You're in a gap between who you were and who you're becoming. Your communication confidence can feel borrowed. Your sense of self can feel like it needs a new address. Each edition delivers one small step to help you communicate with more confidence, and move through change without losing yourself. Read one below, if you find yourself in it, you're in the right place. Written by Susan, Director of Blossoming Speaker and creator of the Speak Afraid Method.
Because there is a gap in a sacrifice that impacts you deeper than first realised.
InsightLast weekend, Australia commemorated ANZAC Day. I was reflecting on the word sacrifice and became quite curious about how the word shows up in any sort of self-development or personal growth. If you want to achieve any fitness or health goal, I commonly hear you need to sacrifice something to gain something else. Same with personal development, I commonly hear the word sacrifice of parts of ourselves or lifestyle that’s deemed no longer needed for you to receive something else. Yet the word sacrifice generally tilts our focus more to what we are losing in the sacrifice and away from what we aim to gain. Shouldn’t we be more energised and focused on what we are going to gain more than the loss? Especially if we have already decided we want the gain more than the loss. That is where I believe the relationship between our fears and our attachments like to link hands and dance around our campfire. This is what I believe tilts our heads to focus more on the loss than the gains. So What?This approach consumes so much energy compared to focusing on our gains. It starts blurring our thoughts and vision and that’s where our fear and attachments ask doubt to join in the dance. This means more energy and things to navigate through. It makes the journey harder than what it needs to be but letting go is uncomfortable and perceived as risky. You already know how to work with their dance and this is comfortable even if you don’t want to be there. This compared to the uncertainty of going forward to discover how you may collect your gains, seems easier but this is a false story fear tells you. When I dug deeper to understand why this story from fear is generally successful, I discovered. Deep down we know, or at least feel it even if it hasn't formed into words yet, that this will change a part of who we are. Even though we know this change is for the better, it is that gap in between that you are probably living in now, which is the hardest and most ambiguous to go through. It is knowing you are no longer who you were because you have outgrown that, but you have not yet become your new version of you. Feeling lost, an unclear headspace, and self-questioning is a daily experience, multiple times a day even. You function well but notice you withdrawing because you cannot introduce yourself or share yourself to others when you don’t really quite know yet who you are becoming. This is something I’ve navigated through my many career transitions in my life between different industries and roles, and it was a great adventure I needed to travel through as I formalised the Speak Afraid Method. I get this, lived it, know I will continue to live it every time I face change, yet freeingly confident I can now go through this gap of discovery to the new version of me without excess baggage. I now feel comfortable with the uncertainty and enjoy exploring it and fear, though still trying to bother me, it does not have a hold. I can keep moving, use my voice, and I’m no longer withdrawing. It takes effort but this effort comes with compounding rewards which builds resilience and energy along the way. Next Step.I invite you to invest 10 minutes this week reflecting on this newsletter. Please stay in observation mode, and then take note of areas that you felt resistance to, areas that lit a spark within you, and parts that you relate to. Then reward yourself with a 10 minute rest break before you head off to do your next thing. I am here if you’d like a sounding board to what you discovered, please hit reply to continue the conversation. All the best, Susan. |
Minute Insight by Blossoming Speaker
You're in a gap between who you were and who you're becoming. Your communication confidence can feel borrowed. Your sense of self can feel like it needs a new address. Each edition delivers one small step to help you communicate with more confidence, and move through change without losing yourself. Read one below, if you find yourself in it, you're in the right place. Written by Susan, Director of Blossoming Speaker and creator of the Speak Afraid Method.
Insight I sometimes think that being under pressure is like being a boiling potato. Yes, thanks to me practicing the Speak Afraid Method, I am becoming more courageous and confident in sharing different perspectives to help you communicate through the uncertainty gap of change. Now back to boiling potatoes. Pressure is required for the potato to boil and for it to change its state from raw to cooked. Pressure here is not a problem but something required to help the potato transform. It’s when...
Insight I’ve said “you are enough” to other people more times than I can count, I even included it as my first affirmation in my book Confidence Booster, Affirmations to Reframe Your Mindset and Boost Confidence. I meant it every time I said it and wrote it. I can see it in others clearly, and know it is a truth. But believing it about myself, in a way that sticks, well, that is a different conversation. So I spent time learning why and so far, I came across two reasons. I will discuss one...
Insight For years I believed courage was something I needed to dig for. The deeper I went, the more I’d find. So, when change arrived and shook something loose inside me, I kept digging, head down, inward, searching. I didn’t realise that all that digging was actually my most convincing excuse to stay still. I was in the uncertainty gap. No longer who I was, not yet who I am becoming, and in that in between space, I couldn’t articulate much. The words sat at the tip of my tongue and wouldn’t...