The Monday You Stop Negotiating With Yourself

Stop waiting to feel ready. You never will.

You already know what you need to do.

You’ve known for months. Maybe years. You wake up thinking about it. You fall asleep avoiding it. It shows up in the shower, during your commute, in that dead space between tasks when your brain can’t run fast enough to escape it.

And every single day, you negotiate.

Maybe tomorrow. Maybe when I have more money. Maybe when the timing’s better. Maybe when I feel stronger. Maybe when I’m finally ready.

Here’s the truth nobody wants to hear: You’ll never feel ready. Ready is a myth we tell ourselves to justify staying exactly where we are.

I know because I lived in that negotiation for years.

The Negotiations That Almost Killed Me

September 17, 2019. That’s the last day I drank alcohol. Not because I woke up feeling strong or ready or empowered. I woke up hungover, ashamed, and exhausted from negotiating with myself about whether tonight would be “just one drink” or another blackout.

For four years before that, I negotiated daily.

I’ll quit after this stressful project. I’ll quit after the holidays. I’ll quit when work slows down. I’ll quit when I’m in a better place mentally.

The negotiations were elegant. Sophisticated. They made perfect sense in my head. I had ADHD, CPTSD, a high pressure job managing hundreds of millions in client assets. Of course I needed a way to shut my brain off. Of course now wasn’t the right time.

But here’s what I learned: The negotiations weren’t protecting me. They were killing me slowly while I convinced myself I was being strategic.

The Day The Conversation Ended

I didn’t quit drinking because I found willpower. I quit because I got tired of my own bullshit.

I’d spent a year in therapy understanding why I drank. I understood my patterns, my triggers, my childhood wounds. None of that stopped me from pouring the first drink. Understanding doesn’t equal action. Insight doesn’t equal change.

Then I read one book—This Naked Mind by Annie Grace—and everything shifted. Not because it gave me motivation. Because it ended the negotiation. It exposed the fundamental lie I’d been telling myself: that alcohol was giving me something I needed.

It wasn’t. It was just making me need relief from the thing that was creating the problem in the first place.

Once I saw that clearly, there was nothing left to negotiate. The conversation was over.

When You Stop Negotiating, Everything Changes

April 2023. I got fired from Fidelity Investments. Not for performance—I was a top producer. For speaking up about workplace abuse. For refusing to stay silent when my manager was deliberately gaslighting me about processes that didn’t exist.

I could’ve negotiated. Stayed quiet. Played the game. Waited for a “better time” to address it.

Instead, the conversation ended. I filed the HR complaint. I said what needed to be said. And yeah, it destroyed my career. But it also freed me from negotiating with myself about whether my integrity mattered more than my paycheck.

Turns out, it did.

What You’re Really Negotiating

Let me tell you what’s actually happening when you’re stuck in that internal debate:

You’re not waiting for the right time. You’re waiting for guaranteed success. You’re waiting for zero risk. You’re waiting for a version of the decision that doesn’t require you to be uncomfortable, scared, or uncertain.

That version doesn’t exist.

Every major move in my life—quitting alcohol, leaving toxic jobs, exposing my therapist who extorted $126K from me, starting Kill The Silence—happened before I felt ready. Before I had all the answers. Before the path was clear.

The move didn’t happen because I became the person who was ready for it. The move happened, and then I became that person.

The Monday That Changes Everything

So what’s the thing you’ve been negotiating?

The business you haven’t started. The relationship you haven’t left. The boundary you haven’t set. The truth you haven’t spoken. The addiction you haven’t quit. The therapy you haven’t started. The apology you haven’t given. The job you haven’t quit.

Whatever it is, you already know.

And here’s what stops today: the negotiation.

Not because you’re suddenly strong enough. Not because circumstances aligned. Not because you figured out how to do it perfectly.

Because you’re done having the same conversation with yourself. You’re done waking up disappointed in your own hesitation. You’re done treating your life like something that happens to you instead of because of you.

This Is Your Monday

You don’t need permission. You don’t need a sign. You don’t need to feel ready.

You just need to be done negotiating.

Six years without alcohol. Regional VP of Sales. Running a publication that’s reached thousands. (Which I’m very proud of) None of it happened because I felt prepared. It happened because I stopped asking myself if I was ready and started asking what I’d regret not doing.

The negotiations kept me safe. But they also kept me stuck. They kept me small. They kept me from becoming the person I knew I could be if I just got out of my own way.

So here’s your Monday: Stop debating. Stop waiting. Stop negotiating with the person in the mirror about whether this is the right time, the right way, the right version of you.

You already know what needs to happen.

The only question left is: Are you done talking about it?

Because once you are—once that internal conversation finally ends—everything becomes possible.

Not easy. Not comfortable. Not guaranteed.

But possible.

And possible is all you need.

—Cody Taymore

Kill The Silence

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