Smart & stuck.  How does that happen?

I hear some version of this frustration weekly from my clients and from myself.  Sometimes I notice that I feel more than frustration.  There’s confusion and sadness with a heavy dose of self-criticism.   

What I’ve come to realize recently is the distinction between confidence and self-worth.  I earned a certification in confidence coaching from the American Confidence Institute and studied the brain science behind self-confidence.  Becoming a confident person is an inside job, a choice, and a practice.  My clients are confident.  I am too.    

So then why do we feel stuck?  

Why do we procrastinate?

Why do our goals allude us year by year?

Why do we settle?

Why do we say “yes” when we want to say “no?”

Why can’t we take the courageous step?  

Why do we limit ourselves?  

Why do we work against our own best interests?  

It’s called the self-worth ceiling.  

Recently, I listened to an interview with Jamie Kern Lima, founder of IT Cosmetics, during which she talked about her forthcoming book, Worthy.  The conversation offered a framework about why a confident person can feel like like we’re not enough, why we believe the lies operating on the subconscious level that lead to self-doubt, and the reasons we don’t become what we want.  

According to Kern Lima’s research, the three human fears of failure, regret, and rejection that we study in confidence literature are also part of self-worth expansion.  In her podcast interview with Ed Mylett, the author shared that we don’t soar to the level of our dreams and goals because we stay stuck at the level of our self-worth in career, relationships, health, and other ambitions.  We don’t rise to what’s possible because we hit the self-worth ceiling.   (Start at minute 27 to listen to Jamie’s story of body shaming in the beauty industry.)

One of biggest challenges to self-worth is fear of rejection.  A key strategy that improved Kern Lima’s journey of self-worth was reframing her relationship with rejection.  Notice that she didn’t distance herself from rejection.  She didn’t avoid rejection.  She defined it for herself.

Step 1 – Identify your current definition of rejection. What do we make rejection mean about ourselves?

Step 2 – Create a new definition of rejection that you are willing to believe and practice.  It disrupts the previous definition and becomes believable.   

Step 3 – Practice it daily. 

My intense definitions of rejection used to sound like this:

• “Rejection is more proof that you’re uniquely f*cked up.”
• “You have to avoid rejection or we’re all doomed.”  
• “Rejection and failure follow me.”

In full transparency, these long held beliefs still show up sometimes in my nervous system and in my self-worth ceiling.  However, alongside the remnants of those old definitions, is the momentum of my intentional definitions of rejection.  One of Jamie’s new rejection definitions is: “You’re not crazy.  You’re just first.”

My personal reframed definitions that I’ve been practicing for the last three years are:

• “It’s my fire walk of impact.”  
• “Rejection is data.”  
• “Rejection is to be expected not feared.”
• “My future self is on the other side of my fear.”

When I notice the old definitions creeping in, I know that it’s go time.  I remember that I’m taking the courageous step and that’s what I, a self-proclaimed Trailblazer, do in this life.  

Oh, and disrupting the old lies is usually uncomfortable.  That’s why I don’t go it alone.  I talk with my coach and my community of trusted advisors who I lovingly refer to as my personal Trailblazer Collective. You don’t have to go it alone either.  Remember that’s one of those old rejection beliefs.