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[SCEO] 33: The Mental Tug of War Game

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Growth and aiming big in life and business is something I discuss all the time on the podcast and it’s something I always encourage my clients to do. While that’s great and can be a lot of fun, the reality of the process includes some low moments and feelings of discomfort.

Pushing ourselves to the next level brings so much transformation to our lives, but the struggle to get past the fear can be stifling and some of us even turn back and run away. Today, I’m diving deep into the science of how we train our brains to do this and some new ways to think about discomfort that will keep you stretching to your dream life!

Join me as I discuss the effects of upleveling to our best lives and why feeling the low points on the journey is actually a good thing! Riding that rollercoaster can be really, really fun, so I hope you always play big!

What You'll Learn on this Episode

  • Why you experience discomfort when growing.
  • What happens when the feeling of fear and discomfort comes up.
  • The effect of freaking out about feeling uncomfortable.
  • Why it’s important to consciously look at our thinking and grow.
  • How we create stories around feeling fear and discomfort.
  • Why I see the low parts of our journey in stretching to the next level to be amazing.

Featured on the Show

  • Download my killer workbook to help you unleash your Alter Ego!
  • Don’t forget to grab your free training of my High-Vibe Formula (how I created a multiple six-figure business, attracted the man of my dreams, and created a life with complete time freedom…in less than 18 months)!
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE

Click to Read Episode Transcript

Hi girl, welcome to Soul CEO; a podcast for women who know they’re destined for more. I’m Lindsey Mango and I’m going to show you that you can have it all and teach you how to get it by becoming the CEO of your soul, life, and business. Let’s get started.

Hello, how are you guys? I am so excited to be here today. There you go, you get my like, kind of singing introduction. Actually, I’m super pumped though. This morning was one of our first chilly days in Louisville. We hit I think below 60 degrees and I guess for those of you who aren’t from here, it’s Louisville.

I was just in New York and when I told people that I was in Louisville, they definitely didn’t understand what I was saying. So I had to pronounce it better, even though I’ve turned into a really good Louisvillian and I say it like I have marbles in my mouth. Anyway, it’s one of the first chillier days and it got below I think 60 degrees, so first thing I did was wake up and go turn our fireplace on.

Yes, you heard me correctly. I turned it on. We don’t have a wood-burning fireplace but I was super excited about it and I’m hoping we get more than just a couple days of fall here in Louisville. I don’t know if any of you guys are from the Midwest, then you probably know what I’m talking about. Sometimes we get like, two days of fall and then it turns into winter, and I love the fall so hopefully we get more than just a few weeks or a few days of it.

So I am super excited to discuss today’s topic because I was coaching my mastermind ladies in Soul CEO and then I was coaching my Mango Magic ladies and then I was coaching my clients and I realized this trend that continues to show up for them and in my own life. And so I had this powerful realization that I wanted to make sure that I shared with you guys.

So I’ve talked about this a little bit before but sometimes what happens – actually, not sometimes. Like, all the time. When you play bigger in life, like, when you grow, when you get uncomfortable, when you start to work through those fears and start to look at your thinking, you’re like, pushing yourself upward. It’s like an explosion, you’re like, pushing yourself to that next level.

And the reality is that with that comes fear and discomfort, comes stretching. And I’m not saying it necessarily has to be hard or anything like that. Like, shifts and transformations can happen very quickly and it just depends on how quickly you do the work and move through them. But there is going to be some level of fear, some level of discomfort because the reason why you haven’t elevated to that next level is because that next level is uncomfortable in some capacity. Otherwise, you would already like, be that person and you would already be taking the actions that you needed to take to create that next level result.

So naturally, when you start to tackle fears at that new level, when you start to look at your thinking and start to look at things you’ve always believed to be true and you’re now challenging them, that comes with a little bit of discomfort, and sometimes a lot of discomfort and fear and all of these things.

And so what I found is that with a lot of my clients and myself, when they go to launch something for the first time or they go to take that next step, they go through this experience of I envision it’s like a rollercoaster ride. You have these moments of like, oh my gosh, it’s happening, this is amazing, this is the best thing ever, like, this is exactly what I wanted to do, and then you also have these lows of like, holy crap, this isn’t happening, people hate me, like, all the craziest stuff your mind will come up with.

But when it’s in fear, when your mind is filtering through a perspective of fear, it feels very real. And it feels – just all the things feel scary, all the things feel uncomfortable. And so when you’re launching something or when you’re going to that next level, you experience these highs and these lows. And yes, they are created by our mind but it’s a part of that process of growing to the next level.

Now, what happens is a lot of people when the fear comes up, when the discomfort comes up, feel like something’s gone wrong. They’re like, “Oh my gosh, now I really don’t believe this is going to happen, I’m freaking out, what does this mean? Does this mean I took the wrong step? Does this mean I’m doing the wrong thing?” Like, all of the things. They start to question themselves and they start to feel resistance.

And what happens is questioning that and freaking out about the fear compounds the effect of the fear and compounds the effect of all these negative thoughts and negative emotions that you experience in those low moments when you’re working through it. And here’s what happens is that actually trains our mind to react to that fear, to those low moments every time they happen with a negative response.

So what’s so crazy about our minds is that we are constantly training them. In fact, I heard a quote or a fact or who knows, don’t quote me on this, but I heard that if we don’t like, consciously look at our thinking and grow as human beings by the time we’re like, 35, we’re operating off of like 80%, 90% of subconscious thinking, which means that over the course of our life, we like, had an emotional reaction or had a thought and it created a feeling in our body and we learn it over and over and over again. So it’s kind of like Pavlov’s dog, right?

Like, you know, you put the bone out and they drool or whatever it is, ring the bell, I think. I never said I was a genius or anything like that. But it’s the same thing. Let’s just say any time someone – maybe when you were a kid, someone use to make fun of you for being short. So like, when your mind hears the word short, unless you’ve done work on it, your mind has created a pathway that every time it hears that, it feels a negative response.

Which is why a lot of times, when I say like, our thinking creates our feelings, you guys don’t always feel like you’re having a conscious thought and then you’re feeling something. It feels simultaneously, but that’s because you’ve trained your brain. Your brain has learned because your brain’s job isn’t to help you grow and be amazing. Its job is to be efficient. And so it can be efficient by learning things over and over and over again and training itself to react a certain way so it doesn’t have to think anymore when something happens.

I’m getting real deep on this podcast, into the science of all this. So anyway, what I’m saying is that like, part of this work is when you go to uplevel, when you go to change, when you go to grow, you’re like, reconfiguring these pathways that you’ve already created for however long you’ve lived your life and you’re retraining your mind, which is why you might consciously know something to be true about yourself, about money, about the world, about your business, but sometimes you still might have like a subconscious negative reaction to something and be like, “Wait, I thought I worked through that already?”

It’s not that you haven’t. It’s just that your subconscious mind is still taking charge. And so you have to recreate and retrain your mind and tell your subconscious reaction as something different is creating the result or the feeling that you want to create. Now, I promise this all has a point.

And the point of why I’m talking about all of this is that we also train our brains how to react to different emotions in our body. So I thought of this perfect example for me when I was a kid, and – or even when I was a teenager, right? So my parents love me and care about me dearly, and just like anyone else, when you care about somebody, when you see them upset, a lot of times you have a reaction to it. Especially based off of your own framework, your own mind of what it means if somebody’s upset.

And my whole life, if I teared up, if I cried, even in like, high school, it created this massive reaction. It was like, panic mode, something’s gone wrong, we need to fix it, all these things. And they didn’t do anything wrong, they just cared, they loved me. But what it did for my whole life is trained me that like, when I cry about something and feel sad or feel upset, the reaction is bad. Something’s gone wrong, something is bad.

So what it trained my mind to believe is that crying is bad. And people shouldn’t see you cry. If they see you cry, they’re going to freak out and think it’s a big deal, which created the result of if I get upset, even now, I have to be conscious of it. If I get upset, like, I’ll find myself wanting to like, go to the bathroom and be by myself because my brain has been trained to believe that this is a bad thing.

Instead of somebody could have a completely different story or different mental framework around crying that like, it’s totally okay and someone could just bawl their eyes out in front of you and it’s not a big deal and you don’t have to react and make this big thing. And they might feel safe and create the story that it’s okay to cry. In fact, it’s amazing to cry.

I say all this to say that we also create a story, we train our brain to have a reaction to when fear comes up or to when those low moments in our life come up, when we’re riding that rollercoaster, when we’re going to that next level in our life in business, that if every time when the fear and the discomfort and the oh my gosh, it’s not happening, all of that comes up, we react to it and we’re like, “Oh my gosh, something’s gone wrong, this is bad, this is all of these things,” you’re training your brain that the low moments, the high and the low of the rollercoaster ride is bad.

So whenever it happens, you are not only experiencing the fear, you’re compounding the effect of the fear by worrying about it, by having anxiety about the fact that it’s even there. And then it creates this space where it makes it even harder to uplevel because now you have to work through this programming that like, those low moments are bad and something’s gone wrong.

And I will tell you guys that at every level, that’s a part of the process. In fact, you might not be pushing yourself out of your comfort zone enough if you’re not experiencing those low moments, those – again, it doesn’t have to be hard, but like, those moments of discomfort, of stretching, of like, oh my gosh, what’s happening, I’m in fear. It doesn’t mean that like, you have to stay in that place but like, that mental – I like to call it like a mental tug of war game is happening because you’re going to the next level.

And so what I started training my brain to do and trust me, I’m not perfect at this, is to see that this is amazing. That when I’m going through a launch or when I’m going to that next level and I’m on that low part of the rollercoaster ride, that this means something amazing, which is that I’m getting to the next level. I’m stretching myself to become the person and grow the strength and grow the mindset of the person I need to be at the next level.

So instead of reacting to the fear, instead of reacting to the low moment, like, I still feel it, I still experience it, but I don’t compound it by making it mean something horrible and bad, that something’s gone wrong. You basically train your brain to see that when you have those low moments, it’s bad.

And what I’ve realized is this is just a part of the game. Your brain would love if you guys sat on the couch and watched Netflix all day. It’d be super comfortable, right? Like, it’s why sometimes after a weekend of just laying around it feels hard to get moving and get in motion and doing things because your brain wants to be efficient, which it’s really comfy and cozy being safe, sitting on the couch.

Just like it’s really comfy and cozy to stay in your current reality, which is why you don’t experience those lows and that fear, that low part of the rollercoaster. But it also means you’re not growing, it also means that you’re not getting to the next level.

So what I want to help you guys see and work on is training your mind that when you are pushing yourself upward, when you do invest money and you feel so afraid and you’re freaking out or you have pressure or you’re launching something and you feel like it’s not going exactly as planned or a client cancels and you’re experiencing fear, to see that really you just have an opportunity to push to the next level.

And that this wouldn’t be happening at all but it’s an amazing thing, right? It’s a part of the journey, it’s because you’re pushing yourself upward and that you can receive it and learn from it and grow through it and instead of reacting and being like, oh no, this isn’t supposed to happen, this means something bad, you can receive it and be open to the fact that this is a part of the journey. This is what helps you grow. This is what helps you get to the next level and this is happening because you are going bigger.

And I think sometimes that can be so powerful to see and manage the fear in those moments and manage those low moments. Because if you can see that it’s happening for you, that it’s a part of your journey, you’re going to create space for it and you’re going to be okay with it, and you’re going to grow through it instead of stopping and turning around and running away.

Just like for me, my idea of crying and it being a bad thing is to curl up into a ball and be in the bathroom so nobody sees me crying, instead of just saying like, it’s okay. We can create space for this. This is happening because I’m going big in my life, which is amazing. And that can make it feel 100 times different.

So I want you guys to know that if you’re in a low moment or if you’re experiencing that high low high low, that you are just going bigger. That yes, you can manage your thinking around it and that’s a part of the growth and that’s a part of the process, but nothing’s gone wrong. And train your brain to see that. Train your brain to see that the reason why you’re experiencing this fear and this pressure and all this stuff is because you’re playing big.

And the reason why you guys are here listening to this podcast is because you want to play bigger in your life, in your business, in your relationships, all of it. I feel so excited to hear y’alls feedback on this episode. But I just wanted to share with you guys with that because it’s something that all of my clients experience, I experience. Everyone who’s growing experiences it.

Yeah, it would be comfy and safe to just work at your job and totally zone out and just be okay with everything and the way that it is, but you wouldn’t be growing. And so I want you guys to create space and be okay with the fact that you might have those low moments, but it doesn’t have to mean anything about your journey or anything about you.

So I love you guys, I would love your feedback on this episode. You can still – I’m not doing a giveaway but you can still rate and review it and leave your comments. Or I absolutely love it when you guys tag me in your Instagram stories. I try to share all of them and I try to respond to all of you. So share this episode with someone that you know needs to hear it, share it on your story.

I’m so grateful you guys are here and I hope you have the most beautiful week. And play big. Ride the rollercoaster. It can be really, really fun. So I love you guys and I will talk to you soon. Bye.

Thank you so much for joining me for today’s episode of Soul CEO. If you want to go even deeper into how to create a vision of the life you really want, how to become the woman in that vision and how to deal with the roadblocks we all face along the way, head over to lindseymangocoaching.com/high-vibe-formula to get your free training of my High-Vibe Formula.

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