Transcription
You're not lazy. You're not bad at business. You're just scared.
That was me back in 2016. I thought I needed better strategies or better discipline, but that wasn't the issue. This book, it helped me work so much out that was going on up here. And I really credit it for getting me to 100K in my business.
So, if you're here right now, stuck, spiraling, doubting, thinking things like, "Who am I to do this? I can't do this. I'm not ready yet. It's too late to start. I have to wait till it's perfect to begin." Then pause for a second. Please know that this is your mountain. You are the mountain. This is your job to climb. And I say that lovingly. You are the obstacle because everything you want, the life of your dreams, freedom, peace, money, the people that you are looking for desperately, they are on the other side of this mountain and it is your job to make it over there. It is your job to climb the mountain. Nobody else can climb this mountain for you. So the first lesson is you are the mountain.
So Briana says, "Your mountain is the block between you and the life you want to live. Facing it is the only path to your freedom and becoming." And I think truly it's why I was stuck for so long was because I did not want to climb the mountain. I was like, "That mountain is intimidating. It's scary. I'm not a hiker. I hate hiking." So that's what the point of this book is. That's what the point of this video is. I want to help you climb the mountain in slow, safe, gentle, kind ways so that you can actually make it across and get to everything you want to get to.
So, if you deeply believe things like a 50k a year salary is the most you'll ever be capable of earning or you could never build a business, that was me. Like, for the first 20 years of my life, I was like, I could never build a business by myself. That's so crazy. And I could never be an entrepreneur. It's so risky. Or I hate running. I'm not a runner. Or I'm awkward on camera. I thought that for a really long time, not even giving myself the chance to get good on the camera. It's too late to start on YouTube. Oh, I believe that for years. I kept telling myself, "Oh, you should have started when you were 15, when you were 16." That was like really YouTube's heyday and it's too late to start now. It's too late. And I told myself that every single year.
And the problem with that is the more you think these things, you start to identify with those beliefs and you begin to accept it as fact. You don't question it anymore. So, I'd love for you to take a second and think about what beliefs you have that you accept as fact. The reality is a lot of your identity can be fluid. It can be what you want it to be. I thought I could never have a green couch. That's true. I thought that was so crazy and so eccentric and I'm such a rule follower. I could never buy a green couch. Then I bought a green couch. You can just do that. We have free will. And I know it's confronting to look at some of these beliefs and be like, is it true? So I'm not saying you have to dismantle all these beliefs right now. I'm just saying the next time something comes up that tells you you can't do it, ask, is that really true?
So essentially, this book is a book about self-sabotage, why we do it, and how to stop. And if you're saying I don't self-sabotage, shut your mouth because don't you though? When I first saw this book and it said transforming self-sabotage into self-mastery, I was like, I don't self-sabotage. This book's not relevant for me.
So, here are some signs of self-sabotage. See if you can find yourself in them because I can definitely find myself in all of these. Always being too busy. Perfectionism, huge issue for me. I'm not ready yet. This is not perfect yet. I need to work on it a bit more. Your inner critic is really loud. Your inner critic is that little voice inside your head that's like that's not good enough. Why are you doing that? That's so stupid. Why'd you do that? Unrealistic expectations. So telling yourself if you don't make 100k this year with your brand new business, it's ruined. You should just give up early. Judging others harshly. This one is a really interesting one because often times I think when you really want something deeply and you see somebody else doing exactly what you want, but you're not allowing yourself to have the thing you want. You end up projecting your own desires onto that person being like, "If I can't have it, why should they be allowed to have it?" Oh my gosh. Like, why did she film it this way? I would have done it so much better. Another one, endless justification. Have you ever hung out with someone where you're like, "Why aren't they already doing that thing? Like they obviously want it so bad, but they just have so many reasons for why they can't do it." Another sign of self-sabotage is always playing the blame game. So, it's always somebody else's fault why you can't do the thing that you desperately want. And of course, I know there are actual things externally that sometimes prevent us from having what we want. So, there is a line there. I totally understand and I recognize that privilege is a thing. I recognize my own privilege as well. But I will say gently that there is more often more in our control than we think there is.
Another one, deep resistance to what you want, which I have experienced a lot. Like when somebody brought up the topic of YouTube or business, I was always like, "Oh, like there was like a recoil from my body being like I could never. Oh my gosh, that's so wild that I couldn't. No, I couldn't do that. That would be like deep, deep resistance." Like my body was pushing against this thing. And actually in another book, The War of Art, um the author actually says, "If you feel that deep resistance to something, that often doesn't mean you deeply don't want it." Because if you deeply don't want something, you will have no reaction to it. You'll just be like, "Ah, that's not really for me." But if you have this like deep recoil, resistance, it might be a sign that there's something there to examine that could potentially be interesting for you.
So self-sabotage is essentially a coping mechanism. It's how we numb ourselves to what we really want and give ourselves a little bit of a temporary relief from recognizing the underlying thing. Another sign of self-sabotage, shiny object syndrome. So, you know, the people who jump from new thing to new thing, all of it without finishing any of those things to completion. So, if you're doing any of these things, don't worry. I did as well. All of these things I have done. And it's just so funny that at some point in time, I thought I don't self-sabotage. And girl, you do.
Okay. So, let's talk about why we actually do this. If we truly want something, why isn't our brain just supporting us and being like, you go, you got this.
So, the second lesson from this book is that self-sabotage is actually a form of self-protection. So, Briana says, "We refuse to consciously meet our innermost needs often because we do not believe we are capable of handling them." When I read that in the book, I was like, interesting, interesting because that is true. For a long time, I was like, you can't start YouTube because if you start YouTube and you fail, I'm not capable of handling that. If I succeed and lots of people are watching me, I also can't handle that. I can't handle either scenarios. Both scenarios are scary.
So, self-sabotage isn't really you trying to destroy yourself or your brain trying to destroy you secretly for some whatever reason. It's actually a survival mechanism to keep you safe so your survival needs are met. And of course in modern day society when I talk about survival I'm not talking about like hunter gatherer a lion is chasing me I might not make it till dinner survival. I'm talking really about the survival of our ego. Right? That's what we're always trying to protect. So for example if you are afraid of being seen which I am as well then your brain is going to do everything it can to prevent you from sitting down and filming a YouTube video filming a Tik Tok video filming an Instagram reel and posting that because it it wants to protect you. A lot of people have a lot of opinions and they might type them in the comments and that threatens your need for acceptance from other people and belonging in the tribe.
So this is essentially how our mountain forms just like how mountains are formed by like two pieces of earth pushing. Our internal mountain is kind of formed by two coexisting needs. So the top need is the conscious need. That's the thing that you think you want, right? So that might be things like I want to move to my dream city. I want to travel the world. I want to start a business. I want to build a YouTube channel. That's the conscious need. But underneath that are the unconscious needs. So that's needs that we're not fully aware of most of the time. So these needs might be need for validation, need for belonging, need for safety, need for control. When you try to do anything out of your comfort zone, you have to give up some control, some certainty in exchange for potentially what might happen. So until you figure out the core need behind your self-sabotaging behavior, the pattern will just keep repeating over and over.
So let's talk about the difference between core commitments and core needs. And this was one of the biggest things I took from this book. I read this book years and years and years ago. It is the one thing I have never forgotten. So core commitments are what you think you need. Core needs are what you actually need and aren't letting yourself have. And the interesting thing is your core need is normally the opposite of the core commitment. So you're trying to get a lot more of the commitment over and over and over and that doesn't fulfill the core commitment. The only thing that will most of the time is the opposite of it.
A core commitment could be things like you thinking you need control which I mean for me was a huge issue and I mean still is sometimes. And often what you think solves that core commitment is more of that core commitment. So then you start to control even harder, right? You start planning everything. You organize everything perfectly. You think through the worst case scenario a million times like holding on even tighter. And what Briana says is actually the only way to fulfill your core commitment is by giving yourself the core need. The core need if you desperately want control is to trust in yourself and others. And that blew my mind. I I can't even tell you how much because trying to get more control over the situation doesn't really fulfill that need for control. It doesn't solve the problem. What does solve the problem for me now is trusting in my ability to figure it out. Trusting in my ability to handle what happens. Trusting in others abilities to help me if I need help. Self-trust, I will just say this is my little caveat. I think is the number one thing most people who struggle and get stuck in business like I did should work on trusting yourself not just in the decisions you make but trusting yourself that if you make a decision that is less than optimal it will still be fine you will figure out a way.
Another example of a core commitment thinking that you need everyone to like you which is I mean I have all these problems actually you think that the way to address people all liking you is to people please right you keep making yourself smaller. You keep abandoning yourself. You keep putting other people's desires and wishes above your own thinking that that's going to solve the need for everyone to like you. When in reality, the core need of that that you should actually be giving yourself is self-worth to feel worthy without performing to build your relationship with yourself so that that confidence comes from within so that you stop abandoning yourself.
Another example, your need for everything to be perfect. Right? I need to be perfect for things to be worthwhile. Anybody that struggles with perfectionism, which hi, it's me. I'm the problem. It's me. Um, knows that spending four million of hours on something doesn't actually make you feel like it's actually perfect. It makes you actually feel like insane, first of all, and second of all, it makes you feel like there is no end in sight. There is never perfection. You will just keep working on it forever. The core need of that is to be accepted as you are, which is imperfect.
Another need, core commitment, needing constant validation. It's not the case that if you get a hundred comments telling you that you're amazing, you're going to feel feel a hundred times better. Like that's not it's just an illusion because if you build up all of your self-worth on what other people have to say about you, then there's that fear that they can take it away because the power is with them. So the core need that Brianna says here is self-acceptance. That is the only true source of validation that can fulfill you. I know that's very hard and it's not something that I just tell you and you're like, "Okay, perfect, Da. Thanks so much." It's something you need to work on. And I know a lot of people don't want to work on it. They want the short-term band-aid solution.
Imagine for a second you trust yourself 100%. You accept yourself 100% as you are. There's nothing you have to change about yourself. You are exactly the way you are and it is perfect. You know everything is going to work out in your favor. What would you do today? And if that is not what you were planning on doing today, then there's probably some self-sabotaging at play. Imagine we all operated like that. The world would be a magical place.
So, a lot of this self-sabotage I think comes from the inability to be uncomfortable. And I am just saying this as queen of discomfort avoidance. So, please do not feel called out because I'm sure whatever you're doing, I'm doing it twice as bad.
So, the third lesson is to really work on not burying uncomfortable emotions. So when you don't allow yourself to feel emotions like these weird emotions in terms of like anger or grief or shame, you bury it all in a cute little puddle and then that thing becomes a trigger because you haven't addressed it. You haven't processed it. It's just a thing. And most of us have little landmines. We've buried a lot of things and there are landmines everywhere now. And the second someone touches something that's a little bit sensitive for us because we haven't processed it, it becomes a trigger for us to react in ways to sabotage ourselves in ways to create all of this other kind of weird behavior that we're like, I don't know why I did that.
Emotional intelligence means being aware of your emotions, allowing them to come through. Not just intellectualizing, my therapist has to tell me that all the time, but actually allowing yourself to feel the emotions. When you sad, when you sad, when you sad, you cry. When you angry, you stand up for yourself. So, it's really important to listen to those triggers and what they're trying to tell you.
So, here are some examples. I love this slide. So, if you're feeling regret often, so for example, for me, every year I told myself, you should have started YouTube last year. I was feeling so much regret. So, what regret was trying to tell me was do it now. Yes, maybe you should have started years ago. It doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. You can't go back in time. Do it now.
Another one, if you feel yourself getting angry triggered, anger is a very healthy emotion. According to my therapist, she says, "It gives us the energy we need to take a stand and to take action for ourselves." Oftentimes, anger is the peak state we reach before we make a huge change in our life. And I have experienced this many times where I was stuck in my head for a really long time about a bunch of things, blah blah blah, looping, looping, looping, looping. And eventually, I got so fed up with myself and I was like, I don't even care about any of that anymore. I'm going to do the thing. And then my brain was like, "Yeah, but what about and I was like, shut up. I'm done with that line of thinking. I'm going to go do this thing now. And that is the power of anger. When you use that energy for good.
Another trigger, jealousy. When you notice yourself getting jealous, it is a great moment to pause and be like, what about this person's life or business or attitude or mindset am I feeling like uncomfy with? Because every time I have been deeply jealous in my life, it has been because that person had something I really wanted. Really wanted. And sometimes I didn't even consciously like realize like that's why I was jealous.
Sadness is a good indicator that there's something valuable there. Something meaningful was lost. And it shows you often times what you deeply value as well. So if you're often sad about the same things, what is it about that thing that you deeply value?
Guilt is a good trigger to show yourself where you fell short of your own expectations and a reminder of how you want to do better next time. Also a really good one.
Embarrassment I feel like often comes from there being a disalignment between who you are and what you show to the world. And I think this is my theory. I don't know if this is true. I feel like sometimes when other people are like, "Oh, that's so cringe." It is because that person is showing up exactly as they are. Maybe totally honestly, maybe it is a little embarrassing, but they don't care. And that triggers me because I'm like, I can't show up like that. That would be insane. And then I feel like then often people project and they're like, that's so cringe. So have a look at those triggers. Examine them. Journal on them. See what's going on. Tell us in the comments if you feel brave enough to share. But no pressure.
So when it comes to business, when it comes to starting a dream that you desperately want to have, this is how I would love to challenge you to develop your emotional intelligence because it is a skill and it takes time to build it. So the more you practice, the less you will find yourself holding yourself back when it comes to the things you desperately want when it comes to conquering your mountain.
So the first thing is to acknowledge and name your emotions. This is something I've had to work on in therapy a lot is when those emotions come when you feel the energy of emotion in your body, pause and just be like, "What do I feel right now?" So let yourself feel your feelings without judgment. Often times, for me at least, when emotions come up, I immediately jump to judging, analyzing, intellectualizing. That is not nice because then you're not allowing the feelings to come through. So ask yourself, what am I feeling? Write it down. Try your best not to judge, not to analyze, not to intellectualize, not to explain what's going on or why you feel that way or how to get rid of the feeling, how to avoid the feeling. Just look at it with acceptance and be like, "This is the situation. This is how I feel."
Step two is when you notice yourself exhibiting self-sabotaging behaviors, whether that is procrastination or telling yourself you can't do something, take a second, pause, write it down, and just ask yourself, what could this be trying to protect me from? What could me, my brain telling me I can't do this be trying to protect me from? What is it that it is actually afraid of? And then the next thing is to challenge those thoughts. Is it actually true? Right? So if you get into that looping thought of like, and I mean I have this all the time, what if this happens? What if this happens? What if this happens? What if it burns down my business? What if it bankrupts everything? What if blah blah blah blah? Pause and be like, how likely is all of that? And also, what would happen if that happened? What would be your game plan? If this thing didn't work out, you would just move on to the next thing and it would be fine. It would not be the end of the world.
The next lesson is so fire. This is another thing I've never forgotten from this book, even after years, and that is humans love being comfortable more than we love being happy. And it's this quote from Briana. Human beings are guided by comfort. They stay close to what feels familiar and reject what doesn't. Even if it is objectively better for them. Even if something is objectively better for you. You know what that means? Objectively better for you, you might still resist it because it's uncomfortable. And there's this other quote that I love from the book, self-sabotage is the product of familiarity. Anything that is foreign, even if good, will be uncomfortable at first. And often the insidious thing that can happen is we say we want something, we want change, we want to start a business, but unconsciously we fear change so much and the uncertainty so much that we sabotage our efforts to prevent the change from happening. And that is really tricky and it's really unfair to yourself. You know, it's kind of like when you know that cold pitching is the best way to land clients and then you make up all these things about why you can't cold pitch today, why you should work more on your portfolio, why you should work more on your website, actually, why you should work more on doing free work for people, why you should try to get more testimonials. All of that is self-sabotage because your brain is so terrified of you pitching and getting out there, maybe getting rejected, which everybody does, or maybe even landing the client.
Comfort is tricky because it can keep you in a job you hate. Working with clients who drain you, but you know them well, so they're comfortable. So maybe it's scary to let them go in a relationship that you know is not good for you. And toxic friendships, friends who undermine you, but you've been friends for so long, so it's kind of comfortable avoiding new experiences. The longer we indulge in things that are not right for us in the name of being comfortable, the larger your mountain gets. That your mountain is going to keep growing and keep growing and keep growing because the truth is you want what you want.
So discomfort, let's talk about discomfort. Everything in nature we know is imperfect, right? Change and growth is possible only because things are imperfect. Volcanoes need eruption, stars need collapse. Humans also need to be faced often with no other choice before we make a change. So discomfort is a signal that you've stopped growing and maybe it's time to develop yourself, to learn something new, to learn a new mental skill, to develop your emotional intelligence. So, it's our job to stop and listen to those signals. Something from therapy, fun fact, is I told my therapist at some point like, "Yeah, but isn't it just easier to avoid discomfort that nothing will be uncomfortable?" And she said, "Da, isn't it better to become so comfortable with discomfort that nothing is uncomfortable anymore?" And I was like, I hate this. I'm not saying you need to go bungee jumping. I'm saying we're going to slowly take action and increase our comfort zone. And discomfort is also often a catalyst to help us get fed up with the life that was never meant for us and to give us the energy to make a change.
So the next lesson is there's no big cinematic breakthrough moment coming. Briana says, "If you're stuck in life, it's probably because you're waiting for the big bang, the breakthrough moment in which all your fears dissolve and you're overcome with clarity. The work that needs to happen happens effortlessly. That moment will never come." That is really heartbreaking to hear. But there's also something magical in that. That means you don't have to wait for some moment anymore. You can begin now. And know that if you don't make changes, life will probably eventually force you to change. What's comfortable now will become less and less comfortable until it's unbearable to stay where you are. And that's just sometimes what we need. I feel like so most people don't actually take action until they hit rock bottom. When changing becomes the least comfortable option, when you reach that point of like I never want to feel like this again and you fully crash out, sometimes that is when you actually do end up changing your life and that is a good day.
So Briana says, love this quote. People who are meant for you are going to meet you on the other side of your mountain. You're going to build a new comfort zone around the things that actually move you forward. Instead of being liked, you're going to be loved. Instead of being understood, you're going to be seen. All you're going to lose is what was built for a person you no longer are. And that is so magical.
So I have two options for you to make change. Both work. I have used both extensively. Both work. The first option is to get fed up. Like I was saying, anger is a really powerful energy source to take action and to override a lot of fearful thoughts for me at least. Second option is kind of the opposite, which also works for me sometimes. So pick whichever one feels right for you. And that is to be my most compassionate, most accepting self to my inner child. Hold your own hand. Do it. I'm watching you. Do it. Do it right now. I know it's dorky. It doesn't matter. Do it. And give yourself the kindness and grace and compassion that you give to other people.
When your friends come to you and say, "I'm thinking about starting a YouTube channel." What do you say to them? No way. You say, "Oh, you couldn't do that. You're too old to do that, or it's not the right time, or you should wait, or you're going to be really bad at it." You would never in a million years say that to a good friend.
Now, if you're saying things like, "But Dea, this is my reality. I literally don't have the skills to make $50 an hour. I'm not good on camera. I couldn't do it. I am too old. I am too young." Listen to me. Your limiting belief is not the objective truth. And I know if you've repeated it to yourself over and over and over a million times, you think it's the truth. You're like, "No, but D, I literally can't." It is a belief. It is not objective truth that you can't do something. For example, for me, I had a belief to start a YouTube channel. I had to be born with the skill of being good on camera. I'm just not good on camera. I'm so awkward on camera. But the reality of the situation is it takes time to get good on camera. It takes time. It's a skill you practice. I'm just saying that that is so mean to not even let yourself practice getting good at a skill. Just being like, "I can't do it." Just because you weren't born with something doesn't mean you can't give yourself the time to get good at something. You can build $50 an hour skills. You can get good on camera. You can learn how to build a business. You can Google. You can figure it out. We have AI now. Use those things to your advantage. The most amazing, wonderful, cool thing I feel like about humans is that we are capable of almost anything, anything in this life. So, prove it to yourself that you can.
Confidence comes from making promises to yourself and then keeping them and showing yourself that you have your own back. I don't want anybody thinking that changing your life looks like this, expecting you're going to finish a huge task in one go, telling yourself, "I'm going to build my entire website, brand, portfolio this week, because that is again setting unrealistic goals, unrealistic expectations to accomplish something that should realistically be broken down into small tiny steps instead. Or starting with your ideal perfect start instead of slowly building momentum and giving yourself the patience and grace to build that momentum over time or assuming you're going to feel motivated every day. That is not what changing your life looks like. Changing your life looks like respecting your current commitments, whatever that is. If you have a 9 to5, if you have kids, respecting those commitments while still making time for your goals, right? Holding your own hand, filling your days with new habits, goals, and people so that it slowly becomes your new normal. Not drastically changing your life because that shocks your nervous system and that's too much at once and then your body rebels. It's like, "No, no, no. I can't. We're giving it all up." That's not what I want. I want you to take small steps. Slowly adjusting to a new life by breaking up big goals into tiny actions. I love tiny actions. I have used tiny actions to do literally everything big in my life. Starting a business, I my tiny action was 15 minutes a day. I'm going to work on my business.
So, my question to you is, what's the first tiny action you're going to take? Are you going to spend 15 minutes working on your dream business? Just dreaming about it. Letting yourself take a break and rest. Maybe that's what you need right now. Writing a rough draft for a cold pitch to a business owner. Adding one healthy thing to a meal. Wearing that thing that you've always wanted to wear. Doesn't matter. Pick the first tiny action. That feels good, that feels right to get to where you want to go.
I'm also a huge Brianna Whis fan girl. If anyone knows her, I would love to know her. All right. If you like this book, you're also going to like me breaking down this other book. This is another book I have gifted a lot of times. It is insanely good for helping you dismantle a lot of this like hustle culture mindset which I think is so useful in making sustainable progress with whatever you're trying to do. So click that if you want. No pressure.