“But Kate, What if I Fail?”

WIRED: https://www.mnmfitnessco.com/wired

This one’s a bit of a rant… but it needed to be said.

After hearing multiple people say they’re afraid of failing, I’m breaking down what’s actually going on underneath that fear, and why it’s keeping you stuck.

Inside this episode:

•  why you don’t need fear to go away before making a decision 
•  how your brain is wired to fixate on worst-case scenarios 
•  the real reason change feels so hard (even when your current patterns suck) 
•  and what it actually looks like to move forward with fear still in the passenger seat 

If you’ve been sitting on a decision because you’re scared it won’t work… this is your nudge.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

What's up you guys? Welcome back to the dopamine diaries podcast. Oh I'm having another passion crash out. Okay. Um listen, if you guys want robotic, boring, fucking people, there's plenty of them on the internet. Okay. That's not what I am. That's not what you get here. I'm having another passion crash out because in the last 24 hours, I have had three to four people tell me that they want to do Wired, but they are afraid of failing. And I just need to crash out. I have so many things I want to say about this, and I don't know if I'm gonna end up putting all of them on my social media. So guess what? They're all coming here. Because I think no matter who you are, right, every single one of us have approached things or had things happen in life or like had options or like choices to make that were paired with like, well, what if I fail? Like I I thought about myself last night when I had all of these people telling me this, and I was like, okay, where have I seen that show up in my life? And when I left my corporate career, first of all, it took me two years to actually leave. It took me two years of knowing what I wanted to do, but not being physically able to fucking do it. It took two fucking years, bro. Do you know what took what actually took the longest? What took the longest was me waking up every day and being like, oh, well, I still feel like I'm kind of afraid that if I leave, I'm not gonna be able to be an entrepreneur. So I can't make the decision until that fear goes away. I literally took two years to make a decision because I believed that that decision had to be made in the absence of fear. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but any choice that you make in life, even if you feel really fucking great about it, is gonna come with a very real fear. It's more about what your relationship is to that emotion. How do you respond to things that make you feel afraid of failing? How do you respond to the idea of failing in general? How did you grow up to respond to failure? Were you punished for it? Were you praised when you were perfect? Like it's really more about what is your relationship and how can you choose to still move forward with fear as a co-pilot? Because fear is going to be a co-pilot. But do you know what? Do you know what can happen? You can actually get to a place where you notice that fear, but it's not fucking shouting at you. I call this, if any of you guys have done HBA, and if you haven't done HBA, well, here's a little piece of it. I call our like inner critic voices. I I call those our boohoo tubas. So our boohoo tuba, think about a tuba. A tuba is super fucking loud, annoying. I don't like the sound of a tuba is just like goofy and loud, you know? Um, and so that inner critic, that fear, that is a boohoo tuba. And that shit can be really loud sometimes, so loud that you can't think clearly, which PS, I had someone come into Wired two days ago. She's gonna start Monday, and she's like, is this gonna help me actually be able to think clearly and like organize my thoughts? And I'm like, yeah, because your inner fucking critics are not gonna be shouting at you anymore, and your brain is not gonna be screaming at you for like a fucking crumb of regulation because right now it's so insanely burnt out. Yeah, of course you're gonna be able to do that. But like when we have this fear show up, when we have this, like, well, what if I fail? Well, what if I fail? One, that's your boohoo tuba, okay? And two, what if you fucking succeed? Like, have you actually given as much time and thought to the possibility that what if it actually works? Or are you spending all of your free think space spiraling about the fact that, well, I can't even make the decision because I know I'm gonna fail. Oh my god, like we have so many thoughts per day, and you're letting most of them do that, even more reason to do wired so you have a bit more control over what those thoughts are and how much attention you're giving to them. Like, have you given yourself an up enough opportunity to really imagine what it would be like if it worked? Like, if it worked, like have you let yourself fucking daydream? Like, have you let yourself sit down or in the car while you're driving? Have you let yourself daydream about what could actually happen? If this choice that you were afraid of making actually worked out in your favor. Ultimately, that's what I had to do. I said, Well, you know what? The only way I'm gonna find out if I fail is if I fucking try. And there's an there's a 50% chance that it goes well and that I get what I want, which is freedom and and time and my ability to fucking leave and and close my lap at laptop at 2 p.m. on a Thursday and go get my kid and hang out with her. I wasn't a mom yet when I made the decision to leave my corporate career, but I knew that my corporate career was not going to fit in motherhood. It wasn't. I knew. And I was terrified. What if I fail? What if I fail? What if I fucking try? And genuinely, what if I succeed? Have you guys given yourself permission to actually think about that? I to be honest, I don't think that you guys have. I think that it's actually more normal for the brain to hyperfocus on the thing that it can accurately predict. That is what brains do. Like, guys, the whole function of the brain is to just run predictions. Like, I always talk about the brain as being this like crazy math wizard in the background, always doing fucking math problems. It's always running predictions on your day and what's gonna happen and how you're gonna feel and what this is gonna mean for you. And it does that because that's how you feel control, that's how you feel certainty, and ultimately that's how you feel safe. The possibility of succeeding actually doesn't feel that safe, even though that sounds ass backwards. The avoidance of possibly failing, though, the like staying stuck where you are at, because at least you don't have to risk a failure. What is the absolute worst that's going to happen? You find out what doesn't work for you and you cheer yourself on for putting in fucking effort? You're telling me that's a failure? I categorize that as a win all fucking day. What if you actually succeed? Like what if it fucking works? And on a deeper level, is it really even that? Or are you just unsure about the person that you would have to be in the life that you're gonna have to live moving forward when it does work? Guys, coping patterns, the things that we do all day, every day, the um, the scrolling, the stress eating, the shopping, the you know, not working out consistently, the overthinking, all of these things that like we hate that we have to like experience every day, all of those things are coping patterns. And guess what coping patterns do? They make us feel good, and that good means we feel safe. So even though on the surface we're suffering through them, oh my god, I'm like, I'm not in the I don't have the health that I want because I can't be consistent. Oh my gosh, I just don't have money because I keep fucking shopping and buying things just to feel good, or like, oh my gosh, I just never have time and I'm always exhausted because I keep scrolling. There's a level of discomfort that all of us experience on a day-to-day basis due to our burnout that on a deeper level still feels safe, and that's why it's so fucking hard to change. The fear of the unknown, the fear of like, well, what is my life gonna look like if I don't need these coping patterns anymore? I don't know. Have you given yourself an opportunity to fucking imagine it? Probably not, because you're too worried about what's gonna happen if it doesn't work. I'm gonna be another failure again. No, you're not. No, you're not. You're gonna be one step closer to feeling better. And to be fair, and to be very honest with you, you're gonna be more than one step closer to feeling better. You're gonna be like a hundred steps closer to feeling better because that's what I know to be true about the experience. I know this shit works. Dude, I know this shit works. I was talking to a one-on-one client this morning, and we were talking about what burnout feels like for her. She's like, you know, and she's so pumped about why. Like she's literally is so pumped about it. Um, and she was like, you know, I realize like I always used to look at burnout as like, why, like, I don't, I can't be burnout. I don't really feel that physically, physically exhausted. Like I'm still doing things. Um, but like mentally, like I'm exhausted. I'm like, yeah, that's actually what burnout is. Burnout isn't like, oh, I'm like wiped out. I like can't get to my job. I can't do anything. No, burnout is a brain that has been working fucking overtime and now it's stuck at that speed. That is what burnout is. Like, that is what burnout is. And she went on to tell me a story. She's like, you know, because she's looked at, like, she understands what's coming and wired. And she's like, I know that this is gonna work for me because she told me a story. She was at the airport, you know, a couple months ago, and her fiance was doing a Sudoku puzzle. And she told me, she's like, I remember looking at him and saying, like, I don't like those things. And then the more she looked at him doing it, the more she found her brain to be kind of interested in it. And she sat there and she did those puzzles with him and she enjoyed it. And she's like, and it was crazy because I was actually so burnt out in that moment. And so the idea, this like, well, I don't know, I don't really like those. It's I that's not what I need right now. That's what her survival brain told her. Like that, like that's what she was led to believe. Because again, she had the concept of burnout backwards, but she sat there and did those puzzles with him, and she's like, Oh my god, I felt so much better afterwards. I actually really enjoyed those. And I'm like, Yeah, because burnout brains actually need stimulation. Guys, why do you think that when you are the most burnt out, parents? I'm talking to you, oh, it's just been a hard day mothering. I just like need a break, and that break needs to be scrolling. Why do you think that that is? Your brain is burnt out and it wants stimulation. Scrolling is the quickest and the easiest way to get it in the form of six-minute videos rapidly. You guys are proving my point. And you're allowed to keep scrolling. But can you give your brain something that it needs first? That way the scroll doesn't continue to be this thing that just keeps like poking holes in the bottom of your energy bucket, and you just never feel better. But you got stimulated for a minute, but then the minute you put the phone down, all of that stimulation was gone and none of it stuck. Your burnout brain needs to be stimulated, but it has to be rebuilt. And there's types of stimulation that actually give it the ability to rebuild itself so you feel better. And no, I'm not asking you to go do a fucking Sudoku puzzle because I've made my own version of very stimulating brain things in Wired that don't require you to go buy a book or grab a fucking pencil. You can do it right on your phone. You can literally do it on the device that you're already on, anyway, that's giving you the stimulation. Guys, you're not afraid of failing. You just have not given yourself an opportunity to really think about what it would be like if it fucking worked. What would change in your life? And if you're like, Kate, I have no idea I felt this way forever, then I don't know what else I need to tell you. I really don't. I really don't. I literally have a solution for you on a silver fucking platter. You like you just have to like understand that you're not gonna get to a place where that fear is gone in order for you to make a decision. You have to learn to still take action when that fear is present. That is the fucking truth. And and and and you know, maybe I shouldn't be that honest or blunt with you, but that is the fucking truth. Your ability to still move and do something for yourself, even when it feels epically and massively fucking scary, is the sauce. And I tell my clients this all the fucking time. And I'm gonna end this episode with this because I trust whoever needed to hear this has heard it and it's gonna come into wired. And maybe you just needed to hear this for other reasons. Cool. Um, I'm gonna leave you guys with this. Um, just because it's uncomfortable does not mean it's unsafe. I say this, I've said this over and over. I say this every day to at least a client. I've said it in HBA, I say it everywhere. Just because it's uncomfortable doesn't mean that it's unsafe. Just because you are afraid of failing, but you know you want to do wired. You know you want to get this type of support. You know that I know how to support a burnout brain. Like, you trust my expertise and my credibility. Like, I don't need to prove myself. You like it's not that. You don't trust yourself to still make a decision alongside that emotion of fear. And I need you guys to understand whether, again, it applies to Wired or any other thing or choice in your life. When something feels uncomfortable, our knee jerk reaction is to categorize it as being unsafe. Oh, well, I'm afraid of failing, therefore I can't do it. No, just because it's uncomfortable doesn't mean it's unsafe. There are a lot of things that many of you guys have done while being uncomfortable. This can be that too. Okay, bye.