Last week, for the first time in close to five years, I completely skipped sending my weekly newsletter.
No warning.
No “taking the week off!” message.
I just…didn’t send it.
I was away apprenticing as a facilitator at a retreat with one of my medicine teachers, and the experience ended up being much more all-consuming than I anticipated.
I could technically have gotten the email out.
I could have squeezed writing into the tiny bits of space when I really needed to be resting, integrating, or preparing to serve.
Instead, I let the streak die.
I chose grace for myself.
And I let some people be disappointed.
Which brings me to a belief I’ve been practicing lately—and offering to my clients when they need it:
I get to disappoint people.
Notice what it doesn’t say:
I SHOULD disappoint people.
Other people’s feelings don’t matter.
I get to be careless or break my commitments or do whatever the heck I want because I’m living my truth.
Just:
I get to disappoint people.
Because sometimes disappointing someone else is the inevitable consequence of honoring what I know is true.
Why are we so afraid of disappointing people?
For many of us, someone else’s disappointment doesn’t feel like a neutral piece of information.
It feels like evidence.
They’re disappointed, therefore I did something wrong.
They’re unhappy with my choice, therefore I was selfish.
They wanted more from me, therefore I should have given more.
And underneath all of that can be an even deeper fear: If I disappoint people, I might lose love, belonging, approval, or connection.
No wonder we work so hard to avoid it.
If disappointing someone feels dangerous, you don’t just consider their feelings when making a decision. You start organizing your decisions around preventing those feelings.
You say yes when you mean no.
You overcommit.
You push past your own capacity.
You spend enormous amounts of energy trying to figure out the “right” choice—the one where everybody gets what they want and nobody gets upset with you.
Sometimes that choice doesn’t exist.
Disappointing someone doesn’t mean you’ve done something wrong
This distinction is important.
“I get to disappoint people” does NOT mean:
Other people’s feelings don’t matter.
I don’t have to keep my commitments.
I can behave however I want and call it authenticity.
It means someone else’s disappointment isn’t automatic evidence that I’ve done something wrong.
Sometimes another person is disappointed precisely because I’ve made a choice that’s right for me.
Sometimes I’ve discovered that my capacity isn’t what I thought it would be.
Sometimes two people’s needs genuinely conflict.
Sometimes I change my mind.
And yes, sometimes I make a choice that inconveniences someone else.
That doesn’t make their disappointment irrelevant.
It just means their disappointment isn’t the sole measure of whether my choice was right.
What people-pleasing costs us
Years ago, I came across a quote that has stayed with me:
“If you have to disappoint someone, make sure it isn’t yourself.”
Beautiful idea.
But actually living that way requires a pretty high tolerance for other people’s disappointment.
Because if your primary goal is to make sure nobody is ever disappointed in you, someone else will always have a vote on what you do.
Your time.
Your boundaries.
Your work.
Your relationships.
Your choices.
Maybe even the shape of your life.
And the person who gets disappointed over and over again may be you.
How to get more comfortable disappointing people
I don’t think the answer is to stop caring what anyone thinks.
It’s to build our capacity to let someone else have their feelings without immediately making those feelings mean something about us.
Someone can wish I’d said yes.
Someone can think I should have worked harder.
Someone can disagree with my decision.
Someone can think I’m selfish.
And I can listen.
I can get curious.
I can repair something if repair is needed.
And I can still decide that my choice was mine to make.
That’s grace.
Grace doesn’t mean our commitments don’t matter.
It means we get to be human inside of those commitments.
We get to discover that our capacity isn’t what we thought it would be.
We get to change our minds.
We get to recognize that keeping one promise would require breaking a more important promise to ourselves.
Try on a different belief
This is one of the ways I work with beliefs in my own life and with coaching clients.
You don’t have to convince yourself that a new belief is capital-T True.
Try it on.
See what becomes possible when you think it.
“I can’t disappoint anyone” creates one set of choices.
“I get to disappoint people and still be loved” creates another.
What happens in your body when you say that?
What decision becomes easier?
What do you suddenly know that you were having trouble hearing before?
This is the kind of deep work I do with powerful people who are ready to claim the lives they know they’re meant for. And not by forcing harder.
By finding the beliefs that have secretly been limiting what’s possible.
By opening to the wisdom that’s already buried within them.
By practicing new ways of being until they aren’t just ideas anymore.
By radically claiming their aliveness.
There is so much possibility available when you stop organizing your life around avoiding other people’s disappointment.
You get to honor your capacity.
You get to change your mind.
You get to choose what you know is true.
You get to disappoint people.
Just make sure the person you’re continually disappointing isn’t yourself.
Ready to hear yourself more clearly?
If you’re ready to do the deep work of seizing possibility, opening to your own wisdom, and radically claiming your aliveness, your first step is a free consultation.
If we’re a fit, I’ll help you sleep better, wake up more energized, claim your time, and savor more intimacy.
Just talking about it all can be life-changing.
