The Moment After You Say Yes
Yesterday, I performed as a guest at the University of Maryland’s Clarinet Symposium.
I said yes to the invitation months ago—when the calendar was open, energy was high, and my most optimistic self was making decisions.
I even programmed something ambitious. It felt right at the time.
Then reality caught up.
The week before… and then the day itself.
That familiar feeling appears quietly:
Why did I agree to this? Why didn’t I choose something easier?
It’s not stage fright. It’s the gap between the version of you that says yes, and the version of you that has to show up.
I think many of us struggle with that gap.
There’s the version of you who signs up, chooses the difficult piece, submits the application, says yes to opportunity.
And then there’s the version of you who has to actually perform it.
But I’ve learned something important:
The “past you” who said yes usually wasn’t wrong.
That version wasn’t naive—it was responding to possibility before doubt arrived.
Meanwhile, the “day-of you” is often just protective. Fear shows up as hesitation, not truth.
And that distinction matters:
Scared does not mean unprepared.
As I fly home today, I realize this is something I’ve had to relearn repeatedly.
The stretch is usually right.
The resistance is usually fear in disguise.
And the piece I almost regretted programming? It ended up meaning something far beyond me—touching a young audience member deeply enough that he came up afterward to share a personal connection to the composer.
That moment changed the weight of the entire experience.
You don’t need to resolve the tension between who you are now and who you’re becoming.
You just need to show up and offer the work.
Before you say no to something you already said yes to, pause and ask:
- Did my past self usually choose well in these situations?
- Is this resistance fear, or something practical I need to address?
- What would actually make me feel 10% more prepared?
- What becomes possible if I follow through on this stretch?
- Who am I becoming on the other side of this?
If this feels timely, I’d genuinely love to hear what you’ve said yes to lately that now feels a little heavy.
Reply and tell me.
With you in the stretch,
Ixi
P.S.
One thing that helped me was having a plan—specifically knowing I needed 1–2 run-throughs with a pianist.
The plan doesn’t need to be perfect. It just needs to be real.
If you’re carrying something you said yes to and aren’t sure how to prepare for it, the Practice with Purpose Planner was built for exactly these moments.
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