reframing failure

why it's okay to quit sometimes

Today I did a task that I’ve been putting off for literally four months. It took two minutes, which made the hours of dread even more painful.  

I finally told people that I’m putting Limm on indefinite pause.

Limm was an idea for a beverage company that I was working on, sparked by my conviction that lemon water is the best non-alcoholic beverage known to humankind. As someone who travels with Tupperwares of sliced lemons, I still love this idea and have conviction in it.  

But I had to stop it.

For a bunch of reasons, but really it boiled down to three. One, I realized that it was really difficult to formulate a beverage to be sold in the US from a continent away in Europe. Two, I was less inspired by the Mediterranean aesthetic as I hunkered down in sweaters in the spritzy Scotland summer. But most importantly, I had lost the spark. I didn’t love it anymore. The first two I could have muscled through, but the third I could not. 

In her book Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert writes about ideas as visitors: the notion that if an idea comes to you and if you don’t act on it, it moves onto someone else who will. That’s why we see things in the world that we had the idea for some years before. Rick Rubin wrote about this too. 

I’ve gotten the idea for Limm twice in my life. It first visited me in 2021 when I was on a solo vacation in upstate New York. I had rented an Airbnb all to myself and did nothing but read, sleep, and try to get my nervous system back into operating order. I walked for hours among the trees, trying to feel like myself again. That weekend, with my stress dialed all the way down, my creativity exploded. I started doodling, and the idea for Limm came. 

I texted my best friends and told them about my brilliant idea. I reached out to a beverage formulator and started working on the brand colors. 

But some months later, I got focused on moving to Spain and threw myself into the logistical and administrative nightmare of moving counties. I put Limm on the back burner and the idea went away. 

Then in 2022, the idea came back stronger. While I was in Spain, I saw the brand more clearly than ever before. Limm’s one-liner: “Be home when you’re away,” came to me while I was swimming. I could see Limm on a shelf. I even knew what I would wear to the launch party.

Then, my move to Scotland came very unexpectedly. I had to reallocate my brain space to organize everything and set up my new life. By the time that was done some four months later, the Limm spark was gone. 

Unfortunately, no one knew this but me. I still had active email chains going with potential formulators and investors and brand agencies. People were constantly following up and checking in. I read these emails without replying. 

As each day passed, my guilt multiplied. But today, I finally faced the music. I told them that as of now, Limm was an NVP (non-viable project). 

I’ve never done this. 

Instead, I leave a trail of discarded half-projects. See also: the villa hotel I wanted to start in Spain that never came to fruition. The oatmeal company I started in college that received a call from Shark Tank that I never returned. I love to start things, but I have trouble finishing them.

I hate this about myself and beat myself up for it. It’s the ugly side of enthusiasm. When the thing is the thing, it’s THE thing, but when it passes, I want nothing to do with it.

I’ve chalked it up to a lack of focus, my human design archetype (I’m a manifest generator, duh!), astrology signs (such a Gemini thing to do right?!), and any other excuse I can come up with. I get super embarrassed when I stop a project, because I like to think of myself as someone who doesn’t quit. 

But instead of blaming, it actually comes down to reframing. Maybe pausing projects isn’t actually a bad thing. 

Stopping doesn’t mean the idea was a failure. It just means that it wasn’t feasible. 

The tough part is telling the difference between a project that’s impossible — and one that’s just super fucking difficult. 

Recently, I explored another project all the way to the end. My boyfriend and I wanted to start an Airbnb in Edinburgh. This made sense to me; I love interior design, G has remodeling chops, we love working together on projects, and we wanted to cut our teeth in hospitality. Airbnb seemed like the perfect entry point. 

So, off to the races we went. 

I went to five viewings in one day, reached out to a solicitor, and set up a call with a mortgage banker. One thing I am good at is riding momentum. I was knee-deep in planning permissions and short-term rental licenses. In Edinburgh, recent legislation makes short-term sublets next to impossible, but I was sure it could be done. 

I pushed on, devouring thirty-page PDFs of the Edinburgh Council rulings. I talked to five mortgage bankers, some twelve solicitors, and three architects. None of them would even submit a planning proposal for me because the Council had denied every single one they had submitted.

Every person I spoke to advised me that it couldn’t be done, but only after exploring every single possible pathway did I realize they were right. It was only then, at the very end of the road, that I moved the project in my mental dashboard from “In Progress” to “Not Viable.”

Moving two projects to the failure zone was a hit to my ego. I run marathons, I move to new countries, I stuck it out on the trading floor on Wall Street. I am someone who doesn’t give up. How could I be giving up? 

I spoke about my shame with my executive coach and he looked at me like I was crazy. 

“Aren’t you glad you figured this out before you spent any more time on them?” he asked. “That’s a blessing!” 

Then it was my turn to look at him like he was crazy. 

“No, it’s not,” I said. “I really wanted it to work.” My dream had been crushed. 

“You didn’t fail,”  he said. “You found out that the project wasn’t feasible. That’s a victory.”

I thought about it some more, rolling the idea over in my mind. If the idea didn’t work now, that doesn't mean it won’t ever work. It just means right now, it couldn’t.

It’s still painful to think about my paused projects, but the more I change how I talk about them, the less it hurts. I’m not quitting, I’m just doing a feasibility assessment.  

As painful as it is to abandon a project, the good news is that none of it is ever in vain. 

Everything I learned from my experience with Limm is helpful in Royal Circus, a new project I started for Scottish-inspired home goods.

Instead of starting from scratch, I’m joining the marathon a few miles in. I know how to incorporate a company and set up a website. I imagine the same head start will exist when I pick up the hospitality dream again, in another form.

If Limm comes back to me a third time, which I hope it does, I will welcome it with open arms. It gets better every time I try it. 

Stopping a project doesn’t mean you stop moving. It means you can find momentum elsewhere. 

When the door closes, open the next one.