You just did the big scary thing. So why does it feel like nothing happened?
You might have heard. The Book In You launched last week.
The day after, my lower back and neck felt like I’d been folded in half and left that way. Ten days of sitting at my laptop posting “book launch” content in eleven different formats will do that to a person. I ordered one of those microwave muscle heat pillows before I’d even finished my protein smoothie.
Then I took the afternoon off. The do nothing kind.
I intended to float. Literally. First, I had to blow up the raft. This should not have been the hard part of my day. When I was a kid you just blew into the thing and it filled up. This one had some fancy smanchy one-way valve that let air in about as generously as it let it out, which is to say barely, and by the end I could feel my blood pressure climbing into my skull. Face beet red, veins doing something concerning, all to inflate a pool float. Nothing like nearly popping a blood vessel five minutes before you’re supposed to be relaxing.
Eventually I won. Raft, pool, phone somewhere inside the house.
I want to tell you I floated out there and instantly felt zen.
I did not.
My brain kept running the last ten days on a loop, like it hadn’t gotten the memo that the launch was over, and it could stand down. It took a solid 20 minutes of floating before my nervous system caught up with what my body was already doing, which was nothing.
Why is that a thing? You build up to the big push, the push happens, and then there’s this lag where you’re technically free, but your system hasn’t unclenched yet. It’s not sadness. It’s not regret. It’s just the body catching up after ten days of nonstop mental output.
Once it lifted. Ahhhh, yes! Sun, palm fronds moving around above me, no agenda. Genuinely one of the better afternoons I’ve had in a while.
If you’re mid-launch, or you just finished something big and you feel weirdly flat instead of triumphant, that’s not a sign it wasn’t worth it. It’s just your nervous system filing the paperwork a little late.
Was it worth it? Yeah. I think so. Ask me again after the heat pillow wears off.
The Book In You is out now, by the way. The pre-launch price is not. That ship left the harbor with confetti still stuck to it. But the book’s still very much available, full price, no less useful for it. Grab it here.