In Week Nine of The Artist’s Way, I am focused on recovering a sense of compassion for myself. One of the biggest triggers causing creative blocks can be an artist’s tendency to put all of their energy into self-loathing, doubts, and regrets instead of creating. In today’s post, I’m sharing about past failures and gathering up as much self-compassion as I can muster to tear down emotional blocks related to failures, and to give myself a renewed appetite for a taking more risks again.

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100 Liminal Days is an experimental project of embracing my current transitional season after exiting my business by sharing an honest, real-time account of my self-initiation experience in daily posts. I’m using The Artist’s Way as a guiding tool, and sending shorter weekly recaps only via my newsletter. Visit Day 1/100 to learn more and sign up in the footer of this page to get the weekly recaps delivered to your inbox.

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Regrets of a CEO

If you’re following along, you know I sold my US-based virtual assistant agency earlier this year. It was a key step for my burnout recovery, but it was also a crucial move to give the business the best chance to continue the work I started more than ten years ago. I had exhausted all of my ideas for continued growth, and I was losing steam due to putting the needs of others before my own for far too long.

Selling the company truly was the best and right thing for me and everyone else the business touched – not because I was suddenly incapable (even though there were many times that I felt that way), but because my calling was shifting and I needed to make space for something new. The way I’ve put it many times is that what I needed to thrive and what Trusty Oak needed to thrive began to diverge. The decision to sell was both a strategic business decision and a self-care decision. Change was a good thing for all involved.

Even so, there are aspects of the decision that left me with a taste of regret in my mouth. And if I’m being really honest, I haven’t shown myself much compassion or forgiveness where those regrets are concerned. I’ve written about the business debt that I had to personally settle before I could sell, but what I haven’t shared is that I also have had a lot of negative thoughts toward myself about how many “mistakes” I feel like I made before I got to the point of selling – choices that affected my team and our customers.

I tried to protect everyone, but that’s not how business works. I loved everyone I ever worked with, and that’s also not how business works – especially during hard seasons. Love may seem like a good thing to invite into the workplace, but from the CEO seat, it’s hard to recognize that #teamlove is actually always conditional. I felt like I was loved back until I had to let someone go for misalignment of values or performance issues. It hurts to realize the truth, so I have felt a lot of regret about letting my emotions into the workplace.

And because I haven’t forgiven myself for this, it’s eaten away at my energy that ought to be directed towards creating more amazing things! I feel myself holding back out of fears of making the wrong choices or taking too big of a risk, or too many risks. It has caused me to pause before sharing my art, my experiences, and the wisdom I have obtained through trial and error.

There is a lot of pride in the business world. We don’t talk about our failures near enough.

Forgiveness and Compassion for Myself

This is why I’m writing 100 Liminal Days – to break those traditions and to be real – as a human being, not just a CEO who believes she has to hide her mistakes, pain, and shame.

To show our true selves – who we really are as a human being – even when our best wasn’t the best for all – requires self-compassion. It requires us to forgive ourselves.

So, today, I release myself from the prison of regret. I know I did my best every. single. day. I remind myself that I will never be able to please everyone or protect everyone. And that’s not my job anyway. (Even as a CEO, that was not my job!) My job is to take care of myself, tend to my little corner of heaven on earth, and create from my heart. Even after failures. Especially after failures.

I commit to taking new risks, knowing that more failures are inevitable. I will continue to do my best to do no harm and to always take responsibility for my actions. I will not let my past failures hold me back, and I will not let fears of what others think of me censor my work.

And most of all, just like I always led my teams, I will lead myself with compassion.

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