lisa fabrega
Last week I introduced you to Part 1 of the “Why You’re Stuck” series. We talked about how being stuck is a capacity issue and I laid out my case for the first reason why you’re stuck. If you haven’t read it yet, make sure you catch it here.
We’re exploring this from an angle I haven’t really seen a lot of people talk about. Today, we’re covering Reason #2 you’re stuck. This one’s verrrryyy sneaky, tricky, and often lays dormant in your subconscious.
2) You’re unconsciously hoping someone’s going to do the work for you.
Many years ago, a woman signed up for one of our group masterminds. She paid every month, yet barely showed up for any of the group calls and never posted or interacted in our Facebook group.
One of the things I’ve always told my clients when they sign up to work with me is this: “I see you as a sovereign being. I will not chase you. If I were to see or treat you as anything else, I’d have no business being your coach.”
I assumed she wasn’t showing up for a good reason and was adult enough to do her work at her own pace. But a few months into the program, I got a long, angry email from her complaining she hadn’t seen any changes and wasn’t receiving enough support.
A very odd complaint. First, because the program had no less than four layers of support, so there was no way you’d ever “not get enough support”. And secondly, how could she see changes if she wasn’t participating?
We got on the phone and I dug beyond the complaint. Something deeper was going on. My hunch: this was a capacity issue she’d been struggling with for a looong time.
She’d tried a gazillion programs and nothing worked. She blamed and badmouthed all the previous coaches and programs. After a tough but powerful conversation, she came to a realization: she’d been throwing money at a coach/program subconsciously hoping it was going to do the heavy lifting for her.
That wasn’t the coach/program’s fault. She brought unspoken and impossible expectations into every new program she joined, which blocked her results.
Unconsciously, she assumed just paying to be in the program would mean all her self-sabotaging behaviors would magically stop on their own. As if I or any other coach/support system had the ability to control her every self-sabotaging thought and behavior.
Most online programs are built in this very “we will tell you every single little thing to do” mode. For how-to type of skills this is a good way to teach. But using these types of teaching methods for capacity issues which require much more depth, nuance and attention is like putting a flimsy bandaid on a wound which needs nuanced care from an expert plastic surgeon.
You get so used to being TOLD what to do in DIY programs of this nature, you don’t build your capacity to tap into your own inner wisdom and tell yourself what to do. Take enough of these types of programs and you won’t be able to make a move until an “expert” tells you. But YOU’RE the best expert on you. In the end, you have to do the work.
A coach can walk beside you in your transformation, help you make HUGE shifts in your life and create your dreams. They can provide the accountability you need and call you out. But they don’t have a “chip” they can install in your brain to tell you to stop thinking a negative thought. They aren’t at your house slapping your hand away from a “bad” behavior.
You’re giving your power away when you make change fully dependent on something/someone outside of you.
Coaches/supporters can teach you techniques which give you more capacity to handle self sabotage so it doesn’t sidetrack you. But it’s you and only you who decides to stop it when the opportunity for sabotage comes up.
They can help you see how to make better, more aligned decisions, but a good coach doesn’t make the decisions for you. They can, in conjunction with your inner wisdom, show you how to make more money and get the results you want. But it’s YOU who has to employ the techniques, has to make the sales and show up to deliver what you sold.
Your coach can create a container where it’s easier for you to trust, but it’s YOU who chooses to trust in the end. Your coach can’t get into your mind and heart to choose this for you.
You can’t empower anyone or anything with something you haven’t already empowered yourself with. No program, no matter how good, will make you magically decide to actually do something about your situation. The decision starts with and comes from within you.
There’s an exercise I teach my clients in Capacity Work™. I call it “getting fed up”. While I can’t go into the nuances of it here, I can tell you the powerful effect this exercise has. When my clients do it, they get truly fed up with the way they keep abdicating responsibility for their lives.
THAT’S when you know you’re ready to hire someone and do the work of expanding your capacity. Because now you’re truly sick of the excuses you keep making. Now YOU are taking responsibility for what’s yours. And this means you’re going to co-create with your coach. Not abdicate all choices for your life to them.
Transformation doesn’t happen through inbox-osmosis.
You have to actually decide to DO it yourself.
In our next and final post, i”m going to give you the third reason why you’re stuck. I know this one is totally going to catch you off guard. I also happen to know no one is giving you this particular type of advice for getting unstuck. It kind of flies in the face of all convention.
See you in the next post for Part 3 in our “Why You’re Stuck” series.
If you’re starting to have your eyes opened to the capacity issues keeping you stuck and you want to talk about what working together would look like to get you unstuck… fill out the Capacity Discovery form here.
We have programs which start at only $375 a month and I have ONE spot open right now for 1:1 work with me (almost never available). There’s something for everyone!