What If You've Actually Been Committed to the Struggle?
What if you've been committed to the struggle or committed to something that actually is not working for you anymore?
It's likely become so much easier for you to be committed to the struggle that comes along with playing small because you've become used to it and maybe you're pretty good at it.
But staying small and staying in the "safe zone" is actually getting really uncomfortable. You're starting to feel resentful, frustrated, annoyed, maybe even hating Mondays. That's uncomfortable... but it's unconscious uncomfortable. It's a discomfort happening to you rather than a discomfort you are choosing up front to pass through and inevitably have greater joy & ease down the road.
When you become a Founder, you choose discomfort, and it happens earlier on in the process. And they choose it every day and they sit with it. That is their growth. They choose for it to be a part of their process and they allow it.
Recently on a coaching call, my client was dealing with the discomfort of confrontation. To speak up early on the process of a project? Or to avoid discomfort of confrontation, keep her mouth shut and then have it catch up with her later on in the project lifecycle?
What was happening was she didn't want to confront the superiors in her project regarding the gaps and the flaws and the missing pieces that she saw early on in the project. So she shrugged them off. But what actually happened is she internalized a quite a bit of that which brought up feeling of annoyance and frustration. Instead of like allowing the early on discomfort and saying hey, have we thought about this? Have we considered this? I know you don't wanna hear this, but we're missing a key part of this project.
More than an unwillingness for herself to feel uncomfortable, she didn't want to be the one to create discomfort for others. To avoid their hard feelings, she wore them for herself. That is people pleasing 101. That is trying manipulate someone else's experience. Down the road that confrontation inevitably came up in the project because those gaps and those flaws caught up with themselves.
In having a conversation about this, and the gift of hindsight, she was able to see the power of making a choice next time. She was able to see that discomfort is likely a part of every project process and to avoid more discomfort in the long run she had to face the upfront discomforts that presented themself along the way, like speaking up even if it might make others uncomfortable.
When you're like the audacious, bold person, you choose discomfort and you choose it early on. Discomfort shows up with you no matter what.
Here a few key questions that you may notice you ask yourself when you're unwilling to face discomfort:
What will they think of me? What if I don't succeed?
What if I mess up?
What if I look like an idiot?
What if I'm too bold?
What if I seem like I'm too full of myself?
What if, what if? What if? What if? Right?
These what ifs are the things that have you avoiding becoming the founder, avoiding doing what you want. And then in turn, here's that Monday again that you're not loving. Here's like those weekends where you drink or you eat, you binge on ice cream on the evenings to escape the week.
The Founder is no longer committed to the same struggles. They're no longer committed to the same discomfort. They are instead committed to noticing that discomfort is going to be there, and they have a willingness to confront it and face it now instead of avoid it and know that it's going to catch up with them later on.
The Founder is no longer committed to the struggles that are keeping them small, but instead they're committed to facing the expansion that helps them play big.
What part of you needs to let go of that to become the founder- the person who is willing to be committed to the struggles, the discomfort, the truth, the awareness that comes along with playing big?
