I rewrote the story instead of giving up.
There's a version of this story where The Creative Reset never happened. Where I took the hint, accepted that the idea hadn't worked, and moved on. It would’ve been easy, and it would’ve been entirely reasonable. And at one point, it's exactly what I thought was going to happen.
This is the other version.
One person booked
Last summer, I had an idea to build on my creative writing workshops. I wanted to do something that would give people the chance to nurture their creativity and practice writing for their wellbeing. So I tried to launch a creative writing for wellbeing day retreat. I set the date, sorted the venue, and started putting it out there. But after six weeks of promotion, only one person had booked.
I’d given it time. I’d shared it and shouted it from the rooftops, but nothing was moving the tickets. A few weeks out from the date, I had to make a difficult call. It wasn't viable to continue. So I made the decision to cancel the event and refund that one person.
I felt disappointed. I felt defeated. I felt like I’d failed with something that I’d wanted to work so badly. I thought the idea hadn't worked and that was it. I was ready, at that point, to tell myself that creative writing workshops weren’t the path I was supposed to continue on.
When I contacted the venue to ask about their cancellation policy, I was bracing myself for whatever the answer was going to cost me. But they did something I hadn't expected, and offered me the chance to move the date instead.
I hadn't asked for that. They just offered it.
Why just a month?
My first instinct was to push it back by a month, give myself a few more weeks to try and up those numbers. But it was a risk. What if in four weeks I just ended up in the same place, feeling the same way? Would it be worth it, or should I just cancel and call it quits?
But then I had a conversation with a friend who put a simple question to me: “Why don’t you postpone more than a month?”
I hadn’t thought about it. I’d just assumed that postponing meant it would happen soonish. But the question made sense: why move one month, if I could move more?
So I moved it by six. From September to April. And that decision changed everything, because it gave me something a four-week window never would have: proper time to sit with what had happened. Time to feel the disappointment rather than run from it, and then, once I'd done that, time to actually figure out what had gone wrong.
I started by talking to people who had shown interest in the original event but hadn't booked. I asked honest questions about the messaging, the pricing, and the timing - and what came back was useful. The idea itself wasn't the problem; it was the way I'd been presenting it.
The reframe
The original event had been marketed as a creative writing for wellbeing day. Accurate. Well-intentioned. But looking at it with fresh eyes, I could see that it described what the day was rather than what it could do for someone. It was a label, not an invitation. It also narrowed the day into a very specific box that was off-putting to some people who didn’t consider themselves as writers.
So I gave it a new identity - Same bones, but a different story - and I called it The Creative Reset. I repositioned it as a day that was about discovering your creativity and nurturing it. Not just a day about writing, but a day about feeling connected and inspired.
As soon as I started putting it out there with this new identity, the bookings started to come.
A room full of people
Nine people came to the first Creative Reset in April. Most of them I’d never met before. They’d found it through a post I’d shared, or through someone who had passed it on, and they had decided it was worth a day of their time.
I know nine doesn’t sound like a lot, so let me contextualise that by saying there were only ever 15 tickets. To go from one to nine? I am incredibly proud of myself.
Making it to that event and standing in a room full of people, most of whom had been strangers to each other just hours before, just proved to me that the perseverance had been worthwhile.
I’d turned things around completely from being ready to throw the whole idea away to watching it come to life in front of me.
The lessons learned
The road to April taught me a few things, and the day itself taught me more. But when I look at all of it together, the biggest lesson isn't really about event planning or rebranding or persistence. It's about something I already believed in, and then forgot to apply to myself.
Slowing down.
The world we live in demands we move fast. My instinct in September was to do exactly that - push it back a month, regroup, try again. But that pace would have given me no room to actually understand what had gone wrong and make the changes I needed.
The six months gave me time to listen, to question, to go back to basics and reconnect with what the idea was really trying to do.
In my workshops, I encourage people to write by hand because it slows them down. We step away from screens, away from the pressure to produce, and we go back to something more fundamental.
When we slow down, we reconnect with our curiosity. It's that curiosity that sparks creativity, and creativity that allows us to think differently, to innovate, to find ideas we wouldn't have found if we'd just kept pushing forward at the same pace.
It's the same principle I bring to my content writing work. I encourage clients to play the long game - to think of their content not as a tool for making a quick sale, but as a way of priming their audience to think of them when they're ready to buy. Nurturing takes patience. But it's the only approach that builds something that lasts.
Giving ourselves permission to create
We need to give ourselves time and permission to breathe and enjoy the creative process. Without that, we just keep moving without purpose.
The event didn't just succeed in April because I was stubborn enough to try again. It succeeded because I was willing to slow down, change something fundamental, and trust that the idea was worth the patience it asked of me.
I could have kept the original story: I tried to launch a retreat, one person booked, I cancelled it, the end. Instead, I rewrote it. Not to pretend the failure didn't happen, but to make it part of something bigger.
As heroes embark on their journey, they always experience failure. Writers know this. It’s part of narrative development. Every first draft contains the seeds of something better. The work is in edit, and deciding what comes next.
The Creative Reset is coming back for a second event in October. If you'd like to be in the room, you can secure your place with a £30 deposit until Sunday, 3rd May. Find out more here.
