But the point of this podcast is not actually about the integrity or the ethics. It's about giving yourself permission to suck so you can give yourself permission to try. Because if you think you have to be perfect, you're probably not going to do anything ever. And then, yeah, you'll have all those fantasies that feel really good, but you won't have any of the things you want to go after in life.
And again, you don't have to go after any of them. I just want for you to have that option. And I think that this teaching and this mental exercise is one way to open yourself up to that option.
Okay, so let's review. Anything you want in life that you don't currently have, you're probably going to need to do some stuff to get it. And if you're not taking action on doing the stuff you need to do to get it because you're afraid of being bad at that stuff, one antidote to that is to give yourself the assignment of just doing a shitty first draft.
And a shitty first draft can be anything, it doesn't just have to be writing, right? It can be the way that you write your first business plan. It can be the way that you try having a really difficult conversation with your spouse and you just do it at the level you're at. And it doesn't go that great and you praise yourself, and then you keep going until you get to a draft that's pretty good. And a draft that's like, oh, actually really good. And then a draft that's actually like, ooh, delicious, really good.
That's how you build the things you want to have in your life that you don't already have, is you’ve got to get started and you got to work on them. And giving yourself permission to have a shitty start is one way to get yourself going.
I'm not going to belabor it too much because I think it's actually really simple teaching. And I think that's the whole point. And I think it's very powerful and if you actually pick literally any area of your life where you want to have a different result than what you're having now and apply this, I think you'll be blown away at what's possible.
And again, if you do the first draft and it's shitty, give yourself a fucking high five about it because that actually was the assignment, you did it correctly. And this is also good because a lot of us are used to when we do something badly, then we feel badly. And then we don't want to do the thing anymore or we don't want to try anymore.
But when you do something badly and then you praise yourself, because that was the assignment, then you start to feel good about doing badly. And it's kind of like this beautiful paradox and that'll make you more willing to try things and take risks and other areas. So try it out. Try it out, and then come over to Instagram and let me know what you think about it.
All right, before we hop off of here I want to tell y’all one more thing. So if you're on my newsletter list, you already know that I've been popping off on there about getting unhinged. And if you're not on there, here's basically the download.
I was talking to my coach and friend Maggie Reyes a while ago and I was telling her I used to want to unlearn my social conditioning, which is what we talk about on this podcast all the time. But I feel like I've actually done that pretty well. And I was like, “You know what I want to do now? I want to get completely fucking unhinged,” which sounds insane. But come with me.
What I mean when I say I want to get unhinged is I want to unhinge from expectations and I want to be completely unhinged in how much joy I think is available in my life, how much possibility I think is available in my life, and how much joy and possibility are available in your life. I want to be completely unhinged in what I can imagine for you, and what I can hold space for my clients to create.
I don't want to be controlled by like, oh, it's not likely or, oh, that would be hard. Because a lot of things aren't likely because no one's willing to try them. And a lot of things would be hard, but that doesn't mean they're impossible. And it doesn't mean they're not worth doing.
And so in the spirit of this idea of getting fucking unhinged and being a little wild with ourselves and each other about what kind of lives we can have and what we can create for ourselves, I schemed up a new coaching offering.
And let me tell y'all, it is unhinged. It is not for the faint of heart. It is a huge commitment and it's a substantial investment. And it's going to be spectacular. And the people who sign up for it are going to create truly wild and incredible things in their lives.
So I'm sure you're all wondering, what is it exactly? Here's what it is exactly. We work together for a year. We coach one on one three times a week. You have two deep work days in person or virtual where we do six hours of coaching.
And if we're in person we're going to do meals, we're going to have fun together, too. Chat coaching in between so we can kind of always be talking about whatever it is you're working on. And you're going to have my brain and coaching laser focused on any and every topic you want to work on for a fucking year.
And just off the top of my head, I haven't had any clients go through this program yet but just off the top of my head, here's some stuff that you could create in this container, in this coaching offering, unhinged. Or actually I'm calling it Unhinged As Fuck. So in the manner of how I name things Unhinged As Fuck.
Here are the kind of results you could create in that time together. New business idea planned and launched. Ongoing coaching about everything from budgeting to getting new clients to building effective systems and processes for the day to day.
Or we could coach on your career, and we could eliminate all your work stress. We could set work boundaries, we could have them solid, we can skyrocket your work satisfaction.
Or we can work on your relationship. We’ll revitalize it. We’ll create a deeper connection. We’ll build that skill to have effective conflict, deeper intimacy, better sex, the works, you name it. Or maybe a big move to a new city, or even a new country, complete with making new friends and building a new community in your new home.
Or a career makeover, a new industry, a new role, a new salary, revitalized sense of purpose and meaning in your work. Or maybe we renovate your existing small or large business with new fees, new clients, new team, new systems, and processes that actually work for and delight you.
Or, more likely, we do multiple of the things I've just listed and create some fun surprises that it didn't even occur to you to dream of because we're going to have so much time together and so much space to work on whatever you fucking want in this yearlong coaching program.
And I don't usually put my prices out there publicly, but I think I'm going to start because I actually think price transparency is pretty compelling. So I'm going to tell you all right now. I told you it's a huge commitment and it's a big investment, and the price tag on this is $30,000 US. And listen, it is a fuckload of money. It is a huge investment. And it's also going to have huge payoffs.
This is a program where you come, and you go all the way in with me. And then we make over everything. And the ripples are going to go out into every area of your life, and you're going to create things that are probably going to change the trajectory of your life. So that's kind of how I want you to think about it.
Now listen, I know this is not for everyone. And I want to assure you, I have coaching stuff for people at every level. I realize that this is an intense investment and it's not the right investment for everybody. But I know there's someone out there who it is, and I'm so excited to work with you.
And for everyone else, I'm still offering shorter one on one packages. And I also am going to be offering another cohort of SAF. And I'm also going to be doing some free coaching calls over the next several months that are going to be open to the public. So there is a price point for everyone to join and come and partake of this work and get the amazing results that coaching can deliver.
All right, y'all, so excited I got to hang out with you. That's what I have for this week. I will talk to you next time. Bye.
Thank you for listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It. We'll have another episode for you next week. And in the meantime, if you're feeling super fired up, head on over to korilinn.com for more guidance and resources.
You are listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It, the podcast for ambitious, high-achieving women who are ready to stop feeling stressed about work and kiss burnout goodbye forever. Whether you’re starting a business or staying in your day job, this show will give you the coaching and guidance you need to start loving your work today. Here’s your host, Career Coach, Kori Linn.
Hey, y’all. Happy Wednesday. I am back after a few weeks of not recording podcasts. I know you’ve been getting them every week because I record them in advance. But last week here in the real world I was actually on the California coast, which was lovely.
And we went to Carmel-by-the-Sea, and we went to Big Sur, and then we spent a few days with Alex’s aunt and uncle outside of Santa Cruz. And it was so nice to see the ocean. But also, Alex Luchini caught a cold, and I had a cold a few weeks before that. So we’ve been sick, but now we’re better. And spring is springing, and a lot of really nice things are going on.
Anyways, that’s what I’ve been up to. And I also have some really sad news, which I know many of y’all who have been following along for a while know that Alex and I had a beautiful, wonderful dog named Ranger. And sadly, we had to put him over the rainbow bridge recently, which he was getting older, so it made sense.
It was the right time, but it’s such a bummer and we’re super sad and we miss him a lot. And yes, putting him over the rainbow bridge is a euphemism for, yeah, we put him down. So lots of good things going on here, but also some hard stuff.
And that’s life, I’ve been using some of my own coaching tools, I’ve been having a lot of sadness and negative emotion and taking every day as it comes and just experiencing the grief of having an animal we truly loved and now he’s gone. It’s also like, I don’t know, I just think it’s really weird that kind of transition where you're just used to seeing someone every day.
And yes, I’m referring to our dog as someone because to us he was someone. He's a person to us, he’s a character in our lives. I realize dogs aren’t actually people, but come with me on this linguistic expression, that's how I think about it.
And yeah, it's like at first after he was gone I would see shadows and be like, “Oh, it's Ranger.” Or I'd be like, “Where's that dog?” Because he used to hide behind this one chair. And it's just so weird to me that someone can be there one day, and then just not. Just not there anymore. It's a hard thing to grapple with, I think.
So that's what's been going on in our neck of the woods. And now we're petless and we're pretty sad about it. But it also opens up some possibilities for some other things we've been maybe interested in doing, like traveling and stuff like that. But not super excited about the traveling or anything yet because mostly we're still in the phase where we're sad. And that's okay, because sadness is part of life, right? Sadness is a feeling to feel, not a problem to fix.
Okay, that doesn't relate at all to what we're talking about today. What we're talking about today is bad first drafts, or you might have heard the phrase before shitty first drafts, which is a pretty well-known phrase. I think it's from an essay, I think it's by Anne Lamott, about how writing a bad first draft is a really important part of writing.
If you want to be a person who writes, there's this idea that you’ve got to be willing to write a bad first draft. And I think that is a really powerful teaching for writing, but I also think this teaching relates to so many other things in life. And I want to offer it to you for something you can think about for all kinds of areas. So, again, this is not just for writers.
So what does it look like to have a shitty first draft in something that's not writing? Well, actually, first, let's talk about what it's like in writing, right? So it's like maybe if you want a new job, you do a shitty first draft of your resume. Maybe if you want to ask your boss for a promotion, you do a shitty first draft of your promotion pitch or your promotion document.
Maybe if you want to learn a new skill, whether it's writing code or writing some kind of technical documentation, or learning a new software, you do a shitty first draft of that. So a shitty first draft of code, a shitty first draft of technical documentation, or a shitty first draft type of effort at whatever a new software is.
You can also do shitty first drafts behaviorally, right? So if you are having a lot of conflict with your significant other and you want to become someone who, as I've talked about on the podcast before, can use conflict to create intimacy or who can have ruptures and repairs in their relationships, you can have a shitty first draft of effective conflict. Or you can have a shitty first draft at rupture and repair. You’ve probably had a lot of drafts of rupture, but you can have a shitty first draft at repair, right?
And the idea with this teaching is that a lot of people don't try things unless they're already certain they can be good at them. But it's really hard to be good at things that you don't try or haven't tried. And even sometimes, once we already know how to do things, we still have to be willing to do the not as great version of it.
Like Anne Lamott is a pretty famous writer, and still saying shitty first drafts are important. That's an important step of writing a good later draft is to be able to write a shitty first draft. And I love that idea because I do think sometimes people think once you have expertise or experience in something, then you're always good at it every time.
But what if you're not? And what if being willing to have bad first drafts of things, maybe forever, is actually a big part of the experience of creating incredible work? Like if you want to be someone who's really prolific, who literally writes a lot of books, or has a lot of really close, deep relationships, or climbs that corporate ladder to the executive level, or builds a business really successfully, or multiple businesses.
You could have shitty first drafts at a business where you're like, my first draft of this business, like your first business plan and your first vision for the business doesn't actually have to be very good for that business to then go on to be something incredible. And if you build multiple businesses, you might go through that again and again each time, just like a writer might have a shitty first draft of every single book, every single short story, every single chapter that they're writing.
So the basic idea here is what if it's okay to be willing to be bad? Now, that sounds so basic that I feel like a lot of people are going to be like, “What?” That's so easy. It's so obvious.” But here's what I see over and over again, both with my coaching clients but also with people in my personal life, like friends, whatever, people don't try.
We're really good at fantasizing. We're really good at imagining. We're really good at thinking about the day when it's all perfect and great or imagining our book that's already written and finished and perfect and a New York Times bestseller. And I get it because that part feels really fun and delicious. It's like yum, yum, yum, what a wonderful time that will be.
But if you actually want to write the book, if you actually want to get the new job, if you actually want to start the business, if you actually want to have effective conflict in your relationship versus just fantasize about a relationship where you always get along with the other person, I would invite you to consider that a key ingredient to that is being willing to be less good at it. Being willing to be shitty at it. Being willing to be bad at it and do it anyways. And that the sooner you're willing to write a bad first draft, the faster you're going to get to an amazing final draft.
Here's another magical thing, too. I think a lot of times we kind of work ourselves up about how bad we're going to be at something and then we actually turn out to be maybe not that bad. Maybe your shitty first draft is actually quite shitty. And if so, good job, you did the assignment right. Then you just keep editing and revising until it gets to be something wonderful, something you can be proud of.
But a lot of times we do what we expect to be a shitty first draft and it's not that bad. It's pretty good. Maybe we have to floss it a little, we’ve got to polish it, clean it up. And sometimes you do what you expect to be a shitty first draft and it's actually fucking fantastic, right?
So I think what this is getting at is at the heart of this is the fear of being bad. And the fear of being bad is actually kind of the problematic part, right? When you give yourself permission to be bad at something, then you can actually do the thing.
When you do the thing, you can actually figure out what level you're at. If you are bad, congratulations, you did the assignment right. If you're not bad, congratulations, you're closer to your goal than you thought and then you can go from there.
I think it's so easy for so many of us to get stuck in fantasy mode where we're fantasizing about being at that beautiful, final, perfect, glorious, final draft. And we're not willing to do literally anything to go towards that. And listen, I'm not just calling y'all out here. This happens to me sometimes still.
Just because I'm a coach and I teach these concepts doesn't mean they don't also apply to me because being a coach doesn't magically remove me from the human experience. It just means I know some shit about the human experience. I still have to navigate these paths just like y'all do. And I hire my own coaches to help me navigate them.
But what I want for you is for you to at least have the option. I want for you to have the option of writing the book. I want for you to have the option of getting a new job. I want for you to have the option of launching the business or launching six businesses, one after the other if that's what you want to do.
I want for you the option of having effective conflict in your relationship and being able to do rupture and repair. I want for you the capacity to build friendships and community as an adult, because actually that's something I've been coaching on recently. And something I've been working on recently too, is building community. And people talk all the time about how hard it is to build community and how hard it is to make friends as an adult.
Well, what if you gave yourself permission to just do a shitty first draft, right? And maybe it's a shitty first draft of a Bumble BFF account, and then you keep doing it better. Maybe it's a shitty first draft of asking someone to coffee. And then if you ask enough people to coffee, you're probably going to get better at it.
Or a shitty first draft of some other way of connecting with other people. A shitty first draft of friendship. You don't have to be the perfect friend to be a friend. And you're allowed to kind of do it badly and then keep learning and keep going. And yeah, we're going to also apologize and be accountable.
But the point of this podcast is not actually about the integrity or the ethics. It's about giving yourself permission to suck so you can give yourself permission to try. Because if you think you have to be perfect, you're probably not going to do anything ever. And then, yeah, you'll have all those fantasies that feel really good, but you won't have any of the things you want to go after in life.
And again, you don't have to go after any of them. I just want for you to have that option. And I think that this teaching and this mental exercise is one way to open yourself up to that option.
Okay, so let's review. Anything you want in life that you don't currently have, you're probably going to need to do some stuff to get it. And if you're not taking action on doing the stuff you need to do to get it because you're afraid of being bad at that stuff, one antidote to that is to give yourself the assignment of just doing a shitty first draft.
And a shitty first draft can be anything, it doesn't just have to be writing, right? It can be the way that you write your first business plan. It can be the way that you try having a really difficult conversation with your spouse and you just do it at the level you're at. And it doesn't go that great and you praise yourself, and then you keep going until you get to a draft that's pretty good. And a draft that's like, oh, actually really good. And then a draft that's actually like, ooh, delicious, really good.
That's how you build the things you want to have in your life that you don't already have, is you’ve got to get started and you got to work on them. And giving yourself permission to have a shitty start is one way to get yourself going.
I'm not going to belabor it too much because I think it's actually really simple teaching. And I think that's the whole point. And I think it's very powerful and if you actually pick literally any area of your life where you want to have a different result than what you're having now and apply this, I think you'll be blown away at what's possible.
And again, if you do the first draft and it's shitty, give yourself a fucking high five about it because that actually was the assignment, you did it correctly. And this is also good because a lot of us are used to when we do something badly, then we feel badly. And then we don't want to do the thing anymore or we don't want to try anymore.
But when you do something badly and then you praise yourself, because that was the assignment, then you start to feel good about doing badly. And it's kind of like this beautiful paradox and that'll make you more willing to try things and take risks and other areas. So try it out. Try it out, and then come over to Instagram and let me know what you think about it.
All right, before we hop off of here I want to tell y’all one more thing. So if you're on my newsletter list, you already know that I've been popping off on there about getting unhinged. And if you're not on there, here's basically the download.
I was talking to my coach and friend Maggie Reyes a while ago and I was telling her I used to want to unlearn my social conditioning, which is what we talk about on this podcast all the time. But I feel like I've actually done that pretty well. And I was like, “You know what I want to do now? I want to get completely fucking unhinged,” which sounds insane. But come with me.
What I mean when I say I want to get unhinged is I want to unhinge from expectations and I want to be completely unhinged in how much joy I think is available in my life, how much possibility I think is available in my life, and how much joy and possibility are available in your life. I want to be completely unhinged in what I can imagine for you, and what I can hold space for my clients to create.
I don't want to be controlled by like, oh, it's not likely or, oh, that would be hard. Because a lot of things aren't likely because no one's willing to try them. And a lot of things would be hard, but that doesn't mean they're impossible. And it doesn't mean they're not worth doing.
And so in the spirit of this idea of getting fucking unhinged and being a little wild with ourselves and each other about what kind of lives we can have and what we can create for ourselves, I schemed up a new coaching offering.
And let me tell y'all, it is unhinged. It is not for the faint of heart. It is a huge commitment and it's a substantial investment. And it's going to be spectacular. And the people who sign up for it are going to create truly wild and incredible things in their lives.
So I'm sure you're all wondering, what is it exactly? Here's what it is exactly. We work together for a year. We coach one on one three times a week. You have two deep work days in person or virtual where we do six hours of coaching.
And if we're in person we're going to do meals, we're going to have fun together, too. Chat coaching in between so we can kind of always be talking about whatever it is you're working on. And you're going to have my brain and coaching laser focused on any and every topic you want to work on for a fucking year.
And just off the top of my head, I haven't had any clients go through this program yet but just off the top of my head, here's some stuff that you could create in this container, in this coaching offering, unhinged. Or actually I'm calling it Unhinged As Fuck. So in the manner of how I name things Unhinged As Fuck.
Here are the kind of results you could create in that time together. New business idea planned and launched. Ongoing coaching about everything from budgeting to getting new clients to building effective systems and processes for the day to day.
Or we could coach on your career, and we could eliminate all your work stress. We could set work boundaries, we could have them solid, we can skyrocket your work satisfaction.
Or we can work on your relationship. We’ll revitalize it. We’ll create a deeper connection. We’ll build that skill to have effective conflict, deeper intimacy, better sex, the works, you name it. Or maybe a big move to a new city, or even a new country, complete with making new friends and building a new community in your new home.
Or a career makeover, a new industry, a new role, a new salary, revitalized sense of purpose and meaning in your work. Or maybe we renovate your existing small or large business with new fees, new clients, new team, new systems, and processes that actually work for and delight you.
Or, more likely, we do multiple of the things I've just listed and create some fun surprises that it didn't even occur to you to dream of because we're going to have so much time together and so much space to work on whatever you fucking want in this yearlong coaching program.
And I don't usually put my prices out there publicly, but I think I'm going to start because I actually think price transparency is pretty compelling. So I'm going to tell you all right now. I told you it's a huge commitment and it's a big investment, and the price tag on this is $30,000 US. And listen, it is a fuckload of money. It is a huge investment. And it's also going to have huge payoffs.
This is a program where you come, and you go all the way in with me. And then we make over everything. And the ripples are going to go out into every area of your life, and you're going to create things that are probably going to change the trajectory of your life. So that's kind of how I want you to think about it.
Now listen, I know this is not for everyone. And I want to assure you, I have coaching stuff for people at every level. I realize that this is an intense investment and it's not the right investment for everybody. But I know there's someone out there who it is, and I'm so excited to work with you.
And for everyone else, I'm still offering shorter one on one packages. And I also am going to be offering another cohort of SAF. And I'm also going to be doing some free coaching calls over the next several months that are going to be open to the public. So there is a price point for everyone to join and come and partake of this work and get the amazing results that coaching can deliver.
All right, y'all, so excited I got to hang out with you. That's what I have for this week. I will talk to you next time. Bye.
Thank you for listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It. We'll have another episode for you next week. And in the meantime, if you're feeling super fired up, head on over to korilinn.com for more guidance and resources.
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