38. Practical Guide 3: How Can I Overcome Fear of Change?

As part of the celebrations of the first birthday of this podcast, Claudia has collated a series of Practical Guide episodes, drawing on her own experiences as a coach and fear of success instructor but also from the knowledge shared by the guests on the podcast over the past year.

Today's episode is the third of this series with the aim that by the end of the practical guide series you will have created a personalised roadmap to wellness.

In Practical Guide #3, Claudia delves into the topic of overcoming fear of change and self-sabotage. She explores different types of fear of success and offers actionable steps to help listeners articulate and achieve their goals. Claudia emphasises the importance of self-belief, positive thinking, and supportive communities in overcoming obstacles. Tune in for practical tips and motivational insights to empower your self-improvement journey.

02:30 Overcoming Fear of Change

03:09 Understanding Fear of Success

03:49 Consequences of Success

10:03 Taking Action Towards Wellness

10:36 Visualizing and Celebrating Success

12:07 Positive Thinking and Supportive Communities

18:08 Overcoming Self-Sabotage

21:45 Final Thoughts and Resources

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For further resources please visit the accompanying webpage

Transcript

Hello and welcome to Practical Guide number three. Today we are talking about overcoming fear of change. We have made our own definitions of what we believe wellness to be for us individually. We have looked at what might be stopping as truly embracing wellness. So how can we now take action and stop being stopped from taking action, stop sabotaging ourselves.

And one of the things that is the root of self sabotage. It's fear of success. Now, we talked last time all about our self belief and feelings of worthiness. Um, a fear of success is slightly different to this, but they're all very linked. So there are a number of different types of fear of success. Um, one of which we've already protected against, which is the fear of sole success, which is where we are aiming for a success that is not true, is not ours.

somebody else's definition, but we've created our own definition of wellness here. So that shouldn't be a problem. What may be a problem is worrying about the consequences of success. Um, of thinking, well, if I make this change, if I truly embrace wellness, what will I be missing out on? What will it mean?

Will it mean that I have to do X, Y, Z? Will it cost money? Will it, um, cost extra time? Will it mean I can't eat certain things or, you know, whatever that means? Obviously that's going to be very specific to your definition there, but, um, but those consequences. Sometimes we focus so much on the perceived negative consequences that we forget about all the positive consequences of that wellness that we desire.

And we let the fear of perceived negative consequences talk us out of even trying. It could be, say for example, um, you want to lose weight, but you have a favourite outfit that fits you at the moment. And so a fear of success, when we're looking at the consequences of success, might be that you can't wear your favourite outfit.

Well, Maybe you can get it taken in. There are plenty of skilled seamstresses and tailors that would be able to assist. Uh, maybe you could buy it in a smaller size. Maybe you'll find a new favourite outfit. Maybe you can frame a picture of you wearing it when it is fit. Like, there are, that is not a reason to sabotage yourself from going towards your goal, if that's what your goal is.

It could be that the other one that we've gone through last week was the fear of actually having that success. Am I worthy of it? Do I deserve it? All of that, hopefully we've again safeguarded against. Fear of loss of success. So what happens if I experience, um, wellness? to its true potential and then I lose it.

Well, actually have some compassion towards yourself because we are never going to be perfect and this is what I was talking about in Practical Guide 1 is that well being is very static. Whereas wellness is a concept. It is movable. It is you, something you choose, something that you have in alignment.

This is, this is how you want to be. This is not a destination. It's not somewhere you can go and fall off and never get there again, that is not the point. The point is it's about you and the choices you make and how you feel yourself and the things that are important to you. So. It's not something that you can really lose because it's inside of you.

You can forget it a bit. You can make choices that are not aligned, but It's not something you can lose. Um, and it could be this fear of fear of failure of, well, if I didn't do it perfectly well, we get to change, get to change our definition. If we decide that actually, so we thought this was our definition of success and this is what we wanted, but we got there and we didn't like it.

Well, we get to cheat. We get to make the rules, we get to make the definition because it's our definition, it's our life. And that's the joy we're in charge. Um, and then fear of what we falsely believe we need to do, be and have in order to be successful. So it might be that you're like, well, I need to look a certain way in order to embrace wellness.

I need to live a certain way. I need to go off the grid. I need to only use a cycle, a bicycle, or, you know, never get in a car, or, you know, all these things will actually, it very much depends on your definition again. Um, and actually just do a bit of a sense check and go, well, this is true. And is there any evidence, is there any evidence I have to support this?

Is there anything we have to contradict it because everything's not binary, you know, it's not like this way or this way. There's usually another way. There's usually a way around it and give yourself that permission to be open to a different way. Um, forging your own path so you don't feel like you have to copy other people.

Um, there are so many people online that like, oh, I've got the secret to this, that, and the other. But ultimately, if it's very prescriptive, chances are it's not gonna work for you. It needs to be something that you can put your spin on your, that you can personalize and make it so it fits you and your life and your desires and your needs.

Um, one size doesn't fit all. Uh, it really doesn't. Um, we are so unique human beings. And we're all so different. And we want different things. Different things matter. So, what can help you take, take action? So one is clearly, Articulating your goals and breaking them down. So what is the next step? Don't necessarily need to know every single step to take you where you want to be, but know the first step and then really tap into how it feels to achieve your goal.

Not just on writing on a piece of paper, but literally close your eyes and visualize yourself achieving that goal. You don't need to know the whole journey. What does that end? look like? What does it feel like? How do you feel in yourself? Um, how do you want to feel, I don't know, say, in six months time, in a year's time?

And tap into all of your senses. What can you see? What can you hear? What can you feel? What can you smell? What can you taste? Really bring that vision to life and spend some time every day thinking about that. And I also want you to really celebrate any steps that you have taken towards that goal, no matter how small, recognize them, create yourself a win list and just jot them down.

It doesn't matter. No one needs to see it, but just to remind yourself of all those amazing things that you are doing and that's progress no matter how insignificant it might be seem in the grand scheme of things. It is significant. It is really important. Think about the words that you are saying to yourself.

Do you, do your words reflect your goal? So do you say that this is my goal and this is where I'm going to get there? When I was pregnant with Evie, I was really anxious and worried. And I had a lot of health conditions and I constantly told myself over and over again, having a healthy babies, healthy pregnancy, everything is going to work out well, no matter how

disheartened I might get. It was just a little reminder. And in my mind's eye, I had this image of me and Ed and Harry and Evie sitting on the sofa in our living room. Cuddled up as a family, welcoming baby Evie, and during those hard, hard days, particularly when she was in NICU, I just kept imagining it, just kept it in my mind, kept telling myself, we can do this, we can get through this, this, you know, It's just a little hiccup.

It's fine. We can do it. And I'm not going to say I didn't feel down and stressed, but it did help give me some hope. And I had a little vision board picture on my phone that signified like a healthy, happy pregnancy to me. And that really helped me. I'm thinking, and if I did start, because we're human, but if I did start going down like a negative, um, thought process, I try and talk.

Change the topic, talk myself out of it, use an affirmation that would say something like, I'm going to have a healthy, happy baby. And just trying to shift the narrative. We have between 12 and 60, 000 thoughts every day. And 95 percent of these thoughts are repeated. A lot of thoughts are actually quite negative, so we can reprogram our brain to be focusing on the more positive things.

Our brains will naturally focus on the negative things because that helps us thrive. You know, if you just paid attention to the pretty flowers, but not the saber toothed tiger, you won't be around for very long. But, that can actually not be that helpful for us in modern day living, where there is just overwhelming sadness and negative news, etc.

So really paying attention. Bringing your mind back with that win list to the positives, doing a gratitude practice that can really help you focus on achieving your goals and getting towards your definition of wellness. Finding people who are like minded, so supportive communities, people who are also on a self improvement journey, who understand the importance of how we're speaking about ourselves, about other people, and the impact that that has on you as an individual when you're constantly focusing on the negative, about how everything is so awful, um, It's really good to have like minded people in your corner.

Um, that you can send a little message to and say, you know, I had a really good day today. Nobody else wants to celebrate it with me, but I'm going to tell you this little win I had that's really made a difference to me. Or, I had a bit of a rubbish day today, but can you give me something to perk me up?

And they might tell you something positive about their day. The people that we surround ourself, there's a, um, a phrase, I think it's like the, some of the five people that you surround yourself with, it's basically like how you all end up because everyone, people rub off on you. And you might just pay attention to how you feel after you've been interacting with certain people and whether they've brought you down or lifted you up and how that has impacted you.

I've got loads of resources in my leading lady self love academy or when people work with me on for one to one coaching on tools that you can use to help you on your self improvement journey in overcoming learning. The fear of change, of making meaningful and lasting change and not getting disheartened and not giving up.

Because actually having somebody as a cheerleader that is championing your corner, keeping you accountable, giving you a gentle kick up the bottom, virtually, um, if you need it, is so, so important. And it just. really keeps you accountable and on track. Um, so if you want to know more about my one to one coaching or the Leading Lady Self Love Academy, please do book a discovery call or check out the details on my website.

Um, I will pop the link on the practical guides part of my website, which is www. fairdisciplinarywellness. com slash practical guides. I always get. I second guessed myself when I was saying w w w docs, I always feel like saying too many w's, but I'm not. Anyway, that's an insight into my mind. Um, but please don't be disheartened, and if you feel like you are getting in your way and you are sabotaging yourself, Maybe just sit down with a blank piece of paper and write all the reasons why you don't feel like you deserve to succeed.

Why your definition that you came up with of wellness is not for you. Is it that you feel like you don't deserve it? Is it because you're worried about the consequences of what if you do get there? How is it going to impact you negatively? We do this great, um, exercise. Actually, yes, that's with my one to one clients.

And it's not in the different ones in the Leading Lady Academy, but, um, this is great exercise. It's a new linguistic programming technique where we can, um, assimilate two opposite points of view in order to move forward. It's called parts integration. And It's absolutely fascinating because you can see why a potentially negative belief is actually trying to be helpful and protect you.

But it's still sabotaging you and we can move forward, we can integrate that belief together in order to move forward positively. Um, so yeah. Basically, by labelling the reasons that we are afraid to take action, we take away the power, because we understand, and then we can put a plan in place. And, it's, it's very much like, you know when you're lying in the dark room, and you see a strange outline or shadow.

Your mind can go crazy with what ifs, what ifs, what ifs, what ifs. What might it be? Is there to get me? And you can get sucked away in the terror. But actually, the minute you tip the light on, you realise that it's something that's been there all along. And it's, you know, there's nothing dangerous, you're safe.

And actually, when we self sabotage, a lot of it, the things that we're afraid of are not true. I think I read a statistic about like, 90 percent of the things we worry about are never going to happen. We'll spend most of our life worrying about things that are just not going to happen. Um And I'm definitely a worrier.

I blame it on my nursing and that you want to be ahead of the curve and think, okay, that might go wrong and that might say, let's like predict that. But actually, you know, it might not happen. So what if we dispense, suspend reality and think, well, what if, what if something good would happen? What if I achieved my goal?

What if I could truly live embracing wellness and aiming towards it? How would that change my life for the better and the negative things that you're imagining might not actually happen, but you'll be all the better for having aimed for that. So I'll leave you with that thought today. And just be really curious.

Don't judge yourself. We all sabotage ourselves at various points in our lives. And it's nothing to be ashamed of. But, it's something that is within your power to solve. So, have a little dig in to why that might be coming up for you. And As ever, please look at the Practical Guide section of my website for more information and more resources.

And if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch. And I will see you next week for the last and final article guide. Bye! I hope you enjoyed today's episode. for tuning in to another episode of the Empowered by Claudia podcast. With me, Claudia. I'm Sabina wellness.com. If you are ready to transform your life, then get in touch For more information on how I can support you, all of my links of how to contact me are in the SHA notes or at my website, www.cloudysabinawellness.com.

Thank you.