Ep 241 Breaking Free from Getting Out of Your Own Way

Join me today as I discuss why we often get in our own way and what you can do in order to break free from staying stuck in life. This is an important topic as you stretch yourself towards any new goals, recognize where your patterns of delay are and how to begin moving forward today.

In This Episode:

• Self sabotage as a way your brain keeps you safe
• Motivational triad of your brain
• Why the possible threat of change can keep you stuck
• The importance of asking better questions to receive better answers
• Having your own back as you decide next steps to move towards your goal
• Subconscious beliefs and breath work for healing
• How your nervous system might be holding you back
• Combination of cognitive tools and breath work – Check out 6 week confidence program: www.michellebourquecoaching.com/confidence

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Episode Transcript:

You are listening to the richer time podcast and I’m your host certified life coach Michelle Arnold Bourque, and today’s episode we’re discussing breaking free from getting in your own way. Welcome to the It’s Your Time Podcast, the podcast where busy professionals like you get the practical solutions and support you need to gain control of your schedule. So you can strive to be the best in your career, but without the stress and overwhelm. If you’re looking to increase your energy and decrease your stress, you are in the right place.

Michelle Bourque 0:36 Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to the podcast friends. Okay, let’s jump right in today’s topic is one that has come up a couple of times recently, I had someone reach out over the weekend wanting coaching because she said she was getting in her way. And she needed to make some big life decisions. And then a couple of days after that, I had a mentee tell me that she was getting in her own way, with some self limiting beliefs. And I know I have for sure gotten in my own way at times. So I thought it would be a good one to discuss here. And it’s important because I think on multiple levels, it affects us all at some point in our lives. So let’s get started. What does that even mean? Getting in your own way? Well, to begin, it means you’re human, you have a human brain. And this so called form of self sabotage is really when your behaviors or your actions may be either create problems or are in conflict with your true intentions and desires. And usually, this comes from your brain, subconsciously holding on to maybe fear or loss or doubt, or shame or even the idea of being rejected. So, I would like to first suggest that you give yourself grace. Remember, your brain is designed on a motivational triad to avoid pain, seek pleasure, and be as efficient as possible. So when you’re looking to make big life decisions, or maybe breaking into a new career, your brain is going to do all it can to keep you safe. The brain is wired for survival. Now, back in the day, we needed that protection from saber toothed tigers, poisonous berries, all of that, for example. But these days, starting a new job, going for a promotion, leaving a relationship starting a relationship, not likely going to kill us like the saber toothed Tiger. But our brains haven’t evolved to recognize that yet. So this is the work that we do here with intention to create the life that you want to live. So take any layer of judgment off the situation. Next, this idea of self sabotage, like getting in your own way, it can show up differently for different folks and at different points in our lives. So perhaps some lean towards me be emotionally eating when changes are starting or over drinking anything to escape the discomfort of the changes in play. And remember, if we go back to the motivational triad, avoid pain, seek pleasure, that makes complete sense if you’re going to things that make you feel more, quote unquote, comfortable. And I say quote, unquote, because in the moment it feels like an escape or comfort. But then usually, the next day, there’s another layer of judgment that we put on top of ourselves. So be onto yourself, when you’re doing that. Maybe it’s even mismanaging money, that might be another way that you have self sabotage going on. And I want you to think of what this is as an example for you. Like when was a time that you thought you might be getting in your own way either now, or, quite honestly, you might not even have realized that you are getting in your own way at the time. And the self awareness component is so important here. But maybe now you can look back at something that happened in your life and question without getting in my own way then. So you are either in it now or thinking back? What would you say? Were the ways that you did get in your own way? Get curious. Of course, there’s not going to be a right or wrong answer here. This is not anything being graded. My dear friends, I just want you to get curious. Because how we do one thing in life is how we do most things. And when you can pull out a specific example. Then you’re able to gain clarity on what is or maybe was happening. And from there. You can see where your patterns in life show up. And I think a lot of times the core of what is happening or what’s happening is surrounded by fear, maybe fear that you are not good enough. fear that you are not going to make the right decision, fear that you are going to make the wrong decision. Fear that you might be rejected. Fear that maybe you are not worthy or deserving fear that you will be exposed as a fraud, fear that you might have to be vulnerable. I know for me, that is like Check, check, check, check and check again, right. But it’s not like your brain always comes right out to tell you that, like we are no longer moving forward with this because we are afraid that we are not worthy. No, you don’t always have such obvious answers. Sometimes you might actually even notice that you make great progress in an area, and then maybe take two steps back, you know, kind of like Paula Abdul, you take one step forward and two steps back. Listen, young ones go Google searcher, it was a thing back then. And the reason for this is that we all have what we call set temperatures, it’s where our nervous system is able to handle what is going on. So it might be financial levels that we’re receiving, it might be levels of success that we’re at, it might be relationships, like love and connection that we are able to handle. And then at some point, something changes, and our set temperature is overboard. And that’s when we start to have these self limiting thoughts, self sabotage actions, and when we are getting in our own way. So want you to think about maybe you were making x amount of dollars, and then all of a sudden, you had a terrible quarter. Sometimes that is just simply your nervous system freaking out because it is not used to the higher levels of success. And then what you need to work on is calibrating, expanding, knowing that it is safe to continue to grow, that you are going to be okay. And that you can continue the cycle. So what we want to do is release those old fears and doubts and questions about what we are able to do in our life. We want to be able to expand what we believe is possible for our life. And then we want to be able to sit in knowing that we are safe to do that. And that is where all of the breath work that I keep talking about comes into play. I love the mindset work. And I will continue to share all of the cognitive tools with you. But that subconscious work a lot of the healing that comes through things like breath work, and quick sidenote, if you are interested in getting an introduction into breath work, I do have the six week confidence course going on now. Michelle Bourque coaching.com, forward slash confidence. And if you sign up for that, you will receive six free lessons and breath works as I continue my certification process, it’s really just a great way to get started. So for the entirety of the package, the six week confidence scores, and the extra Breathworks is $47. one time payment, MichelleBourquecoaching.com/confidence. And that’s raking it, all of the info for that. Now, as far as the mindset tools to use when you’re thinking that you’re getting in your own way, we already talked about having grace and dropping judgment, we talked about starting to pull apart the patterns that you see in your life. And next, I want to suggest that you do a stream of consciousness, like writing down what is going on in your brain. And it’s simply called a brain dump, just start writing. And sometimes for me, I might even start with, okay, I’m not sure what to write, but then you just keep going. And you will be surprised at what comes out. In fact, Eckhart Tolle writes, whenever you are able to observe your mind, you are no longer trapped in it. And this is so onpoint, sometimes I look at what comes out. And I think, where the hell did that come from? I have no idea that I was thinking it. That is the gold my friend, when you’re able to gain awareness on it, then you get to decide if you want to keep thinking it. It takes the edge of the power off of these negative, self limiting, often automatic thoughts. And when you are able to see that, then you get to decide if you want to keep thinking it. And in addition to that, you can decide instead, what do you want to think on purpose, about yourself about the situation that you’re dealing with? And a lot of times, my dear high achieving women listening, you think that there is a right or wrong answer in the situation that you’re dealing with. And that is what often delays the process of making progress. What is If that was not true, what if there is not a right or wrong decision? And also, who decides? If the decision is right or wrong? You get to as women, we have been so conditioned to look outside of ourselves for the answers, I assure you, they are not there they are within you. And that is what you need to trust. You need to trust that at the end of the day, you will always have your own back. You will not be that mean girl speaking to yourself? And if you believe that, what decision would you make? Another way to come about this is ask yourself better questions. Sometimes when we get in our own way, it might be as simple as the questions that you’re asking yourself, ask better questions, get better answers. So instead of questions like, How come I can never figure this out? Why doesn’t this ever work for me? How many times do I have to do this? Before I get it right? Instead, ask questions more along the lines of how can I have fun as I figure out what to do next? Or how can I be most efficient as I plan my day, in order to hit these goals? Or even? How can I enjoy this process? See how the answers you receive for each of the questions will be different. Your brain is like a computer always searching to give you the answers that you’re asking it. So ask it good questions. And a few final thoughts that might help as we kind of wrap up this episode. When we talk about getting in your own way, I would question Do you know your purpose? Do you know your core values? And do you have your priorities in line, when you have these three, you can make your decisions through that filter, you gain so much more clarity. On each next step when you process through those filters, the filter of knowing what your purpose is, knowing what your core values are, and knowing what your priorities are in life. And again, the confidence program is a six week long program. And each of these topics are discussed in different weeks. And it can be super helpful for you to better understand your desires, once you have those answers. And you know what the best question to ask yourself as and then pay attention to how you feel like in your body?

Michelle Bourque 12:28 Does it feel like you’re being pushed? Or does it feel like you’re being pulled? The question is, what do I want to do? Again, seems like six simple words. And yet it can be one of the most challenging sentences for women, especially to answer. And sometimes, for some folks, you might have gone for so long, not paying attention to what it is that you do want. That you might not even be sure what it means when I say pay attention to your body’s response. That is totally okay. To be honest. It was me 100%. I had no idea what my coach was talking about when she said that. And sometimes still, I’m like, Huh, I’m not so sure here. So here’s a fun way to kind of play with that and get started and recognizing what’s going on in your body. And why that’s important is because that is the nervous system work. Also, how is your body responding? So often, we are from our neck up, right? overthinking, thinking, thinking and overthinking again, what we want to do is drop into your body to start recognizing how it is responding. So if you’re not sure, let’s say you have two options that you’re dealing with. Take a quarter Heads Up is one answer, tails up as the other and then flip the coin. And when you get the answer. Does it feel exciting to you? Or do you think ah, I wish it was the other one? That my friend is paying attention to your body? Then you know the answer. Flip a coin. Speaker 2 14:08 Here we are coming to the end of this episode. Michelle Bourque 14:12 We’ve gone through talking about the nervous system breathwork cognitive tools, and then we ended on flip a coin. So much information here, right? Listen, we take baby steps, we keep it real, and we embrace the compound effect of both. And that’s how you get to making lasting changes in your life in order to get the information for the course and that yet to be released. Breathworks you can head to MichelleBourquecoaching.com/confidence to get signed up. If you have any questions on this topic, please feel free to reach out to me on the socials @MichelleBourquecoaching otherwise, that’s what I have for you today. Take what works, leave what doesn’t and let’s touch base next week for another opportunity to transform your life. Make it a great day. Take care

Michelle Bourque 15:04 Did you know you can take this work to a deeper level with me one on one go to Michellebourqucoaching.com and click on get started to begin