Episode 034: Why Pay Twice?
A question that changed my life and gave me a different way of looking at mistakes.
+ Read the Transcript
So my dad is full of different pieces of advice, short sentences, packed with big wisdom. And one of these wisdom phrases that we say a lot in our house is why pay twice? So let's say you go to the movies and you pay $25 for tickets and snacks, and halfway through the movie, you're mad.
The movie's terrible. It's loud. The plots weak, no characters, just plain bad. So most people would say I paid for this movie. I'm going to sit here and get my money's worth. But my dad would say, why pay twice? Why pay the $25 and then pay the fee of your time and energy to watch a bad movie, get up and leave.
And I love this piece of advice. I tell you has been life-changing for me. And I wrote this blog piece in the first book that I wrote, .Juice Squeezed. So people will come up to me who read the book and say, oh my gosh, the idea of why pay twice changed my life.
And it shows up so much in our lives that we get stuck in this. I've already done this. This is the way I've already gone. So I got to keep continuing on the same path, and this gives us permission to turn around and be like, wait a minute. Why am I doing this again? Why am I paying twice? So the spirit of this advice can apply to so many aspects of our lives. Not just financially that I paid for something. And so why am I going to sit here through a terrible thing, but often, like when we. We have to stick with something merely because we've paid, whether financially or with our time and energy.
So let's say you're in a job. You hate, you go every day, thinking how much you hate it. And you justify that by saying I've already put in 5, 10, 15 years. I can't quit now again, the idea of why pay twice. Yes. You've paid your dues, and it hasn't worked out yet. So why keep paying. This gives us permission just to turn around and say, why am I continuing to throw money or throw my energy into something that isn't working out?
An example I see a ton with the clients I work with is people who have paid to go to school. And for whatever reason, they've picked a degree that doesn't fit them. So here they are 2, 4, 10, 20 years later, and they can't find the job they want. Or they have a job, and they're totally miserable.
And many of them know what they want to do next. They know what it is specifically, but it requires more schooling. And they'll say to me, I can't go back to school, I already paid for one degree. So I have to use the degree I paid for. That's true. They did pay for one day. But just like in the bad movie analogy, if it wasn't the right degree, it isn't going to be satisfying, or it's not going to get them what they want in the end.
So why pay twice? Why pay for the first degree and then pay for your misery, the rest of your life? Because you made a human mistake and selected the wrong day. Frequently in life, we make mistakes. We choose incorrectly. We choose something that we thought should fit. Or we tried something that someone else told us would fit, and we ended up unhappy, miserable, and quote paying for the mistake.
The point is the mistakes. We chose wrong, but we keep suffering because we picked wrong. Why pay twice? Why continue to suffer? Figure out a way to make a change, do it differently. Just because you chose wrong, to begin with, doesn't mean you have to keep suffering. We continue to pay the price well beyond what we need to.
And so we've paid twice instead of having the recognition of wait a minute, I made a mistake here, and that's okay. I need to figure out a different way of doing this. I love this piece of advice because it's opened up my life to be like, oh yeah, I don't have to do this. Just because I already said I would, for example, my husband and I went to a concert this weekend, and we rented a hotel cause it was a couple of hours away from us.
And as we were pulling out of the parking lot, I was like, oh, maybe we should just go home. I didn't want to go back to the hotel, and we could get home late tonight, but we get home and sleep in our bed. And then I said, we already paid for the hotel. And he was like, what?
We haven't dropped off her stuff at the hotel. We paid for it. But that doesn't mean we have to sleep there. If you'd be happier sleeping at home, why would we pay twice? And it was just a great pause for me to be like, oh yeah. Why pay twice? When there are options here. And I think that's the beauty of this.
Why pay twice is it gives us options. We ended up going to the hotel anyway, and I was glad we did because I was exhausted. But it still gave me a chance to see other options. I get stuck in that black and white way of thinking where I've already paid for this. So I have to keep going down that path. I already chose whatever it is.
So I have to keep going down that path, instead of saying, wait a minute, maybe you could choose differently and not mess everything up. And it would be okay. So this advice allows me to get creative. It allows us to figure out a different plan. So life has meant to be enjoyed. It's not meant to be stuck in one decision the whole way.
We're not meant to pay for our mistakes forever. We're allowed to admit we messed up, make amends, find a different way. So, where in your life are you paying twice? That's what I want you to ask yourself and have that paying twice mentality tossed it around in your brain a little bit to make you give you more creativity and more openness.
+ Weekly Ritual Challenge
One thing that has really helped me reduce anxiety is adding regular ritual practices to my daily life, so each week, I am going to be sharing a ritual with you and challenge you to complete it.
This week's ritual: Go for a Walk Around the Block.
Take a small walk when you are feeling overwhelmed and stressed. Get out and get moving.