lisa fabrega
One of my nephews is obsessed with dinosaurs. When I was visiting him in June, I took him to an arcade to play Jurassic Park. When it was over, we took all the tickets we’d collected to exchange it for a prize.
He picked a magic dinosaur egg, of course. There were very specific instructions on the box to get the egg to “hatch” overnight. But when we got home, he didn’t want to wait. He tried to take a shortcut by peeling the outside layer to make it go faster, then put it in the water.
It never hatched. He cried and blamed the egg for being defective. He didn’t understand why it didn’t work and asked me to get him another one. Except it was too late and we couldn’t.
Watching him do this was a lot like watching people join and leave our programs for 12 years. It has revealed SO much to me about why people don’t get the results they want in life or work, even though they may feel they’ve “tried everything.”
I often speak to many of you, and you tell me you’ve spent money, time, and energy hiring “experts” and no one can deliver the results you’re seeking. When I ask what you’ve tried so far, I usually get an impressive list of illustrious coaches or masterminds, book titles, energy healing sessions, and more. It’s clear you’re a “solve the issue” kind of person, which is great.
So why, if you’ve tried so many things, is nothing working? Here’s a story I witnessed personally last year that’ll answer your question.
Samantha joined Capacity Shift™ because she had a decently successful business but had never been able to charge the prices she knew her work was worth. People were used to her ultra-cheap pricing, so whenever she tried to raise it, people stopped signing up. This led to a five-year revenue plateau.
She’d read all the quintessential business books on scaling & pricing. She attended many group coaching events. She’d also tried energy work, crystals, and even Ayahuasca but was still stuck. She joined Capacity Shift when she finally realized it was a capacity issue. Except she never really gave herself the chance to work on her capacity at all. She dipped her toes in but never went in the deep end.
In the first two weeks of the program, she was the “ideal student.” Showing up for everything, actively sharing and posting. I was excited for her because if she kept showing up like this, she was going to see amazing results.
But then she started slipping. She started listening to modules, but not actually doing the assignments. Then she only came to group calls and just “thought” about her capacity instead of doing assignments. She spent the next 7 months showing up 30% for the program yet expecting 100% results.
See the problem?
I get it’s uncomfortable and triggering to face this behavior, but there is some truth to that phrase “how you do anything is how you do everything.” It points to a huge issue that NO ONE can help you with except yourself (or perhaps some therapy, which I always recommend.)
Signing up for things and not showing up for them fully is essentially you not showing up for yourself. When I see people do this in our programs, I don’t take it personally. I know our programs are life-changing… IF YOU SHOW UP FOR THEM.
No amount of capacity work (or any other work!) is going to make you want to show up for yourself. Only you can do that. Stop expecting programs to give you the impetus to value yourself. Stop expecting books, coaches, or experts to miraculously make you want to do the work. That’s something only you can motivate yourself to do. No one is coming to save you. Only you can save you.
When you expect other people, books, or programs to save you or magically give you the motivation to show up, you reinforce the very pattern that keeps you stuck. Which is this:
Deep down, you don’t believe you’re worthy of choosing and showing up for yourself.
You show up 30%, drop out prematurely thinking. “it’s not working like you want it to.” Then, like Samantha, you hop from program to program, book to book, healing modality to modality. You’re hopping around so much you could outhop a frog in a lily pond. You never gave anything a chance to really root in and help you.
You don’t believe you’re worthy of giving yourself the time and space to do the work you’ve needed to do all along, so you keep choosing quick fixes; six-week programs, one-day intensives or one-hour workshops to solve a problem that needs an experienced eye and enough respect for yourself to honor the process, however long it takes.
I often tell people if they stay in Capacity Shift less than a year, they’ve not given themselves their best chance to succeed. I don’t “force” anyone to stay in for that length of time. I’m not in the business of policing my clients.
Our entire business, the way our programs are shaped, and even our processes are designed to encourage full sovereignty of your person. Because I’m not going to accommodate a space where you don’t have to show up for yourself, and I won’t change my entire program to “chase” you if you don’t want to choose yourself.
Do you know how many burned-out business owners I counsel every year who have drained all their energy “chasing” and trying to “keep their clients engaged” with a million “tricks” they’ve learned for “retention” in their programs? Nothing wrong with wanting to increase retention and create a wonderful experience for your clients. But when it turns into desperately trying to motivate people to choose themselves, you’re setting yourself up for codependence and energy drainage to the max.
Shift participants who’ve been in a year or more without putting a time limit on themselves are having the most massive breakthroughs and continuously so. The breakthroughs don’t stop, week after week. Progress is being made in areas they had been stuck in for years because they’re finally giving themselves the space they needed to dig in.
No program, book, coach, or even capacity work can give you self-worth. Stop searching for someone to give you that in everything you sign up for. It’s a decision you have to make for yourself at this very moment. Decide you’re going to reinforce your worthiness by showing up consistently for yourself.
Blaming other people’s programs as “defective” or going on long social media rants about how everyone who hasn’t been able to help you is “a scam” is a distraction. You can’t keep expecting books, programs, or mentors to appear next to you physically and force you to sit down and set the time aside to show up for yourself and do the work.
You must learn to hold yourself accountable. If you can’t do that, you won’t be able to show up as accountable for anything you want in your life. So start building the muscle to choose yourself right now.
What will you do today and the rest of this year to show yourself you’re choosing YOU once and for all?
Want to find out which area of your life is holding you back?