#268: Are You Playing it Safe or Evolving?

Are You Playing it Safe?

Or are you living your most expansive life? Are you evolving? Changing into the person you want to be?

Chances are, if you’re listening to this podcast, you want change. You want to evolve and expand.

But just in case you’re new to this podcast and aren’t sold on change, I want to ask you a question.

Are you happy with where you are right now?

I hope you are.

Even if you are though, do you want to change anything in your life?

Do you want to feel more organized, more present, more connected?

Do you want to grow your practice or grow your ability to play bigger in your life?

All of that requires evolution.

It requires NOT playing it safe.

It requires NOT living by default.

Change can feel hard though because playing it safe feels like the right thing to do because it feels…well, safe.

Change can feel like you’re looking down a cliff and someone is asking you to jump without a parachute.

This theme comes up in my coaching practice with every lawyer I work with. It comes up with myself too.

It’s natural for us to play it safe.

It feels inherently safe when we don’t expand. It feels like the easy thing to do.

We can confuse that feeling of easy with it being the right thing for us to do.

The reason is our brain freezes when we want to change. When we want something different than we have right now.

Not because there’s anything wrong with us or because we should be more grateful for what we have. You can be grateful for what you have and still have desires.

It’s because we haven’t learned the mindset skills to observe the fears and thoughts as separate from ourselves. As something that can we can overcome.

Most people feel fear and think they should stop. That they should wait. That there is a better time to take action. That their fears mean that they can’t do it.

I used to think that.

Then I heard something that changed everything for me, and I’m going to share it with you.

When we feel fear, it tells us the direction we need to move towards.

Those desires we have tell us where we need to evolve.

Moving towards fear is probably the most difficult thing for humans to do.

It goes against our primal brain’s programming.

When we feel fear, it revs up our nervous system and feels horrible.

That’s our primal brain’s warning system.

It’s saying, “Don’t go that way because that way is change. And change equals death.”

Which logically you probably know is totally untrue, but it feels true. The programming is powerful.

It’s so powerful that we’re used to letting how we feel determine what we’re capable of and what our life looks like.

We let that programming decide for us whether we’re going to play it safe or live into a more expansive life where we’re intentionally choosing our life.

Coaching is the only thing I’ve found that has helped me stop letting my body and brain tell me what to do.

It helps me see my thoughts and the feelings in my body as separate from me. Then I can observe them and decide what I want to do next. I can intentionally create thoughts and intentionally take action even if my primal brain and my nervous system are scared at first.

It helps me in every area of my life whether it’s feeling overwhelm and managing my time or growing my business.

I want to tell you a couple stories about overcoming the primal brain’s fear programming.

Last week I went on a trip with a good friend of mine. We went to visit his old barracks when he went to boot camp in the early 80s.

He joined the Army when he was 17 years old.

He was determined to go, and he asked for his dad’s permission to let him join.

My friend shared with me some of the challenges the Army threw at him and other new recruits when they went to boot camp.

It was treacherous.

He was scared all the time.

He was afraid of the bus ride up to the barracks in the middle of the night, he was afraid of the drill sergeants immediately because they start yelling at you from the get-go, he was afraid of the all night exercises in the middle of the nearby forest, and the middle of the night wake-up calls where he had to be ready for anything.

And of course he was scared. None of them really knew what they were getting themselves into. And the environment was designed to be scary. It was designed to activate their nervous systems, so they could practice and learn how to think clearly even in the middle of a fire-fight in the dark where they can’t see a thing. They literally shot live rounds over their heads in the middle of night exercises to simulate battle.

That’s what I call extreme coaching.

Fortunately, we don’t have to endure anything close to that when we want to change how we think and intentionally take action.

We’re in the safety of our offices and our homes.

But that doesn’t mean we don’t feel scared.

I’m always scared. But I don’t make that fear mean I can’t do something or I’m not capable.

I remember that the fear is there to show me my growth. It’s showing me what I can get coaching on, so I can get to the next level of the video game we’re all playing in this world. It’s showing me what I need to say out loud to you or to someone else. It’s showing me where I haven’t created a boundary.

I see fear show up a lot in the lawyers who come to Strategy Sessions with me.

The Biggest Fears I Hear in Strategy Sessions

Their biggest fears are that they can’t change. Or that they won’t do the work. Or that they aren’t ready.

They don’t always tell me these words.

Because the brain is tricky, sometimes these fears show up in different ways.

They tell me something like:

• I’m not sure if this is the right time or I don’t have time right now.
• Maybe I should wait and try working harder a while longer, and then I’ll work with you and really “hit the ground running.”
• I should read more self-help books and try harder on sticking to my calendar.

They tell me these things because that’s what they’re used to doing.

They’re playing it safe.

And that’s okay if that’s what you’re intentionally choosing to do.

But most of us say these things not knowing that we’re making a choice.

We think it’s the logical thing to say or do.

The truth is, there’s never going to be a right time.

And you will never have time. You will always have other obligations. You will always have other expenses. You will always have children who are in summer camp or school or winter vacation. You will always feel too busy to change, and your brain will say, “not now. Later.” It’s very seductive that way. It makes you think you’re really going to do it later, so it’s okay not to change now.

The truth is, if working harder hasn’t worked by now, it’s never going to work.

You will always be pushing yourself or will powering yourself into working harder, and you’ll feel more behind than ever because it still hasn’t worked. But that’s what you’re used to doing, so you’ll keep doing it.

The truth is, reading more books and will powering yourself may have worked in high school or law school to help you get an A, but that all changes when we get out of school.

Book learning gives you more information but doesn’t teach you how to practice what’s inside those self-help books. Will-powering yourself to follow or to make a calendar may work the first week or two, but it’s not a long-term solution.

As you’re listening to this, you probably recognize the truth of what I’m saying.

But you can only change if you’re willing to move towards the fear and recognize the was your primal brain will play tricks on you to keep playing it safe.

Here’s the other story I wanted to tell you.

My mom was watching my house while I was away on my trip, and she’s not used to being alone. She’s used to having me here to take care of things. She feels safe.

She told me that while I was away she heard a loud crash in the middle of the night. She said it sounded like it was in the backyard.

Mom told me she froze and didn’t want to get up. She was scared of what the noise might be. But she couldn’t fall asleep after that. She stayed in bed awhile then she built up the courage to grab a flashlight and see what was happening.

She peeked through the curtains and shined the light outside. Turns out it was nothing. Probably a firecracker someone set off days after the Fourth of July that a neighbor set off.

But once she saw it was nothing, she was able to get back to sleep.

I was so proud of her because that wasn’t her first reaction. Her first reaction was to freeze. To do nothing and hope things got better or that the thing causing the noise would go away.

But she knew what was in her better interest. She knew she needed to get up and check out the noise.

Each of us need to do the same thing.

Yes, our first instinct will be to freeze. To do nothing.

That’s okay.

That’s normal.

All we need to do is take that first step towards the change we’ve been wanting to make.

We aren’t trapped on a military base being yelled at and shot at by drill sergeants – thank God.

So we need to connect with ourselves and ask ourselves what we want. Are you hesitating on going after what you want or making the changes you know you need to make? Have you been putting them off?

Good. That shows you where there’s a bit of fear popping up.

Then we need to decide to take one step — just one — to take action in the direction of the fear.

That could be deciding to hire me.

That could be looking at the numbers in your business.

That could be raising your rates.

You just need to move a single step in the direction of the thing part of you tells you is the right thing to do for you, but you’ve been hesitating on.

It’s okay if you’re scared.

Don’t let that fear keep you playing small and settling for where you are when you know you have a desire to play bigger. To help more people. To feel more in control of your practice.

You can do this.

All it takes is the willingness to show up for yourself and take that one step.

If your one step is working with me, book a Strategy Session with me.

On our call we’ll lay the groundwork for what it will look like to work together to achieve your goals.

You can book a call with me at https://dinacataldo.com/strategysession

We only have one life on this planet. Decide to live it the way YOU choose and not on default.

Thank you for listening, and I’ll talk to you next week.

Bye.