What a Failed Launch Taught Me About Self-Trust, Business, and Money

I flopped.

Living Ayurveda had the failure-to-launch energy of a New Year's resolution that didn't survive the first Monday back at work.

One person applied. Two more were interested. I needed five to run it.

The group didn't happen.

And almost immediately, my brain wanted to turn that into a story about me.

I didn't explain it well enough.

I didn't market it well enough.

I lost energy toward the end.

I should have planned better.

Maybe nobody wants what I have to offer.

Maybe I have no idea what I'm doing.

You know. The usual bullshit and degrading inner dialogue.

There was a time when I would have believed every single one of those thoughts.

I would have believed the launch was a failure, decided the whole idea was stupid, crawled back toward whatever felt safer, and used the experience as further evidence that maybe I just wasn't cut out for the thing I wanted.

Old habits die hard.

Because even now, part of me still wants to do that.

There is still a part of me that wants to figure out exactly what I did wrong so I can guarantee that when I try again, it works—and I never have to feel this disappointed AGAIN.

Unfortunately, that is not how business works.

Or life.

And thankfully, another part of me has gotten much louder.

That part looks at Living Ayurveda—and recognizes that how I'm responding to its failure is actually me #livingmyayurveda—and thinks:

Maybe it wasn't supposed to happen.

Maybe I needed to create it anyway.

Because in creating it, something became incredibly clear to me.

I can no longer separate the work I do around money from the work I do around health, self-compassion, boundaries, spirituality, receiving, rest, emotional health, and the way we care for ourselves.

They are all intertwined.

The woman who is afraid to raise her rate may also be the woman who says yes when she wants to say no.

The woman who feels guilty resting may also believe she has to work herself into the ground to deserve more money.

The woman obsessively checking her bank account may be trying to create the same safety through control that she is trying to create everywhere else in her life.

Money is rarely just about money.

And perhaps Living Ayurveda needed to "fail" for me to see my own work more clearly.

Now, please don't mistake this for me lighting a candle and pretending business strategy doesn't matter.

I also learned that I need to plan my launches earlier.

I need vision and a plan.

I need to be clearer about exactly who I serve and exactly how I help her.

I need to stop running parts of my business on inspiration and adrenaline and become more like an actual fucking CEO.

My coach and I are already working on that.

And I had to learn something else:

Self-compassion doesn't mean I don't hold myself accountable.

It means I can tell the truth about what didn't work without using it as evidence against myself.

I can ask:

What went well?

What didn't go so well?

What can I learn from this and do differently?

And what if nothing has gone terribly wrong?

What if I can be disappointed, learn from it, and still go after the big dreams I have for my work and my life?

Because I want to make more money.

Have more impact and more freedom.

Help more women do work they love without sacrificing themselves to create it.

So yes.

Living Ayurveda flopped.

And I learned more from launching something that didn't work than I probably would have learned if eight women had immediately signed up.

I learned more about the women I want to work with.

I learned more about the work I am here to do.

I learned where my business needs structure.

And maybe most importantly, I learned that I can experience a disappointing outcome without making myself wrong for it.

That's wealth, too.

Beyond the money, this is much of the work I do inside Awakened Wealth: helping women catch the stories they start telling themselves when something doesn’t go the way they hoped, before those stories shape how they work, earn, spend, and see themselves.

If you're a woman building something of your own and you recognize yourself in this—the overworking, the self-doubt, the pressure to get it right, the fear that one disappointing result means something about your ability or your future, and letting constant money worry make your decisions—this is exactly the territory I explore inside Awakened Wealth.

If this resonated, come hang out with me in your inbox.

I write about women, money, mental health, spirituality, self-compassion, Ayurveda, and all the weird, complicated stuff that comes up when we’re trying to create a bigger life without abandoning ourselves in the process.