Change is in the Air
Fall is a time when I consciously give myself permission to change my mind. If you have no issues with changing your mind, this may sound ridiculous. I mean, really, this has to be a conscious choice?
As a recovering achievement addict, however, changing your mind without guilt is a hard thing to do. It’s easy to fall into a belief trap that whispers to you that if you have to change your mind, you must have made the wrong choice in the first place – or at minimum, you didn’t do enough research to make the right decision. This belief trap can make you believe that if you change your mind, you have failed to some degree. This kind of toxic perfectionism can lock you up from making any decisions at all.
Not only is toxic perfectionism an issue, but so is the principle of sunk cost bias. Sunk cost bias happens when you’ve already spent an incredible amount of time, energy, and/or resources on something and so you keep going at it – even if it is no longer serving you. Sunk cost bias, for instance, has been cited as one of the reasons that employees stay in bad jobs. Their rational is that they’ve already invested so much in this job that if they were to leave, all that investment was a waste or was worth nothing. This, however, is not true. I have found that sunk cost bias can be one of my biggest detriments to growth because it can keep me stuck in a poor situation. We need not let past investments dictate pouring more investment into something that is not working.
So, fall is the season that I give myself permission to examine where I’m at and allow myself to pivot. It is crucial for my growth goals that I be willing to let go of what is no longer working well.
As with many things, I deliberately practice life principles in the safety of my garden – and practicing conscientiously changing my mind is no different. By the time September hits the garden, the initial adrenaline that comes from the hopeful, little green shoots in the spring has melted through the heat of the summer and often starts to look a little sad and scraggly. However, this is the time that I like to walk and reevaluate the overall design of each space. Last year, I redid an entire garden bed and it became one of my favorite spaces this year. What surprised me most was how much relief I felt after fixing something that had been quietly bothering me for so long.
This year, I changed my mind about a Japanese forsythia bush. For the last 4 growing seasons, I have tended to this bush. It was one of the first things I put in my garden while waiting for contractors to finish building out the rest of the space. It is a rare variety that I had inherited from a neighbor. It has really cool looking variegated leaves where lime green patterns contrast with a lush green backdrop. It is also one of the very first things to bloom in the spring with happy sunshine yellow flowers. Lastly, this bush loved where I had planted it. In fact, it loved it so much that it was overpowering everything around it.
Do you see all the costs I had sunk into this plant?
Logically, I should have loved this plant. The problem is, I didn’t love it. I didn’t love its overall shape. I didn’t love how big it was. I didn’t love that the foliage was too similar to the things around it and so instead of adding depth and dimension to that space of my garden, it just looked wild and unkempt.
I didn’t realize how much this plant was bothering me until I looked through the pictures I’ve taken of my garden this year and most of the pictures are framed so that the bush is just barely not in it. I’ve literally been avoiding looking at it and documenting it.
Here is one of the only pictures I could find of it… and it’s because everything else is still sleeping around it. When it’s on its own, I liked it, but once everything else filled in around it, it was lackluster.
So, last week, I dug it out. This kind of choice is a terrifying one for someone like me. The only reason I’m getting rid of this bush is because of my own personal preference. I’m not pulling it out because it is sick or damaged. I just didn’t like it. This was an act of standing up for my own wants and as a people pleaser, that’s terrifying. However, I felt a sense of lightness, liberation, and relief while looking at the hole it left.
(Also, don’t worry, I didn’t just toss it out. I gifted it to another friend that really does love this bush. It has gone to a good home where it will be appreciated.)
I’ve added new things to the space where this plant was. I’ve got hopes for them, however, if they don’t quite fit, I’ve also got a plan for when I need to change my mind. Because, after all, change is necessary for growth.
Thanks for reading with me today. I hope this prompts you to set aside some time to look for the places you can create healthy change this season. Happy fall.