SDH 425: If You've Been Holding Yourself Back, Listen to This with Amanda Boleyn

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Hey hey, friend, how are you doing? I hope all is well. I’m recording this while in Charleston and I have to say it has been a dream to be able to be here where the sun is almost always shining and the weather is beautiful. I do not take that for granted.

A quick fun story…my husband and I have always wanted to do a workcation and since his office isn’t going back until at least the new year we started brainstorming places back in August knowing that we’d go somewhere in November and I suggested that we go to Charleston for the month. I have been here previously and loved it and wanted him to experience Charleston. At the beginning of September, we started looking at AirBnB’s in Charleston. Up until that point I was all about a workcation because it sounded like a good and fun idea. Yet when it came down to finding the place and entering in our credit card information, that is when the drama started to take place in my head. I was all in up until that point. My brain started freaking out and thinking,

“Well, maybe it’d be easier to just stay in Chicago. It is going to take us 2 days each way to drive to and from. We’re going to spend how much money for a place for a month?”

But we did it. We pulled out our credit card, made the payment and that was it, no turning back. Even though spending a month somewhere to do a workcation was something I had always wanted to do and dreamt longingly about, it was still uncomfortable for my brain when it came to fully committing.

In today’s episode, I’m going to unpack how your brain may be holding you back from taking action and achieving your goals and dreams.

Maybe you want to start a business but can’t seem to get yourself to take that first step.

Maybe you’ve started your business but working on going full-time.

Maybe you’ve made your ultimate leap and you’re full-time.

No matter where you’re at in building your business there will be times when there’s something you want to achieve but can't quite get yourself into action and you’re holding yourself back. This isn’t a YOU thing, this is a mindset shift thing.

First, you have a primitive brain and it likes to keep you safe. Because it likes to keep you safe, it likes to repeat the past because that is what it knows best. If you’ve ever tried to change a habit, good or bad, you probably find it challenging. The reason is that your brain loves safety and comfort. That’s why it is important to create a culture in your life and business that is centered around getting comfortable with discomfort. Once you know this, it will be easier to navigate your thoughts and actions to move through the discomfort because you will realize that it is your brain and not you. The brain is wired for survival so anything that your brain senses as ‘danger’, or in this case ‘new’, it freaks out.

Do you get the sense that you’ve been holding yourself back, meaning you’re not getting the results you want in your life?

You are probably filled with so many ideas or inspiration but can’t seem to figure out how to take that next step. Most people think that they need to know what tactical next step to take and while this is partly true, I want to offer up a tool I use when I find myself stuck or get the sense or feeling like I am holding myself back.

So many dreams and goals are not realized because we hold ourselves back.

The reason why we hold ourselves back is usually stemmed from fear and that fear could be driven by multiple things such as fear of what others will think of us, fear of failure, fear of loss, fear of the unknown, fear of making a mistake, etc. In the example of doing a staycation in Charleston and spending the money to come here, there was fear around “What if I don’t like it as much as I think I will? We could save that money for our next property.”

When you realize that you’re holding yourself back, I want you to ask yourself, “Why am I holding myself back? What am I afraid of?”

Here I want you to name what you’re afraid of. Resist the urge to say “I don’t know why I’m holding myself back.” I’ve shared in previous episodes that when your brain hears “I don’t know why…” it won’t come up with an answer. So instead, ask yourself, “But if I did know, why am I holding myself back?” Next is to unpack your fear and get as specific as possible about what is causing your fear. Naming, whether it is your fear or emotions, is extremely important in bringing the awareness you need in order to unpack what is happening in your brain so you can think different thoughts and take intentional action to produce the result you want.

The next tool is understanding and working through what Brooke Castillo, host of The Life Coach School podcast calls “The Model.” It is very similar to what you’ll learn by reading Napoleon Hill, “Think and Grow Rich.” I first read “Think and Grow Rich” 10 years ago after college graduation. The entire concept is that our thoughts create an emotion, that leads to an action (or inaction) and produces a result. So in order for us to get the results that we want we must first understand what we’re thinking.

For example, if you have a business idea but think “Who will actually purchase my services?,” you’ll then trigger an emotion, possibly defeat, which then leads you to take zero action, and therefore your result is the same as it is now, with no forward movement.

Instead, consider the same circumstance…that you have a business idea but you decide to think, “I’m not sure who will purchase my services but I’m excited to find out and explore,” which leaves you feeling inspired and the result is that you take the first step in having a conversation with your ideal client, or maybe you enroll in a coaching program.

Maybe you’re thinking of applying to a job that could be your bridge job, the job that helps you find leverage with your time, but you read the job description and role requirements and think, “Oh, I’m not that qualified. I only meet 75% of the requirements.” What emotion does that provoke in you, what’s your action, what’s the result?

I want you to think about something in your life, a specific scenario, it could be about business, it could be about health, wealth, whatever it is. Grab a sheet of paper (you could do this digitally) and write out C, T, F, A, R:

Circumstance
Thought
Feeling
Action
Result.

Define the circumstance - what is the situation. The circumstance is a fact. What I see happen often with new business owners in the first 0-24 months of their business is a sense of extreme overwhelm. You’re still finding your flow, what works with your marketing, getting clearer on who your ideal customer is, launches, and more. Your list of things to do is not what is making you overwhelmed, it is the way you’re thinking about it that makes you overwhelmed.

In this case, your circumstance is “I need to create launch content.” Your thought might be “How am I supposed to get this all done with everything else going on?” You’re feeling overwhelmed and therefore your action may be from a place of being rushed. Or maybe you’re paralyzed and therefore the result is you either half-ass it or you don’t take any action at all and you put yourself in a closed thought loop.

Instead, you still have the same circumstance of creating launch content but you can decide to think a different thought. Instead of having the thought of “How am I supposed to get this all done with everything else going on?” (which is a question that suggests that you’re supposed to get it all done)…in business, you’ll learn that you can’t do everything. Start with your result. You want the result to be that you completed your launch content, your action needs to be that you work on the launch content. So what thought can you think that will help get you into action? Maybe it is thinking, “I can do hard things. I have lots of other things to do but I’m going to focus on launch content right now.”

This is the real work. Yes, it is important to have strategy and action steps but if you don’t understand how your brain works, you can have the best-laid plan without any sort of follow-through.

If you enjoyed today’s podcast episode, I’d love for you to screenshot and tag us on Instagram at She Did It Her Way. Until next time, keep doing it your way.

Insights:

“If you’ve ever tried to change a habit, good or bad, you probably find it challenging. The reason is that your brain loves safety and comfort.”
“So many dreams and goals are not realized because we hold ourselves back.“
“Naming, whether it is your fear or emotions is extremely important in bringing the awareness you need in order to unpack what is happening in your brain so you can think different thoughts so that you take intentional action to produce the result you want.”
“Our thoughts create an emotion, that leads to an action (or inaction) and produces a result.”
“I can do hard things.”