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I pulled the fleece blanket tighter around my shoulders as a gust of ocean breeze caressed my skin. The cold air felt like a melting ice cube slowly slithering down my spine.

We sat cross-legged on yoga mats after a lovely morning meditation on the covered deck, preparing for the final day of our weekend retreat on the Oregon Coast.

The group was discussing the benefits of the “cold plunge” scheduled at the end of the day. 

Cognitively, I totally understood the benefits of cold plunging: regulate your nervous system, release stress, and prove to yourself that you can do hard things. 

I found myself nodding along as the group energy ratcheted up in preparation for the big plunge. 

Yes, yes, I understand what you’re saying! Yes, I believe in myself! Yes, I want a regulated nervous system! Yes, I can do hard things! 

But here’s the thing: I had absolutely zero desire to do the cold plunge. 

Honestly, I thought, you’ve been doing a lot of scary things lately, your nervous system is feeling regulated, and you have zero desire to freeze your ass off today. 

The Maegan of the past would’ve been wracked with FOMO and fear of hurting the group’s feelings. Would it be rude of me to opt out? Am I just getting in my own way? Will I forever regret not having pushed myself to do the plunge?! 

But the Maegan of today surprised me…

She was like, “Hey girl, you don’t want to do it, so just don’t do it.” 

And then, I just didn’t do it! 😲

I simply said, “This all makes so much sense to me, but I’m not feeling called to do a cold plunge today. I’ll come down to cheer you on!” And that was that. 

This experience got me thinking about how FOMO is triggered when we’re pressured to buy things on the internet, specifically coaching programs and online courses. 

If you’re anything like me, your inbox is riddled with helpful emails from well-meaning people who are trying to sell you things. (And yes, I am one of the people trying to sell you things!) 

Unfortunately, most people still rely on coercive, persuasive, and manipulative sales strategies to get you to buy their stuff. These strategies intentionally trigger the FOMO button in our brains. 

For example… 

🛑 You NEED this information if you want to succeed!
Translation: If you don’t buy this thing right now, you will fail. You cannot do this on your own. 

🛑 This is the ONLY OPPORTUNITY to take advantage of this LIFE-CHANGING offer.
Translation: If you don’t buy this thing right now, you will fail. This is your only chance to get what you need.

🛑 If you feel hesitant to buy this offer, it’s because YOU’RE AFRAID OF SUCCESS.
Translation: If you don’t buy this thing right now, you will fail… and it’ll be all your fault.

Online sales strategies are designed to trigger FOMO by activating your fight or flight response. These strategies poke and prod at the parts of you that are already wracked with fear, overwhelm, and self-doubt. Honestly, it’s fucked up. 

I’m actively trying to unlearn these strategies, and when I said no to the cold plunge, an important piece of learning clicked into place for me: 

My only job is to discern what is and is not right for me right now. 

Here’s the truth about most things…

There is always something new to learn. There is always something helpful to buy. There is always someone willing to help me whose support I would truly value. 

But that does not mean that now is the time to learn a new skill, pay for extra support, or buy that super helpful thing. Now is not necessarily the time for action, and the only person who can discern what is and is not right for me right now is ME.

Translation: The only person who can discern what is and is not right for YOU right now is YOU! 

I know, it’s overwhelming! When everyone is telling us what we should be learning, doing, and buying, it can feel impossible to discern what our intuition knows is right for us. 

Those are my thoughts when I’m thinking about this through the lens of a buyer. But as I said earlier, I’m also a seller. If you own a business, you’re a seller too. In this community, we’re all buyers and sellers, which means we need to be thinking about this from both angles. 

For the sake of brevity (haha), here’s where I’m at with this today… 

As a BUYER, it’s my job to discern what is and is not right for me right now. 

As a SELLER, it’s my job to tell you the facts about what I’m selling! 

I’m going to tell you why I believe the thing I’ve created is fabulous and help you understand whether or not you’re a good fit for my offering without doing any of these things… 

🙅‍♀️ Making you think you cannot succeed without my program. That’s bullshit. OF COURSE you can figure this out on your own. You’re brilliant. 

🙅‍♀️ Lying to you about how often I’m going to be selling a particular product or offering. If I know I’m going to launch another group later in the year, I’ll tell you that so you can decide when you want to join. 

🙅‍♀️ Planting seeds of self-doubt by making you question your own intuitive hunches about whether or not this is the right offering (and timing) for you. 

And to think, I figured all of this out without plunging my body into 50° ocean water! 😂

Now, are you ready for a test? 

This feels like the perfect opportunity to announce that it’s time to apply for the Next-Level Therapist summer cohort! 

Over the next 5ish weeks, I’m going to be sending you emails about my program with an invitation to complete an application to join. 

If your intuition is telling you now is not the right time and/or you’re straight-up not interested, you can click here to opt out of future emails about the Next-Level Therapist summer cohort! 

I’m going to hype the shit out of this program because I believe in the work we’re doing, but I’m not going to convince you to join. I’m going to tell you the facts and trust you to decide if you want to work with me. 

The only person who can decide whether or not you do the cold plunge is you. 

Trust yourself. You cannot make the wrong decision. ❤️