Have you no self-pride? No Self respect?!

That was the voice that was echoing around my head the morning I decided to change. I knew their behavior wasn’t acceptable, I knew I deserved better and I knew was capable of more… so why hadn’t I done something about it for so many years?

Why hadn’t I spoken up before?

Why hadn’t I challenged their behavior at the beginning?

Was my sense of self worth so low that I believed I deserved that type of behavior?

I guess the answer was yes... what other reason could there be?

The other reason it turns out was that on a sub conscious level it didn’t feel safe to challenge it. My imagined consequences of what would happen if I did speak up were life threatening. That’s the truth and it’s the same truth that I see in my clients today.

Different people, different situations, different feared outcomes but the same basic fear.

What connected them all was the fact that the fear itself was imagined, and although very real in our heads and certainly not impossible, in truth it was also unlikely to happen. Not only that, even if the worst case did happen these individuals, myself included, did experience what we feared, the truth is that we all had what it took to manage that situation and not only survive the aftermath but live a better life the other side of that situation.

So why did we all stay stuck in that situation for so long?

How did we justify the situations to ourselves?

Why did we ignore the truth?

And, how did we finally change?

Firstly because we rationalized that it wasn’t so bad. It’s wasn’t such a big deal.

• Not getting credit for the idea wasn’t such a big deal, the most important thing is that the idea was good, it was implemented and the project was a success.

• Not voicing your opinion in the meeting wasn’t such a big deal, what was more important was that you followed up afterwards and your knowledge was shared.

• Not giving the welcome speech yourself wasn’t a big deal, your colleague has better language skills and presented a more professional image for the company.

All of these might seem like small innocent instances, but the attitude behind them is dangerous because each time it happens on a subconscious level we’re affirming that our value is less than those around us and the more we let it happen the more we believe that’s all we deserve.

Secondly, we stayed stuck because the internal voice saying that change was dangerous was louder than the voice saying we deserved more. 

It was louder and more frequent and we didn’t have support from the outside to help us change. Why, because it was convenient for the others around us when we stayed in that quite submissive state and because no one knew we had more to say, more to offer. We were keeping ourselves prisoner, we were silencing ourselves.

So what changed?

In the majority of cases we read or heard someone talking about how they had changed, about the challenges they had faced, the fears they had experienced and the success on the other side of the the fear.

All of us also had the support of a mentor or coach to help challenge our behavior, help us undercover the truth and make changes that needed to happen, step by step.

Perhaps, if you've read this far, this article and what comes next is what you need to hear to start making changes for yourself, to see what it is that you’re doing to yourself. 

If you're uncertain if you're doing this to yourself listen out for these red flags:

• It’s just the way they are

• It’s just who I am

• It’s they way its always been done

• It’s nothing personal

• I’m not the sort of person who…

• I couldn’t possibly

• They just can’t help themselves

• ‘John/Janet’ is so much better at …

• It’s not soooo bad.

These are all indicators of justifying a behavior and justification is an indication that something’s not right.

It’s a lot harder to challenge behavior and bring about change once it gets set in stone… but not impossible.  So do yourself a favor and when you hear your inner voice whispering that something isn’t right, listen to it and take action before it has to shout to be heard… because when it stops shouting you have a bigger problem… a life of disappointment and disrespect.

Need help? Dm me