“What If You Said Yes to Yourself This Time?”

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"What If You Said Yes to Yourself This Time?"

In today's episode, I cover the following:

- Why taking action without guarantees can be your greatest strength 

- What it means to trust your intuition, inner voice, or divine timing 

- The myth of "readiness" & how it holds us hostage

- My leap of faith and how it's going

- The top 4 ways to start building the muscle of blind faith 

and so much more!

Episode Referenced:  The Experience That Changed My Life

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Transcript

0:00

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Building Her podcast. I'm your host, Kati Lillian. If you've been loving this podcast, go ahead and rate the podcast five stars and DM me on Instagram when you do that, because I want to connect and personally thank you. If you are new here, hit that subscribe button. It really helps the podcast grow, and that way you'll never miss an episode. So let's dive in. Hey, my name is Kati Lillian, and I am obsessed with all things mindset, personal development, and helping you build the best version of yourself. I'm a women's life and mindset coach and an entrepreneur who started a fun hobby of posting hashtag sweaty selfies, grew a successful side hustle, and now I run a six figure coaching business. I teach you the secret of building a life that aligns with your deepest values and one that you wake up excited for. This podcast is designed to expand your mind and. Challenge the status quo. So get ready to uplevel your life and let's start building her. In my last podcast episode, I talked about self-doubt and the inspiration behind that episode was from my Instagram stories. I took a poll where you all voted, what is the one thing that you struggle with the most? And I mentioned self. Doubt. I mentioned walking in blind faith. I mentioned building confidence and then all of the above and majority chose all of the above. So I am devoting an episode to each one of those topics. So if you didn't see the last episode or listen to it, check that one out, it's about self-doubt. And then this one is going to be all about walking in blind faith. Ask yourself this very, very important question. Have you ever felt called to do something that made no sense, but you knew you just had to do it? So maybe that's already a past example and you have a memory or it's current, and you feel this tug on your heart today. And you wanna go do something, but logically it makes no sense. So whatever comes up for you, let that be right. I'm gonna ask the question here again. Have you ever felt called to do something that made no sense, but you knew you just had to do it? So for example. I worked for a tech company for nearly a decade, and I loved my experience so much. I mean, if you think about a decade that was literally all my twenties and I grew up with the company, the people there have truly become family, but the nature of the work, I could not. Care less for. And it's so interesting because if you're on the outside looking in, you would think that I was crazy to quit my job and then go start here. My coaching business. So quitting my cushy tech job with health benefits 401k match. Six figure salary. Unlimited. Unlimited PTO work remote. Everyone sees that and they're like, I mean, you had it made. And while I did the nature of the work, the software, the sports sponsorship world was just one, a foreign language to me, but also two, it didn't light me up. I truly did it for the checklist for the money for. Whatever ego boost I was looking for, but I could care less about what I was actually doing and selling and talking about. So I knew deep, deep, deep down about like, mm. Two years in that I needed to do something else, but I didn't know what that looked like. So if you're new here, I went to Tony Robbins, unleashed the power within when I was 24, so that was about two years into my job and to my role, and that's where I had this huge awakening. And I truly feel like I left as a different woman. Then the woman not walked in the doors. So I won't go into too much detail'cause there's, there's a whole podcast episode devoted to that and I'll link it below, but. Deep down already at that age 24, I knew that there was something else that I needed to be doing. There was something bigger that I needed to be doing, but I did not know what that looked like. There was no blueprint. There was no roadmap. It was like me taking the stairs and only seeing the step in front of me, but I did not see the staircase, which is paraphrased from MLK Junior. But yeah. And, and for this long of time or this amount of time, I've been slowly evolving and building and growing. And then I decided one day to quit and leave that cushy job. And to everyone else, it made no sense, but deep, deep, deep, deep down, I knew I just had to do it. I wanna talk to you guys today about walking in blind faith and saying yes to yourself versus yes to others and how important that is. And then why taking action without guarantees can be your greatest strength. And you all know if you are a former client, a current client. You wanna work with me in the future, you know that we all crave that guarantee on the other side of the investment, right? Like if I knew I invested 20 K into business mentorship, that I would double or triple my investment. Everyone hands down would do it. No question about it, but. That's the reality we face. There is no guarantee. And so can you still move? Can you still take action? Knowing, trusting, believing. That you will get a return. And, and that's even outside of the financial return, right? But it's going based off of just that blind faith because again, there is no guarantee. So I guess we need to dissect what is blind faith.'cause I'm gonna be saying that a lot, quite simply acting before seeing the outcome. Lots of clients that I have worked with or just people in life in general. We, again, we always want the result. We always want the guarantee. We always want to know what the outcome is, and if we don't and we have that lack of control, that can be really uncomfortable for people. And so until you get your ducks in a row, as they call it, then you decide, okay, let me go and. Take action. Okay, let me go. Course correct. Okay. Let me go make this decision. But that's really hard because you rarely get all your ducks in a row without taking action. So you have to act so that those ducks get into a row so that the staircase appears. But you have to do that before you see it, and that's really, really hard for people. Another way to tap into blind faith is trusting your intuition. So again, that feeling that doesn't really make logical sense, but you just know deep down it feels right and it feels good. Your inner voice or divine timing. And I think sometimes blind faith is misconstrued as like this recklessness like, you just up and quit your job, or you just up and left your hometown to move to a different city or state or country by yourself or what. He was so good to you. Why did you break up with him? It, it's always kind of like looking at the action that you just took as reckless, as stupid, as. Oh my God, you had such a good thing and Right, but it's a deeper kind of trust in yourself that only you know that only you can feel that only you can hear because it's on the inside. And so that's what makes it really scary. There's no one to tell you around you of like, you should do this. Well, of course they will. It's their opinion, but you know what I mean, like they don't really know because they don't walk a day in your shoes, and so it really is left up to you to make a decision. And it often comes around and I feel like it gets louder. That inner voice when you've outgrown your current comfort zone, you guys know, I always say new level, new devil. Well, there's a reason because if you keep stretching yourself to the corners of your comfort zone, well then there's always this new unknown that we need to tap into, and that unknown is really, really scary for us. But if you wanna keep growing, you do need to keep acting based off of your intuition, your inner voice, trust the divine timing of the universe, and just fucking go despite other people's opinions because they will look at you like you're crazy. I've received that pretty much my whole adult life, why is it so hard? I think it comes down back to fear and. Simply put, it's fear of being wrong or quote unquote failing. And when I say wrong, what I mean is the people around you don't view it as the right decision because they wouldn't make that decision for themselves. And so that's why I always say you need to be very, very careful with who you take your advice from, because if they're not living a life that you look up to, that you dream to have. Why in the world would we listen to anything that they say? Of course they're gonna talk to us and we can smile and nod, but in one ear out the other. We're not gonna let it sink in. We're not gonna let it create self-doubt within our reality, within our perspective. That's something that they would do, and they might view it as the wrong choice, but that's for them. That's not true for you and failing. You also know if you've been around here for a while, there is no such thing as failing. I have eliminated that word fail from my vocabulary. It actually makes me uncomfortable to even just say it out loud. What I say instead is you either win or you learn. So that gives me so much peace of mind when I am making those decisions that are rooted in the unknown, and I am making it from a place of blind faith because there is no losing, there is no failing. I just either win, it works, it clicked awesome, or okay, I learned. And guess what? I get to make a new decision. I think sometimes we get stuck in that indecision because we're so afraid of a decision.'cause it feels so big and massive and trust me, I've been there. But then when you make the decision, you're like, oh, like you're on the other side. You're like, oh, it wasn't that bad. And if it is, it's like, okay, well let's make a new decision and let's change that situation again. It's kind of like when I. I first moved from California to Chicago. I didn't know anyone in Chicago. I had no friends, no family, no coworkers. Bur and I packed up the car. We drove cross country for four or five days. We ended up in Chicago, and mind you, bur had never even been to Chicago ever, like even to visit. So he took a chance, but I also took a chance because I didn't know anyone in Chicago. I think I went there one time in October. When it was still like a really nice like fall season and there were street festivals going on and stuff, and I stayed in an Airbnb and it was like a really nice experience. And so that's what I based my decision off of. I. That one weekend in Chicago and then when we moved there, the weather went downhill, right? And then it was like that for however many months and I was like, oh no. Of course there are so many other benefits and good things about the city, but regardless, like I had to make that decision to move to Chicago and it was kind of like, okay, on a one year trial basis. It turned into four, but in my mind I was like, well, I'm gonna go try and just move to Chicago, and worst case scenario, I don't like Chicago, and then my rental lease is up in a year. So then let's just go back to California. Like that was in its simplest form the way I went about it, or when I moved from Chicago to Florida. Another exact example. I didn't know anyone in Florida. Okay. We had a few friends, but still it's a new state, new city. Also, we were going to buy a house, so it felt a little bit bigger. But I was like, well, worst case we sell our house in two years. Or I go travel more back to California to visit my family if I miss them, or right. Like I trusted myself to make new other decisions if I didn't like the decision I had made. Like no decision. I tell my clients this all the time. There is no decision. That is rarely right or wrong. It's just a decision We have to neutralize the decision making and then it's that much easier and quicker for you to actually make a decision because you know when you trust, I'll just make another decision, so I, I think you guys need to really, really let that sink in of there is no such thing as failing. I think it's also social conditioning to have a plan before we act. And I myself am actually included in that. And I will admit that when I left my job and did coaching, I was so scared. You guys, oh my gosh, I put that off for. Two, like two years. And then I called my CEO and I pushed that off for months. I was so scared because the ultimate act of self-trust was me quitting my job because now it was. My business was on my back. It wasn't my boss's fault. It wasn't the company's fault. It wasn't the economy's fault. It wasn't anyone that I was pointing the finger at and playing the blame game. If my coaching business did not succeed, if that, I am responsible for that. No one else can be. The culprit in that situation, just me. And I took that at that time as very daunting, right? Like huge responsibility. But then I also had to understand, okay, well let's try it for a year, kind of that trial basis again. Let's try it for a year and then if it doesn't work, yeah, it's gonna hurt. Probably have to move through those emotions a little bit. But my worst case scenario. Is that okay, I'll go back to a nine to five, probably just go back to my same tech company,'cause left on good terms. And I'm not a fan of burning any bridges, right? So do I have to swallow my pride and make that phone call, perhaps? But it's a job and it gets my bills paid so there could be worse. And so I did have a plan, but I pushed it off for a very long time. And I think what we've also been conditioned to, and this is also just in our school system and job system and corporate system, but we have this addiction to certainty, to safety, to approval, right? Especially as women, we always. Are so quick to say yes to everyone, but we hesitate and we don't say yes to ourself. And if we do, then we feel very conceited or cocky or bold, bitchy, whatever negative word you wanna tie to that. So just recognize that, like I wanna validate that a little bit for you if you feel that way, because it's in how. It. It's ingrained in our society. And so number one, you need to become aware of that. But number two, you get to unlearn. You get to peel back the layers. You get to understand where does that message even come from? Where does that belief come from? And then decide, well, do I believe that? Like do I want to believe that? Do I want to continue living like that? No. Okay. Well, what's another way I could show up? What's another belief I could have? What is the action then tied to that belief? So I think this addiction to certainty and safety and approval is, is meant to put us and keep us in this small little box so that we don't shine our light so that we don't make moves so that we stay small. And in my opinion, it's like enough is enough. Like if you think about it, your boss says you need to come into the office by nine, 9:00 AM Guess what you do? You show up by probably 8 55 at the latest, or your trainer says you need to be at the gym at 10:00 AM and you do it, you show up probably at nine 50. But when you decide to do something, when you make a commitment, when you have a promise to yourself, like, I'm gonna go show up on IG today, I'm gonna talk on my stories, I'm gonna go to the gym by myself and do a workout. I'm gonna wake up at 6:30 AM before my daughter. I'm gonna, whatever self promise decision you make, why is it always harder to actually show up for yourself? Even though your boss might want you there, or trainer or right, your even friend, family member, whoever it is, but for you to show up for yourself, it's that much harder. So you need to recognize, well, no one's actually there to say like, good job. Hey, you showed up on time. You have to become your own cheerleader. You have to approve of yourself. Then. You start to build that validation, that internal validation. I think what also happens or or what we have in our head and why it feels so hard is this myth of readiness. Like that truly holds us hostage from doing anything because guess what? You're never going to feel ready. Especially again, when you're taking that scary leap or when you're making moves and blind faith because you don't see that outcome. You don't see the ducks. There are no guarantees, so of course you're not gonna feel ready. It's scary. To invest thousands of dollars into a coach, into a mastermind book, the Air Flight b book, a retreat. It's never about being ready, because ready is not a feeling. Ready is a choice. I'm going to decide now is the time, so let's rise up and let's fucking go. That is the mindset. That is the attitude. So again, I quit my job. Yes, it took me a long time to get there. Now, in hindsight, of course, I could do it much more quickly, which actually helps me in coaching because sometimes my clients look at me like I'm crazy when I say I don't know where I'm gonna be in five years. Like if I'm, if I'm still a coach, great. But if I'm not, that means it felt disingenuous and it felt like it wasn't lighting me up anymore. And so then I also changed my path. And they can't even like believe that I would never be a coach. I honestly can't believe that either.'cause it feels so good and I love it and it's my purpose. But regardless, my point is I would feel much more confident and just. Have that deeper sense of self-trust and knowing, because I've already quit a job before. I think it's also my move from California to Chicago and then from Chicago to Florida. I think it's me. I. Mainly building my business and all of what that entails. You know, launching a group program, the big shift, and then launching my mastermind for early and aspiring coaches, CEO, and then raising my rates for one-on-one coaching and then posting on Instagram. Like there's all these moments of faith-driven activities because I've never launched a program before, but here we go. I've never. Taught how to build a business to other coaches before. But here we go. I've never raised my rates to X amount before, but here we go like, like that is how we're making moves over here. We have to trust and know and understand that we're co-creating with the universe to make these moves in our business. I think that's so important. I think, and this will be in a later episode'cause there's this leap of faith concept, but there's also this build of faith concept, which I lean into a little bit more because we absolutely could. Build it and plan it a little bit more. But, but my point is, you still take the action. You still go for it without the safety net because while you have maybe like a, you know, emergency fund or whatever. That, that's gonna run out eventually if you don't figure it out, if you don't make moves. So regardless, like that safety net would run out. And then also you don't really know what you're getting into because it's brand new. So you could think it's a safety net, but in reality it's not really going to do anything for you. There's that piece, but. Yeah, I, I think there, there's so many stories I could tell you too. The big shift girls, gosh, I've had so many countless now where they've quit their job as well, and they don't really have a plan for what's next. But they do have some money to hold them over for minimum three months. Max, I, I've seen six months. But that gives them then like flexibility and time for interviews or if they're building their own business, start posting, get this thing maybe off the ground, sign one or two clients like it, it puts them in go mode. And I've seen that work out very successfully for them. I've also worked with countless coaches now where they also just. Put their stuff out there online and show up on a consultation call, and they've never done that before. But despite their fear, despite their doubt, they do it anyways because it feels aligned, it feels right, it feels like it's the right next step. So what happens when you take that action without knowing the outcome? Unexpected doors open. So something that you can't even see yet. It exists, but you only find out about it until you actually take that leap, until you make that decision. Then that door opens. You also meet new versions of yourself. I remember I invested into my one-on-one coach, and it was the most that I've ever paid per month for a six month program and. I could have absolutely right, said no, that's way too much and turned away and. Pretty much been the same version of myself. But what that dollar amount did to me every month is it forced me and stretched me outta my comfort zone. And it forced me to show up on stories. And I came up with ideas and creativity that I've never unlocked before. I raised my rates so that I made that money back. And then some, I surprised myself basically with what I was. Able to do and accomplish, and the way I could be so consistent online and the way I could show up for my clients so that they could have bigger impacts and transformations like. I met this new version of myself that I wouldn't, wouldn't have met or known had I not taken that risk and invested in myself because confidence grows through doing not thinking. I. And so everyone's like, how are you so confident? How are you? So whatever. And I'm like, because I actually did the work. This is not an overnight success story over here. Far from it. This is years of putting myself first, putting myself in the right rooms, putting myself out there online, investing into the coaching. Feeling the fear despite it, doing it anyways, not thinking about my coaching business, not thinking about my plan for Instagram and not thinking about quitting my job but actually doing it. That is how confidence is built and it often leads to better outcomes than your original plan. The business that I have sitting here today, the podcast that I have grown. Sitting here and sharing it with you here today is far better than what I, my little brain in my tiny human body could have ever come up with. And that's the beauty of it. That is the magic of it, because I want to see the, the new levels. Even though that other devil comes, I am confident enough to know that I would be able to handle it, to stay at that level, and then exceed and go to the next level. Like that is the fun and beauty and and thrill of living life. Because you get to experience so much more than you ever thought was even possible. Not only for yourself, but for your business, for your bank account, for your family. If you're a parent for your kids, like we have got to take a chance on this thing called life because reminder, we all live on a floating rock. None of this matters. At the end of the day, one of my favorite mentors always says the, the. Life is a game or the game of life. Are you playing it or are you just watching? That's so important. So to help you build this muscle of blind faith a little bit more, what I would recommend is to start small. So when you feel like that tiny nudge or when you have like an exciting, spontaneous idea, I would say yes. So if you catch yourself saying no to things or, or even when people invite you to places or, you know, a new friend or perhaps a date or what, whatever the opportunity is in front of you, it would not be there for no reason. And so recognize that maybe there are some opportunities that you keep saying no to because of whatever story you have. And so maybe we could. Play a little bit with that fear. Maybe we could already dance a little bit with that unknown by saying yes. To, to those little things and just like, just kind of watch, just kind of sit back and watch and see like, huh, what happens? What do I learn? What do I discover? What I would also say is tune into your inner voice. So I think a lot of us drown out our inner voice. We don't even know what that is or what that sounds like because we're we're, we're so like consumed with. Every day, social media, TV of just consuming shopping, going out and partying and drinking alcohol, whatever it is that you're doing to waste your time. What I would recommend is start making time to meditate, to journal. To do nature walks without any stimulation. No podcast, no music, just walk in nature and just see what happens. See what comes to you. So I think it, it's making time more for that stuff where you do get to turn inwards and I guarantee that's where you're going to tap more into your inner voice and reconnect with your. Intuition. What I would also recommend is detach from outcomes. So when you say yes, focus on showing up and being in the present moment, like, wow, I'm here. I said, yes, I'm doing the thing, and not worry about the expected outcome, right? So getting rid of that control or the control that you think you have of what happens. Just kind of lean in and allow yourself to be surprised. And what I also like to say to my clients is go through it with a childlike curiosity, right? Like, remember when you were a child, or maybe you have nieces or nephews or daughters or sons or right. Any kind of children in your life, look at how they behave. Look at the, the wonder in their eyes at life, right? Like my daughter, I bring her in the backyard and she's staring at the trees, she's staring at the sky, she's staring at the clouds. Like there's this wonder that she has about the world, and it's so sad to see. But as adults, we, we miss that. We, we forget how amazing life is and, and the wonder behind it. And so if we could tap back into that by just being a bit more playful. With our decisions, and again, starting to say yes in small ways and, and just playing with that feeling of unknown and, and being curious like, where will this go and where will this lead? And I wonder how this experience will be, and ooh, I'm open for it. That will make your experience 10 times better and then surround yourself with faith driven people. We all know you are the five people you hang out with the most. So if you have people around you that are very quote unquote realistic and. Complain and gossip and don't do anything and don't have any wonder or curiosity, well then, yeah, you're gonna feel like you're a crazy person. But if you surround yourself with people who are also trying to better their lives and make different choices and decisions, if they're unhappy with their current reality in their life and they also are a bit more spontaneous, and take those steps of action without knowing where it's leading, then. I would say hang out with them more because that energy will rub off on you. And now this gets to be fun. So when you're taking more action, when you're saying yes in small ways, when you're tuning in to yourself, your inner voice, reconnecting with your divine and intuition, you, you need to start understanding like, okay. There is a 50 50 probability here. Half of it is gonna be so fucking awesome and I'm gonna surprise myself and everything's gonna work out, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But the other half is the reality of, well, maybe I make a decision and I actually don't like that decision. Or maybe I go hang out with this person and they actually didn't make me feel good. Like there is that possibility too. Totally get it, but you have to come to terms with, well, what if it doesn't work out? What if I don't make a decision that feels good for me? Well, we, we can reframe that again, quote unquote, failure as perhaps redirection or perhaps as a necessary lesson. Versus, oh no, I messed up and I didn't do it correctly and I made the wrong decision. It's like, no, we made a decision and now we understand, okay, there's a redirection here, or, okay, what was the lesson in this? What did I learn? So it can still feel very lighthearted. It doesn't have to feel so bad or sad or whatever. Also, understand that every action builds inner strength. Remember I said confidence is built through action, not thinking. So even if you make a decision that you're not so happy with, understand that the ROI on that. Is still you. Building confidence is still you building inner strength, even if that external result isn't what you expected or isn't perfect or whatever the case may be. So faith isn't about avoiding risk. It's about growing through it. Mel Robbins has this great quote, and I'll paraphrase it, but she's like, A positive, strong mindset does not prevent shit from happening to you. Like life still happens, but a strong and positive and optimistic mindset will get you to a place of. Handling it better. You would, you'll be better equipped to handle the shit that life throws at you. And I believe that so deeply in my core. So again, I'm gonna launch the thing, I'm gonna post the thing, I'm gonna whatever in my blind faith, make those moves. And then should someone say, no, Kati, I don't wanna work with you. Or should my launch you know, flop, let's say. Because I don't use the word fail and zero people sign up, then it's not about me being stupid, bad, wrong, whatever. It's like, okay, that strategy didn't work. What was the lesson in this? And then we're gonna grow through it and we're gonna do it again. So there's a difference. There's a, there's a self-trust that we have on the other side of making that decision. So I wanna ask you guys what is one action you feel called to take, even if it makes no sense. So now after I yapped for 35, 36 minutes, what is one action that you feel called to take? I'm sure something came up for you as I was talking. So the challenge for you this week is to take that one step. To say that small yes, to follow those little intuitive nudges to start before you're ready. And remember, you are much more equipped to handle things than you think. You just haven't experienced it yet. So give yourself the gift of actually experiencing it. And blind faith isn't blind if it's led by truth. Okay, that's what I got for you this week. If anything about this episode resonated with you, please do me a favor and take a screenshot of this podcast, post it on your stories, and tag me at Katia Lillian, I would love to connect with you, so thank you in advance and I appreciate you. Until next time. Mmm.