THE MACSPARKY DISPATCH

Hi Friend,

I was talking to someone recently who felt paralyzed by too many commitments. Work was consuming her. She knew what roles she wanted to focus on, but there simply wasn’t time. She knew things had to change. But looking at her list, she couldn’t see how to escape.

So she was stuck. Paralyzed.

This happens more than you’d think.

When you’ve been saying yes to everything for years, the idea of changing course can feel catastrophic. You imagine cutting a commitment and the whole thing collapsing. Your boss firing you. Your family disappointed. Your identity crumbling. So you stay in the system because at least the system is familiar.

There’s a trick to escaping this. Don’t revolutionize your life. Run a tiny experiment instead.

Pick one small part of something you’re doing and stop doing it. Just stop. Not forever. Not as a grand philosophical commitment. Just for a week or two. Nobody else has to know.

See what happens.

Maybe it’s email you’ve been answering that someone else can handle. Maybe it’s a meeting you attend but don’t really need to attend. Maybe it’s a project you volunteered for that drains you. Pick something small. Something reversible.

Then stop doing it, and you’ll discover the universe will not implode. Your life will not end. The thing you were afraid would happen probably won’t happen at all. Try it, and you just might break the spell.

Once you realize you can drop something without everything falling apart, you get bold. You try another experiment. You cut another thing. You add something back that matters more. You adjust.

But the key is starting small. Baby steps. Reversible moves.

The reason people fail at change is that they go too drastic. Monday they decide to quit their job and move to Costa Rica. By Wednesday, they’re terrified and back to the old way. Or they commit to cutting five big things at once and it feels so overwhelming they don’t cut any.

Experiments are different. An experiment feels safe. You’re not making a permanent decision. You’re just testing something. And tests generate data you can use.

When you drop one thing for a week, you learn whether your fear was justified. You learn what fills the space. You learn whether people actually depend on you the way you thought they did.

The catastrophe isn’t real. Go find out.

Your pal,
David
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​This week's newsletter is sponsored by Capto.​

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