131. Grappling with Downsides
Do potential downsides paralyze you from making choices and taking risks?
Do you get stuck thinking through what could go wrong instead of taking action to create more of what you want in your life and career?
Maybe you want to change industries, but you’re stuck worrying it might not work out or that this is the wrong time because we’re heading into a recession?
Maybe you want to negotiate new expectations with your significant other about household chores but you don’t say anything because you’re certain it will be a big fight and you just don’t have the energy for that right now?
Maybe you want to start a business, but ugh what if you work so hard on it and then it never makes any money???
The truth is: decisions do come with downsides.
Pitfalls.
Yuckiness you’d rather avoid.
And knowing how to predict those downsides can be very powerful.
It can help you make smart choices about which risks you’d like to take and which risks you’d like to avoid.
But when it comes to navigating downsides, you need to learn how to see them without getting stuck ONLY seeing them.
You need to learn how to see them as part of the bigger picture.
Being able to see them is magic and helps you succeed.
But you have to know how to engage with downsides, and that’s exactly what I’m teaching on this week’s podcast episode.
This week, you’ll hear why it can be so helpful to grapple with the downsides, and how to do so without letting the potential downsides of your choice stop you in your tracks.
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!
If there are topics y’all want me to talk about on the podcast, feel free to write in and let me know by clicking here! I’d love to hear from you!
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:
2 things that go wrong when it comes to grappling with downsides.
What to think about as you navigate the choices you want to make.
How to use your brain’s negativity bias without getting stuck in it.
What happens when you grapple with the downsides of a choice ahead of time.
Why it’s not always possible to see all the downsides ahead of time and that’s ok.
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE:
FEATURED ON THE SHOW:
If you’re enjoying the show, please leave me a rating and review on Apple Podcasts!
Feel free to ask me any questions over on Instagram!
FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
This week we’re talking about grappling with downsides.
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.
Hello, hello, hello. Happy Wednesday. How are you? I’m doing pretty well. This week we’re going to talk about grappling with downsides. And I think this is a really important topic because in life we have all these decisions, and we have all these options. And a lot of them have downsides. They have things that we don’t want that come with the things that we do want.
And I think it can be really easy to get stuck in the downsides and to allow that to paralyze us and prevent us from making a decision. So this week I want to talk to you about how to grapple with the downsides and then still be able to make a decision.
Another part of this topic that I think is really important is just realizing that we talk about all the time human brains have a negativity bias and it can be really easy for us to get stuck thinking about what’s not working. And in this podcast episode I sort of want to talk to you about how we can use that skill without getting stuck in that mindset.
So the ability to think through all the potential negatives and pitfalls of a choice that you want to make before you make it is really magical. That’s a really cool skill to have. But if anytime you think about making a choice, you get stuck in thinking about the pitfalls of every choice and then you don’t make any choices, then I think that this skill, you’re sort of using it against yourself or misusing it, right?
So I think there are two main things that go wrong when it comes to thinking through downsides. And thing one is some people don’t think through downsides at all. They just choose to be super positive. And listen, I love super positive, but sometimes not being willing to look at potential negative consequences really kind of bites you in the ass, right?
So if you’re weighing some different choices and you’re only thinking about the potential upsides, I just think you’re not giving yourself all the data about what could happen. And sometimes there’s a choice that when you only look at potential upsides, it looks really great.
But when you look at potential downsides, you’re like, “You know what? Maybe I’m not really willing to risk that potential downside even if it’s not 100% sure going to happen. Maybe I’m not even willing to risk it.” Or it can just kind of give you a fuller picture of the choice you’re making, right?
But then the other side of that is I think that some of us are so trained to anticipate problems and to see what could go badly that we get stuck in that headspace. And then we sort of can’t even come back around to like, okay, that’s only part of the picture.
So as an example, a few years ago I moved from Seattle, Washington to Sacramento, California. And that kind of happened because COVID happened and we were in quarantine and I wasn’t able to go country dancing, which you may or may not know is one of my very favorite things to do in Seattle. And I used to go every Friday, pretty much for years.
But during the quarantine it got shut down, right? I couldn’t see a lot of my friends because we were quarantining. I couldn’t go to all the yummy restaurants and fun things in Seattle because we were quarantining. And it was just like living my life working from home and taking walks every day and getting rained on.
And I just had this moment where I was like, I could live somewhere else. I could live somewhere sunny. I could go somewhere where it’s not going to rain on me when I take all these walks. And so I was thinking through about the upsides, right? The upside would be I could be somewhere sunny, which now I am. So spoiler alert, that was a choice that I did decide to make.
On the other hand, before we actually moved I did consider the downsides too. The quarantine wasn’t going to last forever and so I knew that leaving Seattle meant leaving lots of stuff I loved.
Here’s another spoiler alert too. When you’re thinking through a decision, you’re doing it with all the information you have at the time. So you’re thinking through the upsides and downsides that you know about. And there may be upsides and downsides that you don’t know about, right? That’s okay, too.
But what we are really focusing on in this podcast is just grappling with the downsides that you do know about and thinking through like, if I choose to move somewhere sunny, I also choose to leave behind this place that I have lived for 10 years, that I deeply loved, that had amazing friendships. I had an amazing community. It has amazing food.
There’s amazing nature and Seward Park was like right by my old house, and there were all these gorgeous trees and these ferns and the mountains. In Seattle you have mountains, you have water, it’s truly a spectacular place to live. And so choosing to leave was choosing to say goodbye to all of that. That was the downside, or the downsides I had to grapple with when I was thinking through that decision.
Now, of course, there were also upsides, which is why I chose to leave, was because I wanted to try something new. And I wanted to live somewhere that was going to be sunnier and drier. And I wanted to try living somewhere else and have this different experience. And so I ultimately did choose to do that.
But it’s so valuable that I did grapple with those downsides, because if I hadn’t done that, I maybe would not have been prepared for the experience of leaving things behind. And grappling with it ahead of time set me up to be able to navigate that and to be kind to myself when it was difficult. Because if I hadn’t grappled with those, there might have been part of my brain that was like, “Oh, you didn’t think this through and you left behind all this cool stuff.”
And even if you didn’t think it through, you don’t have to ever say that to yourself. But it is really beautiful to be able to say to myself, “Okay, I know it’s painful. And I know I really miss Seattle. And also I did this on purpose. And I did think this through, and this is the decision I made. And I made it for these reasons. And I’m always allowed to change my mind. But I made this decision for a reason.”
And it can be so helpful to see that and to be honest with yourself that you made a decision for your own good with the information you had at the time, and you were just trying something. And that’s all a decision ever is, is we’re just trying something and then we get some more data and then we decide if we want to keep making that decision or not.
Here’s another thing that’s really valuable, when you think through the downsides ahead of time and you grapple with them ahead of time, you can also begin to build solutions ahead of time. So there were some downsides that I knew about, and then there were some things I could do about those.
And there were some downsides I didn’t know about, but once they presented themselves to me I was able to find ways to address them, right? So as an example, one of the things that I was leaving was really amazing food. Seattle just has a lot of really great restaurants. There’s lots of great produce. There’s really great food in Seattle, in that area.
And so when we were visiting Sacramento I was like, we need to go to restaurants, I need to make sure I can have really amazing food here, because I’m not going to move somewhere that I can’t have really amazing food. And Sacramento is great because there are some really great restaurants here, and there’s also lots of great produce available in the grocery stores.
So that was a way in which grappling with that downside of like, okay, what are the risk factors of leaving Seattle? Then I was able to think through, how do I make sure I either have that, a version of that, something else that’s going to meet that same need in the next place that I live?
And if we had come here and the restaurants hadn’t been good or there hadn’t been good produce, that might have been enough for me to be like, “Oh, I need to consider living somewhere else.” So that was something I knew was really important to me and that was going to be a potential downside of leaving Seattle.
And another one was friendships, right? I have a decade’s worth of friendships in Washington State, and an amazing community dancing and all these things. And so I was like, “Okay, if I’m moving, it would be great to move somewhere where I already know some people, if possible. And if not, then I need to figure out how to put myself out there and how to build relationships.
And so Sacramento was great because I did already have a friend here. And I had another friend from Sacramento, who has since moved back. So that’s two friends, right? And then the one friend helped me meet other people and build my community here. And then I also, as I think y’all know, several months ago got on Bumble BFF and sort of meeting people that way.
And so the potential downside of I’m not going to have my community, I’m not going to have as many friends, what seeing that ahead of time really invited me into was I need to either be willing to have a different experience of not having as many friendships. Or I need to be willing to do the work to build friendships.
And let me tell y’all what, it is work. A lot of things are work that we think shouldn’t be. And there’s so much stuff about how difficult it is to build friendships as an adult. And I’m not going to say it’s super difficult, I don’t think I subscribe to that. But it is work, right?
It’s like as a kid a lot of us made friends at school. So you kind of have to go to school most days, and you’re just there. And by being there and being around each other and getting these repeated exposures to other people, you start to develop relationships with them.
And as an adult who works remotely, I work from home for myself, I don’t have that. And that’s a way I made some of my friends in Washington too. I have friends I made working at Expedia that I’m still friends with and they’re wonderful and I love them.
But down here I was like, “Okay, that’s not going to be the methodology and environments. How am I going to make friends,” right? And so it’s things like doing the improv classes that Alex and I did the first year we were here, which was just a really fun thing to do. But it was also a way to meet people and to build relationships and establish rapport.
And going on Bumble BFF and finding people and chatting with them, it’s fun. And it also takes effort. And it takes me overcoming, like if that mean voice that we all have in our brain sometimes, if that voice of mine is like, “No one likes you, you’re weird,” or whatever. And yeah, my brain still says stuff like that sometimes. I have to coach myself and overcome that in order to do the activities of putting myself out there and making friends.
But by identifying that downside, that potential downside ahead of time, I knew that was going to be the case and I knew that was going to be something to work around. And so even if it’s difficult or sometimes unpleasant, or even if I sometimes feel sorry for myself, or wish it was easier, or wish I had all those built-in friendships like I did in Seattle, I still know, okay, this is part of it.
This was a potential downside of this choice. And I chose this choice for the potential upsides and the benefits, and this is part of it too and I can work with that. I can grapple with that. And I can address it and build the experience that I’m craving, even if it does take time, effort, work, coaching, et cetera.
Now, sometimes there’s certain downsides that you grapple with when you’re considering a choice where you can’t replace them as easily. So one of the things that I left behind when I left Seattle was that dancing community that I love. And, first of all, it took a really long time living in Sacramento for me to even go try out the dancing community here.
Second of all, my dancing community in Seattle is an LGBTQ plus community. And so that’s very near and dear to my heart as a queer person. And the dancing community that I have found down here so far is not LGBTQ plus. I mean, they seem to be open to LGBTQ people, and so that’s lovely. And something we want, definitely, is a space in which Alex and I feel welcome, but it’s not kind of the same community. And so maybe it’s not going to meet the same needs.
So this is something for y’all to think about too when you’re navigating choices. And when you’re grappling with the downsides, and especially when you’re considering the downsides ahead of time, ahead of the choice, is realizing that some things, there are some downsides that you can sort of meet head on. Like, oh, you had friends in Seattle, you don’t have friends in Sacramento, you’re going to build the friends here.
And there are other ones where it’s like, oh, you can find a way to maybe still get this desire met, but it probably isn’t going to be exactly the same. That’s actually also true in the friends thing, right? I can build beautiful friendships in Sacramento. And also, they’re not going to be the same as the friendships I left behind.
And I still want the friendships that I left behind, so now those are long distance friendships, and how do I grapple with that? How do I navigate that and keep those friendships alive and near and dear when we’re no longer in the same city alongside building my local friendships?
Like I said, I left it behind but I’m not like, oh, I left them behind, it’s over. It’s more like I moved away from them and now if I want local friends, more than 2, then I need to build them. But some things are not going to be kind of like a one to one replaceable.
It’s like, also, my favorite Indian food is in Seattle. I haven’t found Indian food in Sacramento that really delights me nearly as much as that Indian food. Or there’s this Mediterranean restaurant in Bellevue, which is outside of Seattle. It’s near where the old Expedia offices were when I worked at Expedia, and it’s like one of my favorite things in the world. I haven’t found any Mediterranean foods in Sacramento that’s like that and that has the same dishes.
And so for that, it’s like, well, I can eat that every time I go back to Seattle. And maybe I can learn to make the dishes myself. And then part of it is also just accepting that I feel a lot of longing for that food. I feel like I miss it, right?
And that’s one of the downsides. But that doesn’t mean I made the wrong choice. And it doesn’t mean I have to move back to Seattle. It’s just this is what grappling with downsides is, is understanding the full picture of what a choice will mean. And specifically on this episode, understanding the full picture of the things that we are going to perceive as negative.
Another way to think about this is costs, right? Like what are the costs of this thing? So when you think about, say, a cost benefit analysis, you’re analyzing what are the benefits? What are the good things I’m going to get from this or the good things I’m thinking I’m going to get from this? And what are the costs? What are the negatives? And also what are the expenses? What are the outputs that I will have to put out there to get that benefit?
And so with moving, it was like here were the potential upsides and here are the potential downsides. Here’s the thing, I just got to choose if I wanted to do it or not. It’s not even, like I could have been like, “Well, if there’s this many upsides and this many downsides duh, duh, duh.” But I’m not going to outsource my choices, even to what the upsides and downsides are.
I’m always allowed to make whatever choice I want, even if there’s a fuckload of downsides. That’s what freewill is. That’s what autonomy is, is the ability to make your own choice. I just think going into choices, it’s really helpful to have thought through what the potential downsides could be, if you’re willing to incur those, and what that might look like.
Now, obviously, this applies to so much more than just moving from Washington to California. This can apply for anything you’re doing or thinking about doing. If you want to switch careers, switch industries, go after a promotion. If you want to start a relationship, if you want to end a relationship. If you want to learn a new parenting style and try it out on your children. If you want to change the relationship you have with your parents and your family of origin if you want to start a new hobby.
Anything that you’re doing, any choice that you’re making, there’s potential upsides and potential downsides. And guess what? That also involves the choice of continuing the status quo and continuing to do things the way you’ve always done them. So sometimes for people, they’re thinking about the potential negatives of switching their job, but just make sure you’re also thinking about the potential negatives of keeping your job, right?
There are potential negatives to staying where you are, too, right? That’s why we left Seattle, or part of why we left it. Because one of the downsides of staying in Seattle was staying in that weather system. And that weather system had felt really hard for Alex and I both at various times in living there.
And before the pandemic and the quarantine, the upsides had always outweighed the downsides. But being home and not getting to engage with so many of those other things about Seattle that I loved was one of those things that sort of shifted the upsides and downsides for us and brought things to a place where we were willing to make a decision.
And we were willing to make a new decision and decide to go somewhere else versus deciding to stay in the same decision and stay in the same status quo and keep doing what we were doing.
So, for you, I want you to take some time, and if there’s something that’s been bothering you or if there’s an area of your life where you’ve been thinking about making a change, but you’re kind of haven’t committed to making the change but haven’t committed to not making the change, this is a great lens to consider. What are the downsides? And what are the plans and things you would need to have in place to navigate those downsides if those downsides came to pass?
And, like I said, this is a podcast about downsides, but go ahead and think about the upsides too because that’s also part of the full picture when you’re considering decisions and risks you may want to take.
And then finally, like I said before at the beginning, don’t get stuck in thinking about the downsides. Downsides are great information, it’s just really good to know the potential things that you can see ahead of time that could go wrong. It’s okay if you don’t see them all, you probably won’t. It’s usually impossible to see all the downsides until you do something. And then you’re like, “Oh, I didn’t see this coming. This is also something to consider.”
But don’t get stuck in that, right. Thinking through the downsides is part of how you just prepare yourself for what that choice would actually be like. Don’t get stuck there, make a choice. Make a choice to either try the thing or not try the thing, but don’t keep yourself in limbo of just playing over the downsides over and over again, because that’s really exhausting. And I think it’s really disheartening, and it wears a lot of us out. And it makes a lot of us, I think, feel really trapped in our own lives when we maybe want to make a big decision, but we can’t get past the downsides.
And listen, you don’t have to do this alone. If you are grappling with a choice that you’re not sure what you want to do and you’re not sure if you can navigate those downsides, you don’t have to do that alone. I actually have space open right now for new one on one clients. So you can come work with me, and we can tackle every single one of those decisions one by one.
We can talk through the downsides together. We can figure out how to solve the downsides if you do want to go ahead and make the choice. And we can get you set up to have that wildly satisfying, wildly successful life and career so that you’re not getting stuck just thinking about downsides and not moving forward for the rest of your life because that would be such a waste, right?
And I never say things are a waste. But I do think it’s a waste to spend our whole lives daydreaming about a choice but not making it because we’re not sure how we would handle the negative parts of it. Negative parts of things are not my favorite parts, but they can be handled. Even the wildest downsides can be navigated, and you don’t have to do it alone.
Humans are social mammals and a lot of times it feels much more comfortable to us to navigate things in community. And I can help you be that community and we can work together one on one and be a community of two.
Or you can come join the next cohort of SAF and be in that magical community. Because let me tell you, I’m in the first half of the 2023 cohort of SAF right now and watching them navigate stuff and use the community and learn from each other is a truly incredible thing.
So whatever you’re going through, whatever you’re grappling with, you don’t have to do it alone. And magical things are possible for you, and I would be so excited and honored to help you make decisions about which magical things you want to go after and then go after them.
All right, that’s what I have for y’all this week. Have a lovely week, and I’ll 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.
Hello, hello, hello. Happy Wednesday. How are you? I’m doing pretty well. This week we’re going to talk about grappling with downsides. And I think this is a really important topic because in life we have all these decisions, and we have all these options. And a lot of them have downsides. They have things that we don’t want that come with the things that we do want.
And I think it can be really easy to get stuck in the downsides and to allow that to paralyze us and prevent us from making a decision. So this week I want to talk to you about how to grapple with the downsides and then still be able to make a decision.
Another part of this topic that I think is really important is just realizing that we talk about all the time human brains have a negativity bias and it can be really easy for us to get stuck thinking about what’s not working. And in this podcast episode I sort of want to talk to you about how we can use that skill without getting stuck in that mindset.
So the ability to think through all the potential negatives and pitfalls of a choice that you want to make before you make it is really magical. That’s a really cool skill to have. But if anytime you think about making a choice, you get stuck in thinking about the pitfalls of every choice and then you don’t make any choices, then I think that this skill, you’re sort of using it against yourself or misusing it, right?
So I think there are two main things that go wrong when it comes to thinking through downsides. And thing one is some people don’t think through downsides at all. They just choose to be super positive. And listen, I love super positive, but sometimes not being willing to look at potential negative consequences really kind of bites you in the ass, right?
So if you’re weighing some different choices and you’re only thinking about the potential upsides, I just think you’re not giving yourself all the data about what could happen. And sometimes there’s a choice that when you only look at potential upsides, it looks really great.
But when you look at potential downsides, you’re like, “You know what? Maybe I’m not really willing to risk that potential downside even if it’s not 100% sure going to happen. Maybe I’m not even willing to risk it.” Or it can just kind of give you a fuller picture of the choice you’re making, right?
But then the other side of that is I think that some of us are so trained to anticipate problems and to see what could go badly that we get stuck in that headspace. And then we sort of can’t even come back around to like, okay, that’s only part of the picture.
So as an example, a few years ago I moved from Seattle, Washington to Sacramento, California. And that kind of happened because COVID happened and we were in quarantine and I wasn’t able to go country dancing, which you may or may not know is one of my very favorite things to do in Seattle. And I used to go every Friday, pretty much for years.
But during the quarantine it got shut down, right? I couldn’t see a lot of my friends because we were quarantining. I couldn’t go to all the yummy restaurants and fun things in Seattle because we were quarantining. And it was just like living my life working from home and taking walks every day and getting rained on.
And I just had this moment where I was like, I could live somewhere else. I could live somewhere sunny. I could go somewhere where it’s not going to rain on me when I take all these walks. And so I was thinking through about the upsides, right? The upside would be I could be somewhere sunny, which now I am. So spoiler alert, that was a choice that I did decide to make.
On the other hand, before we actually moved I did consider the downsides too. The quarantine wasn’t going to last forever and so I knew that leaving Seattle meant leaving lots of stuff I loved.
Here’s another spoiler alert too. When you’re thinking through a decision, you’re doing it with all the information you have at the time. So you’re thinking through the upsides and downsides that you know about. And there may be upsides and downsides that you don’t know about, right? That’s okay, too.
But what we are really focusing on in this podcast is just grappling with the downsides that you do know about and thinking through like, if I choose to move somewhere sunny, I also choose to leave behind this place that I have lived for 10 years, that I deeply loved, that had amazing friendships. I had an amazing community. It has amazing food.
There’s amazing nature and Seward Park was like right by my old house, and there were all these gorgeous trees and these ferns and the mountains. In Seattle you have mountains, you have water, it’s truly a spectacular place to live. And so choosing to leave was choosing to say goodbye to all of that. That was the downside, or the downsides I had to grapple with when I was thinking through that decision.
Now, of course, there were also upsides, which is why I chose to leave, was because I wanted to try something new. And I wanted to live somewhere that was going to be sunnier and drier. And I wanted to try living somewhere else and have this different experience. And so I ultimately did choose to do that.
But it’s so valuable that I did grapple with those downsides, because if I hadn’t done that, I maybe would not have been prepared for the experience of leaving things behind. And grappling with it ahead of time set me up to be able to navigate that and to be kind to myself when it was difficult. Because if I hadn’t grappled with those, there might have been part of my brain that was like, “Oh, you didn’t think this through and you left behind all this cool stuff.”
And even if you didn’t think it through, you don’t have to ever say that to yourself. But it is really beautiful to be able to say to myself, “Okay, I know it’s painful. And I know I really miss Seattle. And also I did this on purpose. And I did think this through, and this is the decision I made. And I made it for these reasons. And I’m always allowed to change my mind. But I made this decision for a reason.”
And it can be so helpful to see that and to be honest with yourself that you made a decision for your own good with the information you had at the time, and you were just trying something. And that’s all a decision ever is, is we’re just trying something and then we get some more data and then we decide if we want to keep making that decision or not.
Here’s another thing that’s really valuable, when you think through the downsides ahead of time and you grapple with them ahead of time, you can also begin to build solutions ahead of time. So there were some downsides that I knew about, and then there were some things I could do about those.
And there were some downsides I didn’t know about, but once they presented themselves to me I was able to find ways to address them, right? So as an example, one of the things that I was leaving was really amazing food. Seattle just has a lot of really great restaurants. There’s lots of great produce. There’s really great food in Seattle, in that area.
And so when we were visiting Sacramento I was like, we need to go to restaurants, I need to make sure I can have really amazing food here, because I’m not going to move somewhere that I can’t have really amazing food. And Sacramento is great because there are some really great restaurants here, and there’s also lots of great produce available in the grocery stores.
So that was a way in which grappling with that downside of like, okay, what are the risk factors of leaving Seattle? Then I was able to think through, how do I make sure I either have that, a version of that, something else that’s going to meet that same need in the next place that I live?
And if we had come here and the restaurants hadn’t been good or there hadn’t been good produce, that might have been enough for me to be like, “Oh, I need to consider living somewhere else.” So that was something I knew was really important to me and that was going to be a potential downside of leaving Seattle.
And another one was friendships, right? I have a decade’s worth of friendships in Washington State, and an amazing community dancing and all these things. And so I was like, “Okay, if I’m moving, it would be great to move somewhere where I already know some people, if possible. And if not, then I need to figure out how to put myself out there and how to build relationships.
And so Sacramento was great because I did already have a friend here. And I had another friend from Sacramento, who has since moved back. So that’s two friends, right? And then the one friend helped me meet other people and build my community here. And then I also, as I think y’all know, several months ago got on Bumble BFF and sort of meeting people that way.
And so the potential downside of I’m not going to have my community, I’m not going to have as many friends, what seeing that ahead of time really invited me into was I need to either be willing to have a different experience of not having as many friendships. Or I need to be willing to do the work to build friendships.
And let me tell y’all what, it is work. A lot of things are work that we think shouldn’t be. And there’s so much stuff about how difficult it is to build friendships as an adult. And I’m not going to say it’s super difficult, I don’t think I subscribe to that. But it is work, right?
It’s like as a kid a lot of us made friends at school. So you kind of have to go to school most days, and you’re just there. And by being there and being around each other and getting these repeated exposures to other people, you start to develop relationships with them.
And as an adult who works remotely, I work from home for myself, I don’t have that. And that’s a way I made some of my friends in Washington too. I have friends I made working at Expedia that I’m still friends with and they’re wonderful and I love them.
But down here I was like, “Okay, that’s not going to be the methodology and environments. How am I going to make friends,” right? And so it’s things like doing the improv classes that Alex and I did the first year we were here, which was just a really fun thing to do. But it was also a way to meet people and to build relationships and establish rapport.
And going on Bumble BFF and finding people and chatting with them, it’s fun. And it also takes effort. And it takes me overcoming, like if that mean voice that we all have in our brain sometimes, if that voice of mine is like, “No one likes you, you’re weird,” or whatever. And yeah, my brain still says stuff like that sometimes. I have to coach myself and overcome that in order to do the activities of putting myself out there and making friends.
But by identifying that downside, that potential downside ahead of time, I knew that was going to be the case and I knew that was going to be something to work around. And so even if it’s difficult or sometimes unpleasant, or even if I sometimes feel sorry for myself, or wish it was easier, or wish I had all those built-in friendships like I did in Seattle, I still know, okay, this is part of it.
This was a potential downside of this choice. And I chose this choice for the potential upsides and the benefits, and this is part of it too and I can work with that. I can grapple with that. And I can address it and build the experience that I’m craving, even if it does take time, effort, work, coaching, et cetera.
Now, sometimes there’s certain downsides that you grapple with when you’re considering a choice where you can’t replace them as easily. So one of the things that I left behind when I left Seattle was that dancing community that I love. And, first of all, it took a really long time living in Sacramento for me to even go try out the dancing community here.
Second of all, my dancing community in Seattle is an LGBTQ plus community. And so that’s very near and dear to my heart as a queer person. And the dancing community that I have found down here so far is not LGBTQ plus. I mean, they seem to be open to LGBTQ people, and so that’s lovely. And something we want, definitely, is a space in which Alex and I feel welcome, but it’s not kind of the same community. And so maybe it’s not going to meet the same needs.
So this is something for y’all to think about too when you’re navigating choices. And when you’re grappling with the downsides, and especially when you’re considering the downsides ahead of time, ahead of the choice, is realizing that some things, there are some downsides that you can sort of meet head on. Like, oh, you had friends in Seattle, you don’t have friends in Sacramento, you’re going to build the friends here.
And there are other ones where it’s like, oh, you can find a way to maybe still get this desire met, but it probably isn’t going to be exactly the same. That’s actually also true in the friends thing, right? I can build beautiful friendships in Sacramento. And also, they’re not going to be the same as the friendships I left behind.
And I still want the friendships that I left behind, so now those are long distance friendships, and how do I grapple with that? How do I navigate that and keep those friendships alive and near and dear when we’re no longer in the same city alongside building my local friendships?
Like I said, I left it behind but I’m not like, oh, I left them behind, it’s over. It’s more like I moved away from them and now if I want local friends, more than 2, then I need to build them. But some things are not going to be kind of like a one to one replaceable.
It’s like, also, my favorite Indian food is in Seattle. I haven’t found Indian food in Sacramento that really delights me nearly as much as that Indian food. Or there’s this Mediterranean restaurant in Bellevue, which is outside of Seattle. It’s near where the old Expedia offices were when I worked at Expedia, and it’s like one of my favorite things in the world. I haven’t found any Mediterranean foods in Sacramento that’s like that and that has the same dishes.
And so for that, it’s like, well, I can eat that every time I go back to Seattle. And maybe I can learn to make the dishes myself. And then part of it is also just accepting that I feel a lot of longing for that food. I feel like I miss it, right?
And that’s one of the downsides. But that doesn’t mean I made the wrong choice. And it doesn’t mean I have to move back to Seattle. It’s just this is what grappling with downsides is, is understanding the full picture of what a choice will mean. And specifically on this episode, understanding the full picture of the things that we are going to perceive as negative.
Another way to think about this is costs, right? Like what are the costs of this thing? So when you think about, say, a cost benefit analysis, you’re analyzing what are the benefits? What are the good things I’m going to get from this or the good things I’m thinking I’m going to get from this? And what are the costs? What are the negatives? And also what are the expenses? What are the outputs that I will have to put out there to get that benefit?
And so with moving, it was like here were the potential upsides and here are the potential downsides. Here’s the thing, I just got to choose if I wanted to do it or not. It’s not even, like I could have been like, “Well, if there’s this many upsides and this many downsides duh, duh, duh.” But I’m not going to outsource my choices, even to what the upsides and downsides are.
I’m always allowed to make whatever choice I want, even if there’s a fuckload of downsides. That’s what freewill is. That’s what autonomy is, is the ability to make your own choice. I just think going into choices, it’s really helpful to have thought through what the potential downsides could be, if you’re willing to incur those, and what that might look like.
Now, obviously, this applies to so much more than just moving from Washington to California. This can apply for anything you’re doing or thinking about doing. If you want to switch careers, switch industries, go after a promotion. If you want to start a relationship, if you want to end a relationship. If you want to learn a new parenting style and try it out on your children. If you want to change the relationship you have with your parents and your family of origin if you want to start a new hobby.
Anything that you’re doing, any choice that you’re making, there’s potential upsides and potential downsides. And guess what? That also involves the choice of continuing the status quo and continuing to do things the way you’ve always done them. So sometimes for people, they’re thinking about the potential negatives of switching their job, but just make sure you’re also thinking about the potential negatives of keeping your job, right?
There are potential negatives to staying where you are, too, right? That’s why we left Seattle, or part of why we left it. Because one of the downsides of staying in Seattle was staying in that weather system. And that weather system had felt really hard for Alex and I both at various times in living there.
And before the pandemic and the quarantine, the upsides had always outweighed the downsides. But being home and not getting to engage with so many of those other things about Seattle that I loved was one of those things that sort of shifted the upsides and downsides for us and brought things to a place where we were willing to make a decision.
And we were willing to make a new decision and decide to go somewhere else versus deciding to stay in the same decision and stay in the same status quo and keep doing what we were doing.
So, for you, I want you to take some time, and if there’s something that’s been bothering you or if there’s an area of your life where you’ve been thinking about making a change, but you’re kind of haven’t committed to making the change but haven’t committed to not making the change, this is a great lens to consider. What are the downsides? And what are the plans and things you would need to have in place to navigate those downsides if those downsides came to pass?
And, like I said, this is a podcast about downsides, but go ahead and think about the upsides too because that’s also part of the full picture when you’re considering decisions and risks you may want to take.
And then finally, like I said before at the beginning, don’t get stuck in thinking about the downsides. Downsides are great information, it’s just really good to know the potential things that you can see ahead of time that could go wrong. It’s okay if you don’t see them all, you probably won’t. It’s usually impossible to see all the downsides until you do something. And then you’re like, “Oh, I didn’t see this coming. This is also something to consider.”
But don’t get stuck in that, right. Thinking through the downsides is part of how you just prepare yourself for what that choice would actually be like. Don’t get stuck there, make a choice. Make a choice to either try the thing or not try the thing, but don’t keep yourself in limbo of just playing over the downsides over and over again, because that’s really exhausting. And I think it’s really disheartening, and it wears a lot of us out. And it makes a lot of us, I think, feel really trapped in our own lives when we maybe want to make a big decision, but we can’t get past the downsides.
And listen, you don’t have to do this alone. If you are grappling with a choice that you’re not sure what you want to do and you’re not sure if you can navigate those downsides, you don’t have to do that alone. I actually have space open right now for new one on one clients. So you can come work with me, and we can tackle every single one of those decisions one by one.
We can talk through the downsides together. We can figure out how to solve the downsides if you do want to go ahead and make the choice. And we can get you set up to have that wildly satisfying, wildly successful life and career so that you’re not getting stuck just thinking about downsides and not moving forward for the rest of your life because that would be such a waste, right?
And I never say things are a waste. But I do think it’s a waste to spend our whole lives daydreaming about a choice but not making it because we’re not sure how we would handle the negative parts of it. Negative parts of things are not my favorite parts, but they can be handled. Even the wildest downsides can be navigated, and you don’t have to do it alone.
Humans are social mammals and a lot of times it feels much more comfortable to us to navigate things in community. And I can help you be that community and we can work together one on one and be a community of two.
Or you can come join the next cohort of SAF and be in that magical community. Because let me tell you, I’m in the first half of the 2023 cohort of SAF right now and watching them navigate stuff and use the community and learn from each other is a truly incredible thing.
So whatever you’re going through, whatever you’re grappling with, you don’t have to do it alone. And magical things are possible for you, and I would be so excited and honored to help you make decisions about which magical things you want to go after and then go after them.
All right, that’s what I have for y’all this week. Have a lovely week, and I’ll 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.
Enjoy the Show?
Don’t miss an episode, follow the podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Stitcher.