what i had to admit to myself
if i’m being honest, this situation stayed with me longer than i expected (hint: 48 hours).
not in a chaotic way – but in a quiet, lingering way. so i did what i usually do when something doesn’t sit right: i slowed everything down. a day of cooking proper meals, surfing, sunbathing with a book, letting my nervous system settle instead of reacting. space has a way of clarifying things.
once i gave myself room to decompress, it became clear that this wasn’t really about the client. and it definitely wasn’t just about the money.
what actually upset me was the feeling of losing control.
i had a clear idea in my head of how things should go… how communication should flow, how feedback should be given, how professionalism should look on both sides. i put a lot of care into the work, and somewhere along the way, i got emotionally attached to the outcome. so when things didn’t go the way i imagined – when feedback came late, felt vague, or didn’t align with what we’d agreed on – i took it personally. not because the work wasn’t solid, but because i couldn’t steer the situation the way i wanted to.
and that’s the part i didn’t see at first:
i was trying to control how the other party reacted.
the reality is, i can control my process, my boundaries, and how i communicate but i can’t control how someone else receives things, interprets them, or decides to act. the more i tried to “fix” or “manage” that, the more frustrated and drained i became.
looking back, the red flags weren’t even the conflict itself. it was how much emotional energy i was spending trying to make things land correctly instead of asking myself whether this working dynamic was sustainable for me in the first place.
this experience forced me to zoom out and ask a harder question: why do i feel so unsettled when things don’t go my way?
and the answer was simple, but not easy to accept – because control feels like safety to me. when i lose it, i overthink. i push harder. and that’s not something i want to keep carrying into my work.
key takeaways i’m taking with me
- not every difficult situation is a failure – some are just misalignments that surface over time
- trying to control outcomes is exhausting and usually backfires
- clear contracts matter, but clear boundaries matter more
- emotional attachment to work is a strength – until it becomes self-destructive
- how someone reacts is not a reflection of my worth or competence
this didn’t end the way i hoped. but it did give me clarity – about how i work, what i need from collaborations, and what i’m no longer willing to tolerate.
and honestly?
that lesson might be worth more than the outcome i was trying so hard to control.
here’s to more talking it out in 2026 baby!
towards the end of all this, i found myself back in a familiar rhythm: sitting in the sun, coconut on the table, book in hand.
the book i was reading is dept. of speculation by jenny offill. it’s not about business, or clients, or contracts. it’s about relationships, expectations, and the quiet ways we lose ourselves when we try too hard to hold things together.
what stayed with me most is how much of the tension in the book comes from wanting certainty – wanting things to behave, people to respond, outcomes to land neatly. and how painful it is when they don’t.
that felt uncomfortably familiar.
because if i strip this whole experience down to its core, it wasn’t just about misalignment with a client. it was about me wanting control – over the process, the communication, the ending. wanting things to make sense, to feel fair, to land cleanly. and the truth is: you can do good work, show up with integrity, and still not get the response you expect.
that doesn’t mean you failed. it just means you’ve reached the edge of what’s yours to carry.
uffff…wasn’t an easy lesson fam, but it was a necessary one.
and for now, i’m choosing to sit in the sun, finish my book, and let go of the need to tie everything up perfectly 😉