Ep #59: Ease vs. Evolving

Welcome to The Life Coach School Podcast where it's all about real clients, real problems, and real coaching. And, now your host, Master Coach Instructor Brooke Castillo.

Hey, everyone. What's happening? How are you guys? I have been having so much fun hearing from you. I recently sent out a seven email blast. I emailed you guys every day for seven days if you are on the email list. I never do that usually, I only email once a week. I sent out the email to really educate everybody on my list about what my in-person trainings are about, what life coaching is about, really give some detailed information. What I found out was that so many of you are interested that I didn't know were interested and so many of you asked me for more information and asked me questions and really appreciated the emails. I think I'm like one of those people that kind of worries, "Oh, my gosh. I don't want to email too much. I don't want to bother my people and then I forget that maybe sometimes they want more information. Sometimes you guys all need more information.

What I did is I decided, you know, everybody on my email list I want them to be totally engaged with me. I want them to be really interested in what I'm sending them. I recently went and met with my business coach and one of the things that, he had like a guest speaker there, and one of the guys what he said was that, if you are emailing people who have opted in to your list and they're not opening your stuff, it like counts against you. It makes it look like you're spamming people because basically they opted in voluntarily but they're not opening what you're giving them. What he says is go into your list and, if someone hasn't opened your emails for a while, then just delete them. Oh, my God, that's so brutal.

There's a lot of people I like to follow. I don't read all their emails all the time but like, every once in a while, I like to see what's happening. I wouldn't like it if someone did that to me. I figured if I sent you seven emails and you got really annoyed, you'd probably unsubscribe and that would be kind of a self-selection process. Those of you who are engaged would love it. That's kind of what I did. Of course, I didn't have many unsubscribes at all, which I was very worried about, and I got tons more engagement. For those of you who are coaches that's just something to kind of think about.

Today, we're going to talk about ease versus evolving. The reason why I want to talk about this is because I've actually been thinking about it a lot and teaching about it a lot lately. I, as you know, train life coaches and many of them want to establish themselves in careers and become entrepreneurs and build businesses. There is a misconception that is out there on the planet, only directed at life coaches, I'm not sure why, that building a business should feel easy and it should feel like ease. If it's something that you're meant to do, it will feel good in your bones. I do think that there is some truth to that, in the sense that I think when you are heading in the right direction, there's something really deep inside of you that knows that. I think that the part of you that's deep inside of you that knows that is the desire.

So many of my coaches have this crazy desire to build a business and be successful and live their life in the life coaching lifestyle. But, where they get tripped up is in this idea that it shouldn't ever be a struggle or it shouldn’t be hard or it shouldn’t challenge them. That's not true, folks. Anything that you are wanting in your life that starts as that seed of desire, I believe is an invitation to evolve. You have to, in order to evolve into the next best version of yourself, you have to change. Change is rarely a comfortable process. Change usually requires a lot of courage. It requires facing old belief systems that are holding you stagnant. It requires you to really become someone different, honestly.

As I'm working with my master coaches and master coach training, one of the things that I tell them is that, "Your identity crisis is inevitable and it's part of the process. Don't be alarmed when you start having an identity crisis because you're going to have to let go of who you were to become who you're going to become." That process requires a lot of challenge and sometimes a lot of struggle. If your goal is to be at ease in your life all of the time and to be comfortable all of the time, it's going to be very challenging for you to evolve. It's going to be very challenging for you to build a business, or anything else you want to do in your life, maybe it’s a change of career, change of relationship, create something new, create a piece of art, anything like that.

One of the things that I want to offer to you is that evolving, even though it comes with challenges, is what we're meant to do. I believe it's why we're here on the planet. I believe it's why we have desires that are outside of our reach. This goes against what a lot of people would say. Like, if you have a desire that's out of your reach and when you start thinking about that desire, if it brings up your doubt and your frustration, then it means, "Oh, that's something I shouldn't do." That creates tension. The reason that it creates tension is because it brings up everything that needs to be healed, that needs to be evolved. And, that feels like anything but ease. It's not easy. That brings up doubt, frustration, lack of self-belief, lack of self-esteem, lack of self-confidence, everything. And, I will tell you, I feel very confident in my life. When I'm evolving to the next version of what I want to create in my life, all of that comes up for me. That is part of the deal.

Here's kind of how I think this process needs to go. You need to think about, first and foremost, am I seeking ease and safety and security and sameness? Or, am I seeking to evolve? Tell yourself the truth. There is nothing wrong. This is kind of like the one we did on ambition, right? There's nothing wrong with not wanting to evolve. There's nothing wrong with it if that's your choice, but own that choice. Don't tell yourself, "Oh, I can't," or, "It's not possible,” or “I just haven't figured it out yet." Just tell yourself, "I'm choosing not to do it." But, if you're choosing to evolve kind of into that next version of yourself, that growth, if you're choosing to do that, own that decision as well. Then, ask yourself this, "What is the benefit of evolving for me? What is the cost of not evolving?" That will really give you your "why" behind what you're doing.

You are going to need it, my friends. Whether you're trying to lose weight or build your business or improve your relationship or just improve yourself. You're going to need that. Why? Because what happens right after you make that decision to evolve? All hell is going to break loose. Every reason why you haven't evolved is going to come up. It's not going to be pretty. Don't plan on it being pretty. You're going to whine. You're going to cry. You're going to doubt. You're going to want to hide. You're going to be frustrated. You're going to want to be comfortable. You're going to want to seek pleasure. It's what happens.

This is how evolving happens, if you decide that you're going to. You choose a stretch goal. That means it's a goal that's out of your reach. Right now, it's going to require you to evolve. I'm always saying that the best goals are the ones that require you to become the person that you want to become. You, but just better, a better version of yourself. I'm not talking about your soul. I'm not talking about your essence. You can’t improve upon that. That's just done. That's just awesome. I'm talking about how you're manifesting in the world, how you're showing up on the planet, how much of that soul, how much of that essence is being brought forward here.

Decide what that stretch goal is for you. Let it kind of scare the hell out of you. Don't be afraid. Don't say, "Oh, I don't want to be disappointed, so I'm just going to set a little goal." No. Like really think about what is the stretch goal that will cause you to evolve. Then, notice what comes up for you. Do you believe it's possible? Like really wrap your mind around, believing that it's possible. Go there. Visualize it. Taste it. As soon as you do, all the obstacles will start to appear. That's okay. That's part of the process. Write down the obstacles. Write down the fears.

I was just coaching someone yesterday on our public coaching call. (If you want to join us there, I coach for free every other Wednesday. You can go to the lifecoachschool.com, go to pubic coaching call, and opt in.) What we do on that call is people volunteer. Someone volunteered to be coached and one of the things that she said to me was like, "I can't access my thoughts. I don't know what I'm thinking." As I was coaching her, what I realized was that it wasn't the she wasn't thinking, it wasn't that she wasn't having thoughts. It was that she was dismissing them, because they were negative. She wasn't acknowledging them. They seemed negative and illogical so she wouldn't even let them have a space in her mind. She would just delete them as soon as she saw them and try to swap them for a better thought.

I told her that was a mistake, like she really needs to look at them and own them, and own her doubts, and own her frustrations, and own all of that thinking. Because, when you give it consciousness, when you give awareness to it, then you have authority over it. As you set that stretch goal, as you start thinking about the person that you want to evolve into and the next version of that maybe it’s twenty pounds lighter, maybe it's dating a bunch of men until you find Mr. Right, maybe it's growing your business. Whatever it is, focus on that. Then, process those beliefs. What I mean by process them is look at them with compassion and acceptance and understanding. Do not try and change them immediately. Because, then, the trouble of that, the woman on the public coaching call did, is that she couldn't even understand why she wasn't taking action. She wasn't even aware of the thoughts that were stumping her.

Then, what will come next is your full on identity crisis. What that means is you're going to have to sacrifice those indulgent beliefs and feelings in order to move forward. I talked about this on our call about indulgent feelings and talking about how we're either indulging in comfort and security and righteousness or we're allowing ourselves to feel courageous and committed to something. This is where you're going to have to make that decision because it's not going to feel like peace. It's not going to feel like ease as you are evolving. Once you've evolved into that space, then you're going to feel much more at peace. The identity crisis that you're going to have in the meantime is not going to be enjoyable, right? It's not going to be anything but ease.

As you evolve, it becomes less and less uncomfortable. Because what happens is you're required to acquire a whole new set of belief systems, a whole new way of thinking in order to take action in a whole new way. That's what your identity is built up of, right? It's all of the thoughts in your mind, all of your opinions about what you're capable of, about what you can do, about what you can't do. In order to evolve, you have to change what you think you're capable of. That has to happen before the result. If you think about the model, the thought happens, then the feeling, then the action, then the result. We want the result to change so we can change our thinking. Of course, the thinking has to change first.

Not only do you evolve your thoughts, but then you'll notice that your emotions will evolve from a place of ease and security and safety and maybe restlessness into courage and commitment and determination. The problem is courage, commitment and determination do not feel as good as ease, peace, and contentment. In order to evolve, we have to let go of some comfort and maybe some safety and go into some determination and some commitment and some courage. That's why most of us like to stay the same because we're like, "Why would I go into a less desirable ‘emotion’ even though it's more useful? Why would I do that when I'm already in such a place of contentment?" The answer to that question is because you want to evolve. Because evolving to you is more important than staying in a place of comfort. The other thing that happens for so many of us is that place of comfort starts to create a lot of restlessness. It actually becomes uncomfortable in our comfort. Because there is that desire, that seed of desire within us, urging us to evolve. That's why I believe that we are destined to evolve in our life on the planet.

Because I think whenever we are stagnant for too long, it becomes literally painful for some of us to stay in the same place and not to evolve into the next version of ourselves. That does not mean we have to create a business. It does not mean we have to do some big dramatic thing in the world. It may just mean that we want to be kinder to ourselves. We want to be kinder to other people. We want to take better care of ourselves. It can be a subtle evolvement. It doesn't have to be something that you're going to get a lot of applause from or that other people would even notice.

When I looked up the word "evolve," one of the things that it said was cumulative changes over time. I like that. I like that they're cumulative. It's like that every time we evolve, then it just adds on to how much we've evolved. I mean you can look at how much you've evolved from when you were maybe eighteen. Hopefully, you've evolved since then. Because it's so important to remember that there are times we are forced into evolving. We would never choose to. That's how most of us evolve. We get kicked out of our parent's house. We go to college. We get married. We have kids. As soon as you have kids, we are definitely forced to evolve. There's no real option there.

The question becomes, when you're not forced to evolve, are you going to continue to evolve? Some of the words that they use to describe evolving are grow, mature, advance, open, unfold and build. I love those synonyms for evolve. Then, I looked up some antonyms for the word evolve, and there was stop, lesson, hide, diminish, block. I thought that was so interesting because if you're not evolving, you're stopping, you're diminishing, you're hiding. That's the antonym of it. I really feel that for myself. Like, how often I hide from the opportunity to evolve.

This is just one of those things that I think you have to think about in terms of what you want your life to look like. What you want to do with the rest of the time you have left on the planet. In another fifteen years, do you want to have grown on purpose? You're going to grow because you're going to be forced into some evolving situations. That I can guarantee and I think that is why the planet is set up the way it is because, "Hey. If you don't want to evolve, if you're not going to make that choice, we'll take care of it for you."

God or the universe or whatever terminology you use for that force that's out there, it will create it for you if you don't choose it for yourself. But, I like to live my life from a proactive place where I'm choosing those opportunities to evolve. What I find is, the better I get at evolving because of those choices I make, then when I'm forced into evolving, it's like I have that skill set. I know how to adapt to change, I know how to deal with my mind, I know how to take care of myself.

This week, I really just want you to think about what is your life going to be. Can it be in a flow of ease and then evolve, and then ease and then evolve, and then ease. Do you always have to be in ease? Or are you always seeking ease? Where will that take you? That's a really cool way to think about it, like if you evolve, do you believe on the other side of the evolvement is even more ease than there is now. I do believe that for myself and for everything that I do in my life.

That's what I'm leaving you with today. Ask yourself that question. Choose a stretch goal. Believe in it and then allow the identity crisis to happen so you can evolve into the next best version of yourself. Talk to you guys next week. Take care. Bye bye.

Thank you for listening to The Life Coach School Podcast. It would be incredibly awesome if you would take a moment to write a quick review on iTunes. For any questions, comments or coaching issues you'd like to hear on the show, please visit us at www.thelifecoachschool.com.