Another trait to overcome: trying to always be a “good girl.”

Every month, I help an association chairperson write her column for the association newsletter. I used to coordinate the whole newsletter, but I talked the group into restructuring their process, which effectively left me out of the loop.  But the chairperson loved how I helped her write her column, so they asked me to continue, even though I tried to quit back then.

Today I wrote to them to resign, truthfully admitting that I felt too far out of their editorial loop to thoughtfully guide the columns. They paid me for one hour’s work a month, and I’m sure it took at least two hours of coordinating, shuffling, writing and billing. In other words, it wasn’t a project that was making me any money, and I didn’t feel like I was doing my best job.

But… I didn’t want to make them feel bad. I didn’t want to let them down. So I just spent MORE than an hour composing an email that was actually more words than the monthly column, justifying and explaining myself and trying to convince them that it was the right thing to do.

Is it my Southern roots? The fact that my mother’s family was Catholic? A woman’s drive to always be liked? My desire to please people and always be a hero?

Beats me, but I’m pretty sure many of the male entrepreneurs I know don’t have this problem. One of my entrepreneurial mentors wants to fire his receptionist. He’s waiting until the new office person is trained enough to take over. How can he act normally to his receptionist? The guilt would kill me! I’d have sincere talks with her and try to improve her performance. I know I’d cry when I finally realized that it wouldn’t work.

Sometimes I try to put myself in my clients’ shoes. Do I really think that this group will sit around and brood about my leaving? Logically, here’s how I think they will look at this in a couple of months. “Yeah, we used to work with this one copywriter, but she eventually faded out of the picture.” I don’t think they’ll remember me like this: “We had the most perfect writer in the universe, and one day she up and wrote us off, and we’ll never recover.”

So, I should move on. I just got back from travels to and fro. I have plenty of catching up to do. And now I’ve crossed one of my lingering to dos off my list.

PS — I’m glad to be back on the blog. A couple of people wrote to say they missed my Tuesday post this morning.