I Paid for It, I Registered, But I Didn’t Go
450 women paid for Doodles Coaching Week. Only 209 showed up. That gap has nothing to do with time.
I need to tell you something a little embarrassing.
I'm in a mastermind. It's called CONNECT, and it meets monthly on Zoom — but twice a year, the whole group gets together in person. This week, they're meeting outside Boulder, Colorado. That's about the closest this group will ever gather to my home in California.
I'm not going.
My reasons? I have three. I'm too busy. I'll watch the replays. And honestly — the mastermind focuses on recurring revenue through memberships, and my membership isn't doing so great right now. I have great intentions for how to improve it to serve my members better. But the thought of sitting in a room with people who've figured it all out? I'd rather just... not.
Here's the part that stings: that's exactly why I should go. They haven't all figured it all out and it's the best environment to brainstorm, come up with new ideas, and move forward.
I registered. I paid. I belong to this group. And I'm choosing a comfortable chair in my home office over the thing that might actually change something.
Sound familiar?
Four hundred and fifty women paid to attend Doodles Coaching Week. Two hundred and nine showed up. That gap isn't about time. Here are three REASONS the other 241 — and maybe you — chose comfort over the thing that could have changed everything.
Reason #1: "I'm Too Busy"
I believe you. I really do. Life is full and the calendar is unforgiving and some weeks it feels like there's barely enough air to breathe, let alone show up for a live Zoom training.
But here's what I've learned after years of working with women just like you — and being one myself: busy is often a costume. Underneath it is something quieter and harder to say out loud. It's the belief that your creativity is last in line. That everyone else's needs — your family, your job, your inbox, your obligations — come before the hour you set aside for yourself.
Research backs this up. Studies consistently show that women are more likely than men to deprioritize their own development and personal growth, often citing lack of time as the primary reason — even when the time objectively exists. We're not bad at time management. We're just very, very good at deciding that our own growth can wait.
It can't. And somewhere inside you, you already know that.
When 100 women posted their very first repeating patterns in the Doodles Coaching Week Facebook group — women who showed up, followed the steps, and did the work — they weren't women who had more time than you. They were women who decided that this hour belonged to them.
That's it. That's the whole difference.
Reason #2: We Were Taught That Our Creativity Wasn't Worth Prioritizing
This one goes deeper. And it might be the most important reason on this list.
Most of the women in my community grew up being told — directly or indirectly — that art was a nice hobby but not a real pursuit. That creativity was fine as long as it didn't get in the way of the serious business of life. That wanting to make things was sweet, but perhaps a little impractical.
Those messages don't disappear just because we're adults now. They live in the back of our minds and show up in the quietest ways — like not opening an email about a training we already paid for. Like telling ourselves we'll get to it later. Like registering for something that genuinely excites us, and then... not going.
Psychologists call this internalized devaluation — the process by which repeated external messages become internal beliefs that shape our behavior long after the original source is gone. In other words: we were told our creativity didn't matter often enough that we started telling ourselves the same thing.
Here's what I need you to hear: that story isn't true. It was never true. And every time you show up for your creativity — every single time — you are quietly, powerfully rewriting it.
The 209 women who attended Doodles Coaching Week? They weren't braver than you. They were just a little further along in deciding that the old story was a lie.
Reason #3: We're Afraid of What Showing Up Might Reveal
This is the one nobody wants to talk about. So let's talk about it.
Sometimes we don't show up because we're afraid of what we'll find when we do. What if I go and I'm behind everyone else? What if I try and I struggle? What if I show up and the technology defeats me and I feel foolish and small?
Staying home keeps those questions safely unanswered. And safety, even uncomfortable safety, is easier than risk.
But here's what I've seen over and over again in this community: the women who were most afraid to show up are almost always the ones who are most transformed when they do. The fear isn't a signal to stay away. It's a signal that something important is waiting for you on the other side.
Research on creative self-sabotage confirms this pattern. Studies on fear of failure in creative women show that avoidance behaviors — skipping sessions, not completing work, staying in the planning phase indefinitely — are most common when the stakes feel personally meaningful. In other words, we avoid the things that matter most to us. Not because we don't care. Because we care so much it's terrifying.
If you paid for Doodles Coaching Week and didn't come... this might be why.
One More Chance to Show Up
I'm not sharing any of this to make you feel guilty. I promise. I'm sharing it because I sat in that same chair last week — metaphorically, and this week literally — and chose comfort over growth.
But I also know that patterns can be broken. And I want to give you a concrete next step.
Your Doodles design is sitting on your hard drive right now. Or maybe it's in your head, still waiting to be made. Either way — there's a moment that changes everything for pattern designers, and it happens the first time you hold real fabric printed with your design in your hands.
That's exactly what my new mini-course, Your First Fabric, is designed to give you.
It's a 5-part mini-course that walks you step by step through setting up your Spoonflower shop, saving your Illustrator repeating pattern the right way, uploading it to your shop, adding tags and descriptions so it gets discovered, and placing your first fabric order! When you receive it, you can’t even begin to imagine how you’ll feel. A sense of pride, accomplishment and empowerment awaits!
Investment: $197. And as a special BONUS — you get access to the Doodles Coaching Week replays. Lifetime access to the mini-course and the Doodles replays!
Register for the Your First Fabric Mini-Course HERE.
This is your chance to do the thing you didn't do last week. Show up. Close the gap between the woman who signs up and the woman who follows through.
Doing the work unlocks everything. One hundred patterns in the Facebook group proved that. The only variable — the only one — is whether you decide to show up for yourself.
I really hope you do.
Here's what I want you to sit with: the three reasons we don't show up — busyness, old wounds about our worth, and fear of what we might find — aren't character flaws. They're patterns. And patterns can be broken, one small decision at a time. Every woman who posted a pattern in that Facebook group broke hers. You can break yours too.
Imagine opening your front door in a couple of weeks to a package. Inside it: a small square of fabric covered in a design that came from your hand, your imagination, your doodle. Real. Tangible. Yours. That's what showing up makes possible.
What's one thing you've registered for, paid for, or committed to — and then quietly let yourself off the hook? I'd love for you to name it. Send me an email or just name it for yourself.
Xo,
Anne
It’s Never Too Late to Create®
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MEET ANNE
Hi…I’m Anne!
My creative inspiration comes from a lifetime of observation. I grew up in Paris on the Place St. Sulpice and walked to school through the Luxembourg gardens. And that was only the beginning… Learn more by watching the video on my About page.
