Knowing When to Step Away

If you followed Dancing With the Stars this past season – or if you visited the internet in mid-October – you probably heard that actress Selma Blair made the choice to withdraw from the competition because rehearsing and performing was putting too much strain on her body.

As a fellow person-living-with-MS, Blair’s openness, vulnerability, and sincerity about her experience has been an inspiration to me. She completed her run on DWTS with a “gentle” waltz, saying, "This is a dance for everyone who had tried and hoped they could do more, but also the power in realizing when it's time to walk away."

As a small business owner, I also need to be able to realize when it’s time to walk away from a project or a client. This would be true even if I weren’t living with a disability, but that certainly makes it all the more important to maintain that sense of self-awareness. Recognizing that it’s within my control to bow out if I need to has been empowering. 

Here are my reasons to say no or walk away:

My health needs to be my number one priority

Health, work and family/relationships are the big three in my life. I generally balance them well, but any health setback throws things off. Because I create my own flexible work schedule, I can usually keep up with my client work even if I’m not feeling well, but that means setting aside anything “extra,” like side projects, hobbies or volunteering.

In 2015 I was training to get my letterpress certification, a longtime goal I was super-excited to finally dive into. Then I had a thyroid cancer scare. I had to have my thyroid removed. The biopsy was negative, thank goodness. But the time, the appointments, the surgery, the recovery, the lifestyle adjustments, the mental health management sucked up all the time and energy I’d been planning to put into learning letterpress.
Since that time, I’ve found handlettering to be a great creative, flexible outlet for me. I can pick up a pen and paper anywhere, it requires no planning ahead, and I can do it lying on my couch. 

I feel disrespected by the client

When I’m feeling a lot of stress and strain from a project or client, there’s only one question to ask: Is there a reasonable price that would justify the hassle? If the answer is no, I need to let the client go. Especially if they don’t respect my boundaries.

Like time. I have to guard my time carefully and use it judiciously. If a client doesn’t respect my time, that’s a major red flag. I had one client who constantly needed rush turnarounds. I was waking up at the crack of dawn to wait for last-minute approval, unable to make any other commitments (like phone calls or meetings with other clients), rushing files to the printer, then stressing because at that point, there’s no going back. I tried to plan schedules to anticipate their last-minute habits but the client blew off my deadlines every time.
So I stopped taking projects with them. And while I will often try to pass a client along to another designer if the client is simply not a good fit for me, this wasn’t someone I wanted to subject any of my colleagues to. 

The work causes me an unexpected amount of stress

I don’t like to be surprised. When something isn’t going to the way I pictured, it stresses me out. So I have to reflect: Am I burnt out and in need of rest? Is this a challenge I can work through? I’m definitely apt to blame my stress overloads on my own habits – not enough sleep, too much caffeine, etc. But even I have to admit that some experiences are not going to get better with more hydration.

In Spring 2020 I agreed to project-manage a video ad campaign about COVID for an organization I like and respect. I don’t do much video work, but I do have a lot of project management skills. Turns out, however, that the combination of leading a team of people I didn’t know, in an area outside my wheelhouse, while navigating early COVID anxiety was too much. And the other team members were happy to work weekends. Weekends are my time to rest, unplug, and recalibrate for the week. That all comes back to my health needing to be my number one priority. If I don’t do that, every other aspect of my life suffers. Luckily one of the other members of the team was able to take the lead in my place. I stayed connected with the organization by engaging with them on social media to show I still supported their work, even if the collaboration didn’t end up being a good fit for me. 

Circling back to my inspiration for this post, Selma Blair isn’t the only actress with multiple sclerosis who’s been making headlines lately. Christina Applegate, Blair’s co-star in “The Sweetest Thing” (yes, I’m singing the Chinese restaurant song in my head, too), was in the news last week about her decision to complete filming of her Netflix series “Dead to Me” following her own 2021 MS diagnosis. While Applegate made the choice to push through rather than pull out, she was clear: “We’re going to do it on my terms.” 

It’s vital for people to see these sides of the disability experience – where there isn’t a miraculous discovery and extraordinary victory. Living with a disability is a daily negotiation with your body and your dreams. You have to give yourself a lot of grace. We all – disabled or able-bodied – could stand to give ourselves a lot more grace. Sometimes you try and you realize you can’t do it, or you can’t do it the way you wanted, or the way you used to be able to. That’s okay. That’s enough. 

Sometimes, like Christina, you continue but you make space to accommodate your needs, to do things on your terms. This is one of the advantages of being a solo business owner – you have the ability to create your own terms. Other times, like Selma, you bow out gracefully.

Sometimes, if it suits you, you even get to have that one last dance.