Hey girl! I’m really really pumped about this week’s episode because this one is coming STRAIGHT from my heart to meet you where you are in life RIGHT NOW. The idea for this episode came from a recent conversation that I had with a good friend of mine, who is not only a creative, but is also experiencing a growth period within her business. And honestly, it’s something that I’ve been hearing over and over again from those of you that are either just starting out in your business, or just generally pushing out of your comfort zone and GROWING in your life. We’re all having to come face to face with this feeling of imposter syndrome, and navigating through the challenges and the setbacks that come along with experiencing growth.
Life is FULL of challenges and setbacks
Whether you are running your own business or not – everyday we are experiencing new things, we’re navigating through new chapters in our lives and constantly learning more about ourselves and figuring out ways to grow. And often times, these periods of growth don’t feel fun when we’re in them, am I right? It’s very infrequent when we look at something new and scary and feel excitement about taking it on. We might feel excited for a moment, but how often does that excitement turn into fear or anxiety once we realize that it’s going to push us outside of our comfort zone? Usually pretty often.
Growth takes a lot of freaking grit and resiliency. And in today’s episode, I want us to be able to take a moment to check in with ourselves because during these times of growth and uncertainty, it’s so crucial that we have not only identified ways to stay the course, but to also help keep our bodies and our minds in check and reduce our overall feeling of stress. So girl if you feel this, grab your latte or your tall glass of wine and let’s dig into this together!
Remember that life is happening FOR YOU
So maybe you can relate to this, but there are sometimes when we feel like life is happening TO US. You know those moments when we’ve maybe said yes to too many things, or we’ve not done a great job of setting our own personal boundaries – and we start to feel overwhelmed, frustrated and like life is spiraling out of control. In these moments, we have to make a choice, we can either choose to acknowledge these feelings, figure out ways to find some sort of balance in our life, and power through with our goals – or we can sit back, not take action over our responsibilities, and blame our external circumstances for what’s happening in our life.
Do either of these scenarios sound familiar to you? They do to me – because girl, if we’re really honest with ourselves, I think we can admit that we have ALL been here at one point or another – and we’ve all made BOTH choices at some point in our life. And let’s be real – 2020 has been filled with some MAJOR setbacks for all of us. So how we can better turn these setbacks and challenges into things that will actually help grow and serve us??
Our mindset MATTERS
So first thing’s first, I think it’s important to acknowledge that our mindset really DOES MATTER. And I’m not going to sit here and say that just by having a positive mindset that life will magically get better or that all of our problems will miraculously disappear – because let’s be real life just doesn’t work like that. BUT it is true, that how we perceive stress in our life, actually affects our physical body – like, our mindset and our perception of our life ACTUALLY AFFECTS the ways that our bodies react to stress. And you’ve felt this before! Anytime before we do something SCARY or NEW, our body starts to react to these feelings! You might feel a little weak or nauseous, your heart might start to race and your breathing might become more shallow – these are all happening because our body is reacting to our stress!
For a lot of us, when we start to feel this anxiety around challenges or fear of the unknown, we immediately dive into thoughts of how things are going to turn out negatively. I mean, I’m a really optimistic person and even I find myself filling my thoughts with negative outcomes when I start to feel stressed or anxious about something. It’s our bodies natural reaction to fear – and that’s something we have to learn to accept! But it doesn’t mean we have to stay with that negative mindset.
What perspective are you choosing?
So think about this scenario – you’re about to give a presentation to an auditorium full of people and you feel your heart race and your blood start pumping faster and you kinda feel like you might pee your pants. Imagine that instead of telling yourself how nervous you are / or worrying about messing up / imagine that instead, you thought about how you might be the person to change someone’s life – how you could be the reason that someone in that audience decides to follow their passions and change their life for the better. Think of the difference that would make for your attitude and your perspective of the situation.
Our thoughts are so incredibly powerful in dictating how we move forward in life. Our thoughts drive our actions and our actions drive our habits and behaviors – so the things that you tell yourself are honestly really really important. So why don’t we decide today that moving forward, we’re going to choose to flip the script in our head that tells us that life is happening TO US and instead start to believe that everything in life is happening FOR US.
Often times when we start to face a challenge or a setback, or we are coming face to face with this fear of the unknown, we begin fill our head with these stories that are usually not true – and when we tell ourselves these stories, our minds literally starts LOOKING for confirmation of it in our life.
Our brain looks for evidence of the thoughts we tell ourselves
So let’s say you’ve recently taken on a project or a client that is going to push you outside of your comfort zone. And you knew when you took on this client or the project that it was going to feel scary, but you felt excited for the challenge and so you took it on anyway. In these situations, we might feel that excitement in the beginning, but it usually eventually leads to these feeling of doubt and imposter syndrome – this belief that we tell ourselves that we aren’t going to be good enough or that we’re not going to be able to live up to these “expectations” that we’ve set in our head.
Instead of telling ourselves these stories that will eventually hinder us, why don’t we start telling ourselves a story that we have been gifted this opportunity BECAUSE we have the skills necessary in order to overcome it? Why don’t we choose to tell ourselves that this client chose us because they WHOLEHEARTEDLY believe that we are more than capable of making them happy? Let’s start reminding ourselves on a regular basis that we are more than worth it and we are more than capable of achieving great success.
So girl, if you find yourself in a time of growth and you feel like you’re stepping out of your comfort zone, facing new challenges and setbacks, and you’re doubting yourself and wondering if you should just go back to playing small – hear me out:
Let’s imagine for a moment that if life isn’t happening to you
Imagine that each challenge and setback that you are facing right now, is happening FOR YOUR BENEFIT. That even though these setbacks and challenges might feel scary in this moment, let’s start telling ourselves and believing that these things are actually working FOR US. If we have the creativity and the imagination to dream up possible scenarios and outcomes, why not spend it creating outcomes that will actually WORK OUT AND BENEFIT US in the end?! Let’s start imagining more of the best case scenarios.
And remember, that girl that you admire – the one that you see crushing their goals and seeming to move through life with ease and grace – remember that SHE experiences these setbacks too! Because honestly, no one experiences growth and success without ALSO experiencing a ton of failure. There’s often so many obstacles and stumbling going on behind the scenes that you just can’t see – but it doesn’t mean that it’s not there. That girl ALSO experienced all of the growing pains, fear and feelings of imposter syndrome when she decided to take a leap and start taking on things outside of her comfort zone.
Remember that the girl that’s out there crushing her goals ALSO had to start from scratch
She likely not only felt the butterflies, but she probably also felt sick to her stomach or like she might poop her pants before doing something scary. Right?! It’s just that she probably didn’t tell you that when it was happening. Because truthfully, even the happiest, most successful people that we see out there, they still face fear and failure on a regular basis – no matter what success they’ve achieved in their business, they are still continuing to face these challenges and setbacks EVERY SINGLE DAY. But the difference is, instead of viewing their setbacks as something negative, they are choosing to look at them as opportunities for them to GROW.
And hear me out, I know that when we’re in these moments – when life feels like it’s too much – or we feel overwhelmed – or we just want to quit and throw in the towel, it doesn’t feel fun. In reality, growth is often not super fun when we’re in the middle of it, but I hope that you can find some comfort in knowing that we’ve ALL been there, and we’re all experiencing it alongside you today.
Remember that this moment will be fleeting
I also wanted to share one last tip that helps me navigate through the challenges in life and helps me keep a more positive perspective – and that’s being able to take a step back from my current situation and look at my life from a more wholistic perspective. When I start to feel anxious or overwhelmed, I remind myself that one day, I’ll be looking back at this point in life, and it will be nothing more than a distant memory. This thing that, while it might feel big or scary or challenging in the moment, is one day just going to be a blip in my timeline. This helps me not only stay grounded and more present, but helps me savor and APPRECIATE the moment so much more.
One day when I’m old and grey, I’m going to look back at this moment in my life and I’m going to be SO DANG PROUD of myself for pushing through. I’ll be able to see how this challenge brought me more freedom, because it led me to new opportunities that unlocked things in life that I never even dreamed were possible.
Scary and challenging moments lead to breakthrough opportunities
So the next time you start to feel anxious or feel like things are feeling overwhelming, just remember that this moment is going to lead you to some really incredible things – even if it feels a little scary now, you’re going to come out on the other side feeling even more capable, knowledgeable, and confident in yourself and your ability. Our time is precious on this earth and it’s so important for us to remember that these moments that feel like a challenge, are actually a gift that we’ve just not yet discovered.
Girl, you’ve got this. And even if you’re in the thick of life and you’re starting to feel overwhelmed – just remember that each of these experiences and any setbacks that we are encountering are here to not only serve us and help us grow – but to ultimately allow us to thrive. You are so much stronger than you realize and I know that you’ve got this. I’ll talk to you soon…
View the Full Transcript:
Hey girl, and welcome to the She Calls or Shots podcast, where we are all about making a bigger impact while learning how to live bolder, brighter, and happier lives. My name is Krista, and I’m a photographer, creative, and an entrepreneur, and I am so excited to navigate through this journey together as we deep dive into creating a life, business and personal growth journey.
Journey that we are totally obsessed with. And in this podcast we are all about real talk and having honest and open conversations as we share insights and tips on how to play a bigger game and live a life that we truly love. So girlfriend, let’s make some moves and start working on our dreams.
Hey girl. I am really, really pumped about this topic today because it came from a recent conversation that I had with a really good friend of mine who is not only a creative, but she’s also experiencing a massive growth period with. In her business, and honestly, this topic is something that I’ve been hearing from all of you over and over again.
You know, from those of you that are either just starting out in your business or you’re just generally pushing out of your comfort zone and just growing in life. We’re all at one point or another, coming face to face with this feeling of imposter syndrome and just navigating through the challenges and the setbacks that come along with experiencing growth.
And here’s the thing, life is full of challenges in setbacks, right? Like whether you’re running your own business or not. Every day we’re experiencing new things. We’re navigating through new chapters in our lives and. We’re constantly learning more about ourselves and figuring out ways that we can grow, and oftentimes these periods of growth in our lives, they don’t really feel fun when we’re in them.
Am I right? Like it’s very infrequent when we look at something new and scary, and we might feel some excitement about taking it on or tackling it. But how often does that excitement turn into fear or anxiety once we realize that it’s gonna push us outside of our comfort zone? Usually, if you’re anything like me, that happens pretty often because honestly, growth takes a lot of freaking grit and resiliency.
And in today’s episode, I want us to be able to take a moment to check in with ourselves because during these times of growth and uncertainty, it’s so crucial that we have not only identified ways to help us stay the course, but also that we have things that we can do to help keep our bodies and our minds in check and to help us just reduce our overall feeling of stress.
So girl, if you feel this, Pull up your chair, grab a latte or your tall glass of wine, and let’s dig into this together. So maybe you can relate to this, but there are some times when we feel like life is happening to us. You know those moments when you know, maybe you’ve said yes to too many things, or you’ve not maybe done a great job of setting your own personal boundaries and you start to feel overwhelmed or frustrated, or like life is just spiraling out of control and we feel like we’ve lost the ability to be able to make our own choices in our life, but that life is just happening to us.
In these moments, we have a choice that we can make. We can either choose to acknowledge these feelings of overwhelm or frustration, and we can figure out ways to find some sort of balance in our life and power through in in our goals or in the things that we’re tackling, or we can choose to sit back and not take action over our responsibilities and just blame our external circumstances for what’s happening to us in our life.
Do either of these scenarios sound familiar to you? Because I know they do for me because girl, if we’re really honest with ourselves, I think that we can admit that we have all been at both of these places in our lives at one point in time. And let’s be real, if we’re talking about setbacks, 2020 has been filled with some major setbacks and challenges for all of us.
So I really wanna dive into how we can better turn these setbacks and challenges. Into things that will actually help us to grow and will help serve us in the long run. So first things first. I think it’s so important to acknowledge that our mindset really does matter, and I’m not gonna sit here and say that just by having a positive mindset that life will magically get better, or that all of our problems will just miraculously disappear.
Because let’s be real, life just doesn’t work like that. But it is true that how we perceive stress in our life actually affects our physical body, like our mindset and our perception of our life affects the way that our bodies react. To that stress, and you’ve felt this before, right? Like anytime before we do something scary or new, our body starts to react to those feelings.
You might feel a little weak or nauseous, or your heart might start to race and your breathing might become more shallow. And these are all happening because our body is reacting to the stress of our environment. And for a lot of us, when we start to feel this anxiety around, you know, setbacks or challenges or just even fear of the unknown of what might happen, we immediately dive into these thoughts of how things are gonna turn out negatively.
Do you know what I mean? Like I’m a really optimistic person and I’m definitely a glass half full type person. But even I find myself filling my thoughts with negative outcomes when I start to feel stressed or anxious about something. And that’s honestly just our body’s natural reaction to fear. Our brains are hardwired to prepare for worst case scenarios, and that’s something that we have to just learn to accept, but it doesn’t mean that we have to stay in that negative mindset.
So think about the scenario for just a second. Let’s say you’re about to give a presentation to an auditorium full of people, and you feel your heart starts to race and your blood starts pumping faster, and you kind of feel like you might pee your pants in front of everybody. But imagine instead of in that moment, instead of telling yourself how nervous you are or worrying about messing up or saying the wrong thing, imagine that Instead you thought about how.
Your talk might be the reason why one person in that audience decides to change their life. You might be the reason that someone in that audience decides to make a decision to follow their passions and really just like change their life for the better. Think of the difference that that would make in thinking those thoughts around your attitude and your perspective of the situation.
The reality is our thoughts are so incredibly powerful in dictating how we move forward in life because our thoughts drive our actions and our actions inevitably drive our habits and our behaviors. So the things that you tell yourself are honestly really, really important. So something that I think is so important in these moments, especially when we’re starting to, you know, face this imposter syndrome or this challenge or a setback in life, is making a choice to flip the script in our head that tells us that life is happening to us, and instead that we start believing that everything in life is actually happening.
For us. So often when we’re faced with these challenges or setbacks, you know, we begin to fill our heads with these stories that are usually not true. And when we tell ourselves these stories, our minds literally start looking for confirmation of it in our life. So let’s say that you’ve recently taken on a project or a client and you know that it’s going to push you outside of your comfort zone.
When you start to get faced with that, you know, That moment of when you actually have to complete the project or meet with the client, and it starts to feel like a challenge. Remember that you took on this opportunity because you felt excited by it, right? At one point in time you looked at this and you felt excited for the challenge, and so you took it on.
Even if in this moment when you’re actually, you know, push comes to shove and it’s time to tackle it, you might start feeling that feeling of doubt and imposter syndrome or feeling like. You know, maybe the project isn’t going as smoothly as you’d hoped, or maybe the client even isn’t, as, you know, easy to work with as you would hoped.
Instead of letting that spiral out of control in our thoughts of how you know this is gonna turn out negatively, we shouldn’t have taken this on. We should just keep playing small. We shouldn’t take on new scary things instead of letting us go down that rabbit hole in our thoughts. Let’s start to tell ourselves this story that we’ve been gifted, this opportunity because we have the skills necessary to overcome it.
Instead of believing, you know, making up these stories about the client or the project, or telling us the ourselves, these things that aren’t true. They’re just these made up stories that we’ve. We’ve told ourselves in our head, let’s start to believe that we can tackle this project, that we have the skills necessary, that we wouldn’t have been gifted this opportunity if we didn’t have the ability to achieve it or to overcome it.
Let’s start reminding ourselves on a regular basis that we are more than worth it, and that these opportunities have presented themselves because we are more than capable of achieving them. So girl, if you find yourself in this time of growth, you find yourself facing these opportunities that you know in the moment feel like setbacks or challenges, or maybe they’ve actually been a setback.
Maybe something happened, you know, you took on a project and it didn’t turn out well, or you know, you took on a client and it didn’t turn out well. If you find yourself in this moment, In, you’re facing these challenges and these setbacks. Let’s stop doubting ourselves and wondering if we should go back to playing small, and let’s start believing that each of these opportunities were given to us for us, for our growth.
And so thinking about these challenges, you know, let’s imagine for just a second that each challenge in each setback that we’re facing right now in life is happening for our own benefit. That even though they might feel really scary, and we might want to tell ourselves that we can’t handle it or that it’s not going to turn out the way that we hope, let’s remember that if we have this creativity in the imagination to dream up possible scenarios and outcomes.
Let’s start choosing to believe that things will work out and that they will benefit us in the end instead of these worst case scenarios that we tend to fill our thoughts with. Let’s start flipping that script and let’s start imagining more of the best case scenarios, because remember that girl that you admire, the one that you feel like is five steps ahead of you that you look at and you just feel like, They’re crushing their goals and they seem to move through life with ease and grace.
Remember that she also experiences these same challenges and setbacks. She’s tackled clients and projects and things that haven’t worked out the way that she’d hoped they would. People have told her no. People have told her that she is not capable of achieving her dreams. She has experienced the same imposter syndrome that you are feeling in your business today.
Because honestly, no one experiences growth and success without also experiencing a lot of failure behind the scenes. And there’s often so many obstacles and stumbling blocks and things that are going on that we just can’t see, but it doesn’t mean that it’s not there. That girl or that person that you’re looking at also experienced all of the same growing pains, the same fear and the same anxiety.
When she decided to take that leap and start taking things on that were outside of her comfort zone. She not only felt the butterflies, but she also felt sick to her stomach at times, like she, you know, wasn’t capable of achieving it or that she might just poop her pants before doing something really scary because truthfully, even the happiest, most successful people that we see out there, They are still facing these challenges and this fear of failure on a regular basis no matter what success they’ve achieved or what level you might view them at in their business, they’re still facing these challenges and setbacks every single day.
But the difference is that instead of viewing them as something negative, they’re choosing to look at them as opportunities for them to grow. And hear me out. I know firsthand that being in these moments when life feels like it’s too much or we feel overwhelmed, or we just wanna quit and throw in the towel, that these moments don’t feel fun in reality, growth is often not fun at all when we’re in the middle of it.
But I hope that you can find some comfort in knowing that we have all been there. And not only that, but we’re all experiencing these things alongside you today. And I also just wanted to share one last tip that I found that helps me navigate through the challenges in life and helps me keep a more positive perspective.
And that’s honestly being able to take. A step back from my current situation, you know, whatever the challenge might be, if I feel anxiety around something, if I feel overwhelmed or if I feel stressed, to just take a step back and look at life from more of a holistic perspective. When I start to feel anxious or overwhelmed, I remind myself that one day I will be looking at.
This point in my life and it will be nothing more than a distant memory. This thing or this challenge, or this, you know, frustrating moment. While it might feel big or scary or challenging right now is at one. Point in time just going to be the smallest little blip in my timeline of my life, and this helps me not only stay more grounded, but it helps me be more present and helps me savor and appreciate the moment so much more.
One day, you know, we’re gonna be old and gray and we’re gonna look back at these moments in our life and we’re gonna be so dang proud of ourselves for pushing through. And we’ll be able to see how these challenging situations, or these moments actually ended up bringing us more freedom because it led us to new opportunities that unlocked things in our life that we never even.
Imagined were possible. So the next time, if you start to feel anxious or feel like things are overwhelming, just remember that this moment is going to lead you to some really incredible things. And even if it feels a little scary, now you’re gonna come out on the other side feeling even more capable.
More knowledgeable and more confident in yourself and in your ability. Our time on this earth is so precious and it’s so important to remember that these moments that feel like a challenge are actually a gift that we’ve just not yet discovered. Girl, you have got this. And even if you’re in the thick of life and you’re starting to feel overwhelmed, just remember that each of these experiences and these setbacks and these challenges that we’re facing, they are not only here to serve us and help us grow, but they’re ultimately here because they will allow us to thrive.
You are so much stronger than you realize, and I know that you’ve got this. I’ll talk to you soon. Girl. Thank you so much for listening in and for joining me on this journey. If you love this episode, I would so appreciate you sharing it with your girlfriends, or better yet, share it on Instagram and tag me.
I would love to personally say thank you and hear what resonated with you the most. As always, I am so excited that we get to figure all of this out together. Until next time, I’ll talk to you soon, girl.
