You know what they say about assumptions.

Recap: I’m launching my full-time practice in January! While I’ve been engaged with coaching my whole career, I am new to launching a business. This will challenge me, teach me, and I won’t be able to do alone.  In October, I set a goal to embo…

Recap: I’m launching my full-time practice in January! While I’ve been engaged with coaching my whole career, I am new to launching a business. This will challenge me, teach me, and I won’t be able to do alone.  

In October, I set a goal to embody the mindset that life offers neither problems nor challenges, only opportunities thinking this would help me successfully launch my practice.

How did it go? Medium, and I wasn’t sure why. In December I led a challenge to investigate my immunity to the growth I sought.

 

Alright. Here’s what I can put together today that I couldn’t four weeks ago:

I’ve been operating with an underlying assumption that in setting up my coaching practice - if I struggle, make a mistake, or fail once, it will mean I’m a failure.

This assumption, though never spoken aloud, has steered me toward protecting myself from failure. I’ve had moments when I avoid taking the next step with a shoulder-shrug of, “if I don’t start - I can’t fail!”.

Over and over again, I’ve left things for tomorrow instead of starting them today, I’ve slept in on my time to work for myself and make progress toward my goals. 

Does this all add up to me boldly living in a mindset of life offering neither problems nor challenges, only opportunities? No.

Even though this succession of mental-moves is angering, it is also clarifying. If I can test my assumptions about what struggling or making an early mistake might mean, I can transform the feelings and actions that follow.

As it turns out - this isn’t just a me thing. It is a frustratingly, beautifully, human, natural, and self-protecting thing. It is something we can to let happen OR it can be something we can choose to take head on.

 

A few bold change agents have jumped into this Change Challenge - take a glance at their powerful outcomes and discover your own!

  1. Set a growth goal

  2. Take time to think about what you’ve been doing or not doing instead

  3. Uncover your hidden and competing commitments

  4. Identify the fear-based assumptions prompting all the thoughts and feelings through the guidance below.

If we believe acknowledgement is only valuable when it comes from others, we’ll seek to excel at everything we do to exceed expectations. We’ll then look and judge our success by others’ words or affirmations, and not promote ourselves. This cycle d…

If we believe acknowledgement is only valuable when it comes from others, we’ll seek to excel at everything we do to exceed expectations. We’ll then look and judge our success by others’ words or affirmations, and not promote ourselves. This cycle doesn’t set us up to invest in and celebrate our own growth.

 

Discover the fear-based assumptions undermining your ability to charge at your goals.

Look back at your reflections from each step of the change challenge. What do all of these things reveal about your assumptions and beliefs?

Make a list and include everything you can:

  • Assumptions that you think are actually fact - OF COURSE that would happen.

  • Assumptions you know aren’t really true when you slow down, but still revert to

  • Assumptions that are only partially true or sometimes true. 

You may see powerful connections; that these assumptions have been driving your feelings and actions!

  • How do your assumptions drive you to focusing on your competing commitments?

  • How do these competing commitments live out in what you are or are not doing instead of achieving the growth you want?

  • How do these behaviors relate to and perhaps undermine your growth goal?

What limits are these assumptions placing on you?

If we believe naming the negative will make it impossible to find the positive, we’ll avoid the negative and the stress it creates. As we are avoiding stress and not acknowledging it, we also won’t ask for help - so we’ll stay in the avoidance state…

If we believe naming the negative will make it impossible to find the positive, we’ll avoid the negative and the stress it creates. As we are avoiding stress and not acknowledging it, we also won’t ask for help - so we’ll stay in the avoidance state longer. With all this - we are not set up to focus our energy and mind on positivity and gratitude with intention each day.

By striving for this idea of "success" I've created in my head, I change how I express myself to conform to the person I think I need to be to accomplish that, which is someone who is likeable and also has a plan/vision for where they're going. So t…

By striving for this idea of "success" I've created in my head, I change how I express myself to conform to the person I think I need to be to accomplish that, which is someone who is likeable and also has a plan/vision for where they're going. So these commitments to remaining unjudgeable by keeping up the appearance of a good life result in me not slowing down to be more intentional and pay attention to others. Instead I spend much more time focusing internally, which isn't necessarily bad to be introspective but for me it has gotten to a point where I'm too focused on the future that I'm no longer present in the now.

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Test assumptions. Transform reality.

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To ask for help or to make it look like we know it all?