Latest / Impact Ready / 208. The Cost of Inaction: How Fear of Change Blocks Personal Growth

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208. The Cost of Inaction: How Fear of Change Blocks Personal Growth · Impact Ready

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  Welcome to Impact Ready, a show dedicated to helping you elevate
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  your impact in the world. I'm Steph Safra, your host.
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  Let's explore the power of showing up with intention and
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  energy each day. This is for those who seek to
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  make life truly meaningful. Get ready for impact.
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  Hello everyone, welcome to the Impact Ready podcast.
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  Today in this episode, we're going to talk about the cost of
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  inaction and how it relates to the decisions that we make in
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  our life. This is a very big topic for
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  people because one of the biggest things that people
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  struggle with is knowing how and when to move, knowing what
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  decisions to make, whether they should wait or whether they
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  should take action, and everything in between.
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  We talked before on this podcast about the skill that it takes to
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  make decisions. Decision making is actually a
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  skill that you can build, that you can strengthen with
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  practice, putting in the reps, and we've also talked about how
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  to make hard decisions a more straightforward process.
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  Many people think about the cost of a decision by way of their
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  action. They'll think to themselves, OK,
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  if I do this, then this will happen.
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  If I say yes to this, then this will happen.
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  And we can acknowledge that there is a cost to action.
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  It takes courage to move, absolutely.
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  It takes courage to speak up. It takes grit to change your
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  habits and to invest in yourself and to leave what is familiar,
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  absolutely. To create something that's
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  meaningful in your life, that is not always an easy feat.
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  And every meaningful life asks something of us.
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  It asks us to pay admission to these things that we want to
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  experience. And that fee can look like
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  energy or time or money spent. It can look like time, energy
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  spent away from family. Or maybe it's the blood, sweat
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  and tears that you pour into something or even the dark soul
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  of the night that we face at times when we're trying to
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  create or build something. I don't know if you guys have
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  ever been there, but those moments where you feel so lost
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  and in the darkness trying to figure out who am I?
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  What am I doing? What is the message I'm trying
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  to put out in the world? What am I trying to create here?
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  How do I solve these problems? Those are big questions and it
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  can feel heavy and dark sometimes.
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  There is a fee of admission to do the thing you want, and we
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  all pay it in some way. But most people don't think
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  about the cost of inaction. We don't flip the frame and look
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  at what could be lost or costing us if we don't move in our lives
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  or we don't decide and commit to something.
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  In situations where we need to make a decision, we'll often
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  cover it up with excuses or old stories or patterns, or
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  sometimes we'll even deflect or punt the decision down the road
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  under the guise of wisdom. When we tell ourselves things
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  like, oh, the timing isn't right.
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  Oh, I just need to wait for things to settle down.
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  I need to wait for things to line up a little bit more.
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  Now listen, I'm all for divine timing.
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  I actually am the person who believes that the universe
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  conspires to support us and that things don't happen by accident.
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  I am that person. But knowing the difference
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  requires a great amount of self-awareness and attunement.
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  You have to be able to tune in and listen to that inner voice.
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  And we have to get skilled at cutting through the noise and
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  the BS, even our own noise and BS.
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  Because for many people the greater cost is almost always in
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  action. It's not the action we take,
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  it's the in action. In action has a way of
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  disguising itself as safety. It tells us, Oh yeah, there'll
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  be more time later. You can wait.
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  Just pause on this for a while. Don't move, don't make a
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  decision. It tells us, oh, you'll have
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  more confidence later. Yeah, when you get a little more
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  skilled, you can, you can take the action then 'cause maybe
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  you'll be more ready or maybe you'll have more clarity later.
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  Yeah, that's what you need. You need more time to do the
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  research and just get a little more clear.
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  I have done this to myself so many times.
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  I'm actually prone to waiting and pausing and not getting into
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  action more than I am taking the action that I need to take.
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  My wife is actually way better at this than I am.
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  And that's again why you should marry somebody who challenges
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  you because they push you out of your comfort zone.
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  But we convince ourselves that standing still, pausing,
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  waiting, we convince ourselves that that's neutral, when in
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  reality, standing still is still a direction.
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  It's still an active choice that we're making.
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  And The thing is, time keeps moving.
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  People keep moving on, life keeps unfolding, opportunities
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  keep passing. Dreams can disintegrate,
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  opportunities can pass. Relationships will just keep
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  evolving. And the energy changes, the
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  energy of you, the energy of the world, the energy of opportunity
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  that all shifts and changes every day too.
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  And whether we choose intentionally or not, we are
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  still creating a life through our choices every single day.
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  That's the thing about choice. We are always in it, whether we
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  like it, whether we are aware of it or not, it's always happening
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  that we are in choice. Most people dramatically
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  underestimate the impact of small decisions repeated over
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  years. And this is really powerful.
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  It demonstrates the exponential impact of small actions over
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  time. But what if you never took those
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  small actions? What if you never initiated that
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  conversation? What if you kept postponing that
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  dream of yours? What if you never set that
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  boundary? What if you never took that risk
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  in your life 10 years ago? And what about your unique
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  gifts? What if you never brought those
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  to the table and offered those to the world?
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  It's something that we don't think about that much because
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  the tragedy of any of that, any of those small exponential
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  actions, it's not an explosive one.
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  It's actually gradual and quiet and pretty unassuming to the
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  point where you just wake up one day feeling disconnected from
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  yourself, wondering how you arrived somewhere that you never
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  consciously meant to go in a life that you never
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  intentionally designed for yourself.
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  It happens a lot to people. Many of those people come to
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  coaching because they feel so misaligned in their life.
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  When I was thinking about this topic today and what I wanted to
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  say about it, I kept thinking about my grandma, my Grammy.
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  On my mom's side. My Grammy was a really special
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  person to me. She passed away almost three
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  years ago, and she lived a really long life.
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  She was just shy of 96 years old.
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  But my Grammy had a very difficult upbringing and a lot
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  of challenge in her life. She was absolutely a vibrant
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  woman. She had a lot of energy.
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  She was actually pretty magnetic for people who would just meet
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  her. She was charming.
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  She would kind of flirt with them.
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  She would just rope them in and they were in love with her.
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  She was just that kind of a magnetic person.
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  And she and I had a really close bond.
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  I was the oldest grandchild in our family, and so we
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  immediately built a really special relationship.
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  She stayed fit and healthy until the last few years of her life,
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  but she was held back in a lot of ways.
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  She was held back by her emotional pain and her fear.
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  She had a lot of resentment about the things that had
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  happened to her in her life. You know, she never had a lot of
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  money. She worked very hard.
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  Her parents were hard on her. My grandfather, her husband, was
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  an alcoholic until he got sober in his 50s.
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  There was a lot of challenge and a lot of scary things that she
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  went through. She didn't have an opportunity
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  for a lot of ease or rest in her time on earth, and as a result,
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  she had a lot of anger, even though she wouldn't admit to
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  that. It came out of her in different
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  ways, and even when I was younger in my teenage years, I
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  could see this push and pull in her.
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  The part of her that wanted to take a risk and bet on herself
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  and try new things. But then the other half of her
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  that would pull her back, almost as if she was saying to herself
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  she wasn't capable or that it was going to be too hard or it
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  wasn't going to be safe for her to do these things.
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  She was scared. Fear was a powerful underlying
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  current that raged throughout the last few decades of her
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  life, and it got worse as she got older.
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  She was afraid of getting old and losing her capabilities.
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  Even though she was dancing around the kitchen and walking
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  on curbs with me well into her 60s and even her 70s, she didn't
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  like the idea of change. I would often go and visit her.
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  Just me. I would go down to her house a
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  couple days early over the Thanksgiving holiday, or we
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  would meet up for coffee and just talk for a couple of hours.
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  And during those times, she would always ask me what I was
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  doing and you could tell she was intrigued by the things that I
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  did. I remember she was so intrigued
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  by me going to Graduate School and becoming an acupuncturist,
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  me getting tattoos or traveling to different countries around
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  the world. But I could also feel the
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  resistance in her. I could see that those things
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  were exciting to her. She wanted to hear them, but she
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  almost didn't. At the same time, there were
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  things that she wanted for herself, that feeling of novelty
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  and excitement and adventure, but there was also a resolve
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  there that that stuff wasn't for her.
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  Like she couldn't access that. For some reason, she couldn't
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  take the action on the things that she said she would want to
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  do in her life. And I would always encourage
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  her. Go, go do it, Grammy.
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  Get that car that you love instead of driving that maroon
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  sedan that you don't love. Get that big easel for your
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  artwork that you say you want. I know it's, you know, not
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  necessary, but you love it. Go visit some places with your
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  friends that you said you'd want to see.
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  Go travel. You said you want to travel.
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  Go do it. But she wouldn't do it, and I
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  knew that behind all of that were the saboteur voices and the
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  fear of the unknown. And I never begrudged her for
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  that. Honestly, I could see why these
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  patterns were so prominent for her, but it just made me sad.
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  It made me sad to know that there's this person who is so
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  vibrant and yet she couldn't get out of her own way and out of
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  her own inaction. And I still think about that a
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  lot. I think about her often and what
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  she could have done. I wish that she could have been
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  born in a different time with different circumstances.
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  But even then, I don't know if she'd be willing to pay the fee
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  for admission, the fee of discomfort that you have to go
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  through to be able to reach new growth and new heights.
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  And I think of her because the hard truth is that nobody is
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  coming to build your life for you.
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  I felt that so deeply in my life.
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  It resonates with me. But nobody's coming to build my
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  life for me. It's my responsibility.
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  No one can create my health or my purpose or my relationships
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  or my mindset. Nobody can create fulfillment
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  for me, and certainly nobody's going to be able to create my
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  impact on my behalf. Other people can support us or
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  guide us or inspire us, of course.
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  And that is one of the beautiful things about connection and
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  community on this earth. But eventually there comes a
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  moment where you have to decide whether you are going to
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  participate in your own life, fully accepting that your energy
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  matters, your choices matter, your habits that you do
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  everyday, big or small, those really matter.
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  The way that you talk to yourself outwardly and inwardly,
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  that matters. The way that you prepare and
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  show up in your everyday actions with your people at work, just
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  even for yourself, that matters. Impact is not this grand thing
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  that's reserved for famous people or big gestures or the
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  ones with the most accolades or awards.
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  That's not what it's about. Every single one of us has
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  impact in the world. Again, whether we know it or
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  not, or whether we like it or not.
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  Impact is happening all the time through our presence and our
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  consistency, through our courage and simply our willingness to
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  move when action is required, when we need to create that
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  momentum. And momentum is often what
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  changes everything. I know you know this.
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  I know that you've felt some of these things before.
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  But think about how one difficult conversation can
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  restore a relationship. How one brave decision alter the
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  trajectory of a career or a life.
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  How one commitment to your health can give you decades of
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  energy back. I see that all the time in my
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  next level nutrition groups. One moment of ownership can
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  interrupt years of blame and resentment or stagnation.
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  I wish that my Grammy could have taken that one moment because
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  contrary to my teenage self's worldview, the future of our
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  life, it's not built in these giant cinematic moments.
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  I always used to think that it would be like this grand moment,
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  like a lightning bolt moment where everything would change.
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  But I've realized over time that it's not that.
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  It's built in the small moments where people either move or they
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  avoid moving. And that really sticks with me,
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  'cause what is lost through an action is not just our
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  opportunities, but it is our sense of identity or confidence.
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  It's our sense of aliveness and self trust and potential.
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  It's this version of ourselves that might have existed if we
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  had been willing to answer the call that kept pulling at us.
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  At some point, every person has to decide whether they want
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  comfort or they want expansion, whether they want to preserve
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  the familiar scenery that is around them, or they get
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  involved in the creation of something greater in their life.
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  And the people who create meaningful impact, they are
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  rarely fearless. Rarely fearless.
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  They're simply willing to move before they feel fully ready.
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  Like I say to myself all the time, move despite the fear
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  stuff. And so this week, I challenge
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  you to get out of in action and move despite the fear.
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  Pay the fee for admission to whatever it is that you want to
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  create in your life. Get out of the comfort and into
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  the growth and expansion that you know will create something
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  different for yourself. I know for me, the last thing I
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  want is to be looking back on my life and saying I wish I would
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  have had the courage to do these things.
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  So I hope that this episode spurs on some thought for you
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  and gives you a little courage to rise up and get into some
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  action. I hope you have a fantastic rest
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  of your week. I appreciate you being here and
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  as always, team, thank you for being ready to Impact.
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  Thanks for listening to Impact Ready.
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  I hope today's episode inspired you to own your impact and
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  recognize that you are powerful. By elevating our energy and
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  awareness, we can create exponential change in this life.
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  If you enjoyed today's insights, share them with a friend and
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  subscribe to the show for more. I truly appreciate you.
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  Thanks again for being here.