160. Stuck Rewriting the Same Email? Here's Why - And What To Do

Have you ever burned 25 minutes rewriting a “simple” email (rescheduling a session, for example) because you couldn’t get the tone right? If you’ve been stuck in the loop of typing, deleting, retyping, and overanalyzing every word, this episode will help you understand why it happens (and why it’s not a character flaw).

In this episode, I’m sharing the hidden cognitive load behind “sounding right” and the two biggest barriers that are keeping you stuck in analysis-paralysis. You’ll walk away with a simple structure you can default to, plus a few rules that make it easier to write clearly, kindly, and hit send.

What You’ll Learn

• Why email/text “tone” can feel like a million invisible decisions happening at once
• How executive function load makes writing harder—especially when you’re already overwhelmed
• The mindset traps that fuel the spiral (people-pleasing, over-apologizing, trying to manage someone else’s reaction)
• A simple 3-line structure to use when you’re stuck: what’s happening, what’s changing, what happens next
• How to set a “clear + kind” goal (instead of chasing perfect) and stop rereading endlessly

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Learn more about Theresa Harp Coaching here.

Transcript

Hello, podcast listeners. Welcome to episode 160. If you have ever stared at a blank screen, whether it's a computer, email draft, or your phone for a text message, and you have struggled to figure out what to say, you know the message overall, but you cannot figure out how to say it, right? And you get stuck in overthinking and overanalyzing and you start typing and then you stop and then you delete and then you restart and you find yourself stuck in a major time suck. This episode is for you. Today, I'm going to unpack both the hidden cognitive load and also the mindset pieces of this struggle behind sounding right and what you can do about it. Now, if you have been here for a while, if you are a pretty regular listener, there are a number of episodes before this one where I have kind of been walking you through a series on when my day went awry, when the whole schedule kind of just went up in smoke, and how I handled it, like what came up, and what that experience was like, and gave you some actionable tips and strategies that you can use. This episode was inspired by that experience. It was, you know, in that process of me rescheduling. my day. I noticed I was getting really stuck on wording and that happens to me often and it's so frustrating and so annoying. And so that's sort of what inspired this episode because I was stuck and I know that this is something that you all struggle with. I know it because my coaching clients tell me. However, you don't need to have listened to any of those episodes in order for you to get value out of this one. So just keep that in mind. But if you do struggle with what to do and how to handle it when your schedule gets hijacked, then go back and listen to those episodes. I think it's 156 through 159, something along those lines. But for today, let's talk about this concept first, about the concept being wording, how to word a message and why it matters. When you are trying to write a message, an email, a text, it's usually one of those two things, right? An email or a text. Maybe it could come up with like a post if you are a private practice owner and you're doing social media. Maybe it is happening when you're in creating a presentation and trying to figure out like what you want to say when you're presenting and what information you want to cover in your slide deck, right? Regardless of like the scenario or the context in which this is happening, it happens. And there's a ton of tiny little invisible decisions that your brain is trying to make simultaneously, especially in the case for me where I was already overloaded and overwhelmed because I had a plan and things weren't going according to that plan, which. That is enough to send you into an executive functioning spiral, right? But even if you're regulated, even if you are not in an emotionally dysregulated place, it can still feel like there's a million open tabs about the wording of your email while you are trying to write it, right? So let me give you some examples. The Clarity tab. Am I saying this clearly? Did I word it clearly? Is the person I'm sending this to going to understand what I'm trying to say, right? Then there's the tab of how are they going to, how might they misinterpret this, right? Like what if they read it differently than I mean it? Which it's funny because my mind right now as I'm recording this goes to all those times when I have said, to somebody or someone has said to me, listen, like, let me just read this email to you and tell me what you think. Like, let me just tell you what she said. And then you read it out loud. And to me, that is such a useless place to be. Like, that just is a waste of time and energy because tone does not travel through text, right? And so you're reading it in a way. You're reading it in a tone, how you're interpreting it. But we don't know the tone of that email. And then we add, like, meaning to it, right? Like, we interpret it. We make it mean something when we're on the receiving end. And I think because we do that as recipients of messages, then that creeps into our experience of how we word a message, right? I think I've come a long way with when I read emails. I just don't, I really don't assume or, like, try to read into the implied. Because to me, that's just through, that's me and my lens getting in the way, like my story, my perspectives. It's not, and I don't find that reliable in this case, right? But I haven't done as, I haven't had as much progress in the wording aspect. Like when I am the sender of the message, that for me is still a struggle. Okay. Little detour there, but I think it's worth noting. There are other tabs that are open in your brain as you're trying to write the message, right? There's the authenticity tab, right? Like, can I just show up as me? Like, I just want to say it how I would say it in person. For me, there's this humor tab. I have a very like dry sense of humor. I'm very sarcastic. I'm very, I like to sort of just like make light of things and sort of poke fun at things. And that doesn't translate in text. And so that is a difficulty for me because If I try to write something funny or sarcastic in an email, I know that that's not necessarily going to be conveyed. And then I worry that people are going to misinterpret what I'm saying. And then it also impacts my ability to write a message authentically. Because I would authentically, if I was saying it in person, I would put that humor in there. I would make that dry, sarcastic comment, right? I would be like, I would put that in there. But if I'm worried that that's not going to translate in a message, it inhibits my authenticity, right? There's also the over explaining, like how much detail do I need to give? How much do I need to tell them? And then boundaries, like if you're trying to set or hold a boundary, how do I do that without sounding mean? How do I do that without sounding harsh? How do I do that without sounding Sounding like I don't care. Right. So all of those sort of tabs are open in your mind as you are trying to write a message. And this could be for a simple reschedule message. Right. This doesn't even need to be for like a big serious situation. This comes up even in the nitty gritty everyday type things. And it is. Costly. Right. It keeps you stuck. You are rewriting repeatedly. You're delaying sending because you want to get the wording right. And it costs you time. And it becomes this big cognitive load that sucks the energy out of you and your day and then can bleed into the other part. of your day that, quite frankly, are more important. All right. Now, we've established sort of what this challenge is and why it matters. But I want to look at this with you in two, through two different lenses, if you will, or through two different, yeah, we'll say lenses, okay? First is the executive functioning lens. And the women who I coach, they know that we are always looking at the role that ADHD and executive dysfunction plays in your experiences, right? In your work experience, in your life, your personal life experience. It's showing up whether you realize it or not. So I'm always analyzing things through that lens. And I think that this is something that many of us have overlooked, okay? Because when it comes to executive functioning... ... And when it comes to writing, let me say this a different way. When it comes to writing, the executive functioning load is heavy. There are a lot of executive functioning skills that are at play here. The metacognition, for example, self-awareness. Okay, what is the one job of this message, right? If I had to write this message in one sentence, what would it say? Like, what is the main point here? And being able to recognize sort of like as an out-of-body experience when you are spiraling or when you are getting stuck, okay? So if you don't have the metacognitive skills to do that, in that moment, it's going to be really tricky for you to notice what's happening and to come out of it productively, effectively. There's also prioritization, okay? Like, what do I need to say? What details are important? And necessary and which details aren't. Right. So prioritizing what information needs to be shared. Organizing that information. How do I say it? How can I write this in a clear, organized way? Okay. Then there's simply the initiation of the task. Right. You might stare at that blank screen for a while and be struggling to start. Right. So the task initiation can can be a challenge. Also, the completion, the task completion can be a challenge and inhibiting impulsivity. If this is a really frustrating or challenging experience, maybe you have different urges during the process that are not going to be helpful. You might want to get up and walk away. You might want to pick up your phone and start scrolling. You might want to go to chat GPT. You might want to to Plug it in or AI, right, and plug in your message or ask them how they would say it. You might want to refer back to old drafts or old emails that you have sent and then you're trying to find, you know, messages in there and you're getting lost. So these are sort of the urges or the impulses that might pop up. And if you're already in an uncomfortable or challenging situation, it is really hard, it's even harder for you to control those urges, to manage the impulsivity and stay on task. Okay, those are just a handful of the executive functioning skills that are at play here. There are certainly many more. That is not the purpose, though, of this episode per se. I really just want you to understand that part of the reason why this is challenging is because of the executive functioning skills that are at play. Okay, now the other lens that we need to look at this through. is the lens of your mindset, your thoughts, your thinking. And this covers what I mentioned earlier in this episode. These are the things like, what are they going to think? Are they going to be reading this and thinking I'm really rude? Are they going to be thinking I'm unprofessional? Are they going to be thinking I don't care? Are they going to think that I don't value their time? You know, we're very much in the stuck in the what will they say? What will they think place? We also go towards people pleasing or over accommodating. Well, I don't want them to I don't want to inconvenience them and I don't want to lose. You know, I don't want to like upset them or negatively affect their day or their experience. So I'll just offer all the things I can do to help or I'll just like give them more information. And hopefully this will this will be even more helpful. And then they'll know that I really care. Then they know that I truly value them and my work and what I'm doing, right? So we go into people-pleasing mode. We also go into this place where we're over-apologizing. We're like becoming this, I just need to let them know that I'm so sorry that this happened. I don't want them to think that I don't care or I don't recognize how this affects them. So we start over-apologizing. Oh, I'm so sorry, but I can't do that day and time. Now, if you, this one is a little bit tricky because I'm not saying that you don't need to take ownership or acknowledge and take responsibility for situations, but in general, I believe and I have noticed and observed, this is true for me and this is true for many of the SLPs and moms who I coach, we tend to operate from a place overall, we tend to operate from a place of taking too much ownership and accountability for things that we do. And then we overlook places where we can and should take ownership and responsibility, mostly for things like that are about ourself and within ourself. That's a topic for another day. But, you know, in my case, when I was writing these emails and trying to reschedule some of my coaching clients and our sessions that day, I wanted to let them know that I was apologizing for the inconvenience for the last minute change. But I was not apologizing for my boundaries. I wasn't apologizing that my child was sick. I wasn't apologizing. And, you know, for that, I was just apologizing for any, you know, hiccup, disruption or inconvenience in their day. And I know that most of the women I coach struggle with boundaries and to hold boundaries because of pretty much all of those mindset factors that I just mentioned. I don't. I don't. Overall, I don't. But I like to make sure that I'm modeling how to set and hold boundaries in a healthy and effective way. And so I was, I noticed that I was starting to overthink my wording so that I could model how I was setting and holding this boundary of when I would and wouldn't reschedule, right? But I didn't want them to, didn't want my coaching clients to think that I don't care. Now, what's funny about all of this is if I don't know, funny, maybe it's not the right word, but nine times out of 10 people, I don't think people read and scrutinize our messaging and take it personally or give it any more, like they're not giving it more thought than we are giving it ourselves. And I think I remember hearing on a podcast somewhere that like, who knows if this is true or where they got this from, but something about like the average person. If reads an email for like 12 seconds or something like that, or reads like a certain percentage of the email before they move on, I forget what the numbers were. didn't matter. What stuck with me was, hey, you're wasting time and energy on wording something that many people aren't going to read all of it and or they're not going to think twice about. And that has helped me to sort of get out of my own head, my own , so that I can say what I need to say. Now I'm singing that song. Say what you need to say. Okay, don't sing, Theresa. Don't sing. Don't do it. Stay focused. So I was able to sort of get out of my own there. And that has been really helpful for me with sending messages. I have discovered now I tend to get more stuck in the executive functioning piece of this, the executive functioning lens of this experience, more so than the mindset. That piece. However, nothing is, you know, we're not robots. Nothing is a science. Well, there is science. That is not true. I take that back. This is proof, by the way, that I make these episodes not AI and I don't edit them. I mean, this is just, you get what you get, guys. Sorry. But what I meant to say was that this, we are not robots. And so just because I don't, you know, I tend to struggle more with the executive functioning components of this than the mindset doesn't mean that mindset doesn't creep up, doesn't play a part. And there are certainly times when the thinking, the thoughts get in the way for sure. But what I would encourage you to do, if this is at all relatable for you, is to look at what is the, like a simple framework, a simple outline of what it It is that you want to say and how you want to approach it, okay? Now, I love doing this with my coaching clients to come up with a way that they want to word things. What we do in coaching is we identify, okay, what are your core values and your core needs? What are they for your private practice or your business? What are they in your life? And seeing messages like this as an opportunity for you to communicate those values, to communicate those needs and not apologize for it, right? And this is an opportunity for you to step into the life that you want to create, right? Do you want to run a private practice where you are over-apologizing anytime you're sick and then you're spiraling and feeling guilty that you're not seeing your clients? Or do you want to run a private practice where when you are sick, you can take care of yourself? practice practice care of You can send an email and let them know that and you don't have to apologize for it and you can reschedule them or not. Whatever works well for you, but you have decided that in a clear, intentional way by looking at what are your core needs and values, what matters to you and not making it mean that anything has gone wrong when you honor those values and needs. And when you set and hold those boundaries. So here's what I'm going to leave you with for today. I'm going to give you something very tactical and then I'm going to give you some reflection questions. OK, so for my like tactical, practical people who want the core steps, I will give you a few steps that you can take. Please know my disclaimer, take what works for you, leave what doesn't, make these your own. There's a million ways you could go about this. And this is. It's not a one-size-fits-all approach, but here's one approach that you could take. Number one, decide what the core message is. In this case for me, the core message was I need to reschedule our sessions, and the point of the message was to give them at least one option of when we could reschedule for, okay? So I've got what the core concrete message is, right? Then step number two is to use some sort of default structure. For me, this is what I have found to be helpful. Again, do what works for you. But a three-sentence structure, like what's happening, what's the situation, right? The second line being what's changed, and then the third line, what happens next, okay? Now, obviously, this is specific to my sin. So of rescheduling, you have to figure out what, you know, what works for you based on what the scenario is, okay? But that framework can work for a lot of, in a lot of contexts. What's happening, what's changing, and what happens next, okay? And the third step, right, so you've chosen the core message, you use your default structure, and then once you have it written, third step and final step of this, you only get to reread it once. You can reread it for clarity, and you can make a change that you want, and then that's it. Hit send, okay? That's one, like, core practical, tactical way that you can approach this. And I also said I would offer you some reflection questions, because chances are, if you struggle with this, it is a pattern. It is probably not like a once in a while, thing. It's probably happening pretty frequently or maybe in certain contexts more than others, like certain scenarios more than others. For my SLP listeners, I know most of us, this is going to come up for like for scheduling, yes, for taking on clients and like who you are willing and able to take on and when, right, scheduling them. And also this can happen with rates, setting your rates and holding your rates. This can, or when you're changing your rates. And this will also happen often for SLPs when you are struggling to meet deadlines, like you've done an evaluation and you're trying to get the reports and information in by a certain deadline. Okay. Or when you're trying to write a report and how you want to word something. Okay. So reflection questions to support you with this would be, where do you notice the spiral most? Often. Is it around an executive functioning piece? Is it around a mindset piece? Is it in certain scenarios that involve scheduling? Does it happen a lot more often for you with scheduling? Does this feel more challenging for you when it's related to money or finances? Does this get more challenging for you when it's like a client issue, like a client or student or family, whatever you call them, isn't, you something's not going well in whatever way, okay? That's the first question is like, look for those patterns, okay? Second reflection question. This is a coaching question for you, okay? Take this with you. If you get nothing else out of this episode, I would love for it to be this question. Ask yourself this. Am I trying to write a message? or am i trying to manage someone else's reaction am i trying to write a message or am i trying to manage someone else's reaction whoo i oh yeah okay i'm not going to go down there we're just leave it at that okay we'll leave that question at that and then the third reflection question that i'll offer before we wrap up what would change for you if you shifted your goal from perfect which doesn't exist to clear and kind what if you didn't overthink the wording you didn't put the pressure on yourself for it to be perfect you only set a goal for it to be clear and kind okay so i've given you some tactical strategies i've given you some What I hope that you are, in summary, walking away with today is feeling seen if you are struggling with how to word things. I see you. I hear you. I am you. Okay. And hopefully this kind of helps you have a better understanding for why. And when we have a better understanding of why, right, executive functioning and mindset, now we can take better action steps to help this go more smoothly. Okay. You don't need perfect. You don't need to worry about what other people are thinking. That's not your business or your responsibility. You just need to get it written and move on. All right. Hope this was helpful. I've got some great episodes coming up. One coming up about shame and. How that eats away at us. Oh gosh, I have so many fun things I cannot wait to talk about. Keep an eye out for those episodes. And as always, if rescheduling, setting and holding boundaries, and clearly communicating is taking up way more brain space, way more energy than you need, and then you have to give, book a consult. If you want a simple values-led system that you can actually stick to, I am always here to walk you through it. The link is in the show notes. All right, that's it for today. Talk to you guys soon. Bye.