Recently, a bunch of the people in Sam’s Pro Club are having huge breakthroughs. They’re all of a sudden making way more money than they’re used to, or they’ve gotten way more people in their classes than they’re used to, or they’re realizing that their marketing is kind of working, cause marketing works.
So, they’re having these things happen, and no sooner does it feel like they’ve made a commitment to doing something differently and everything falls to pieces. Health crisis, financial crisis, car needs four new tires. All kinds of things happen and it can feel like the message is I should change back. I shouldn’t try this new thing. I should step back a little bit. And the fact of the matter is nope, these troubles and these difficulties are the dragons at the gates. And I have a couple of theories about this that I’ve floated over the years.
Theory #1: Shit Happens
My first theory is that in general, life just happens. I am not one of those people who believes like, Oh, you manifested it.
Shit just happens- people get sick, things fall apart. It happens.
But, because you have moved into a new way of being, because you have made a new decision about how you want to be in the world, you’re going to react to it differently. You’re not going to go into your same usual pattern. There’s a crisis in the family, and your pole is to slot right back into that same family role that you always fulfill.
When shit goes wrong, it’s easy to fall back to the comfortable cause that’s where you feel safe. There is a certain safety, even in the behaviors we hate. It still feels safe.
Theory #2: New Pain Is Worse Than Old Pain
My second theory is I think that new pain is worse than old pain. Let me give this example: everybody’s got their physical weakness. There’s some part of your body that if you’re going to get sick or if you’re going to get injured, that’s where it’s going to happen. Mine is my lungs. If I’m going to get sick, it’s bronchitis or pneumonia. Every time. On the other hand, I have a cast iron stomach. I never get an upset stomach.
So, if I start to feel that throaty heavy feeling, I’m like, Oh, it’s bronchitis. I know what this is. I know how to deal with it. It’s not fun, but it’s okay. Upset stomach, however, I’m like what is this, what’s happening to me? Am I dying? I think I might be dying. What is this feeling I’m having? Cause it’s new. So I don’t really know the parameters of the pain yet. I don’t know how long it’s going last or, or how bad it’s going to get.
So when you up-level your life, start to make more money, have more clients, do bigger work in the world, or stand up for yourself a little bit more… and then you get some pushback or you get some fallout or some pain around it, it feels worse. Cause you don’t know what it is yet.
The first troll who comments on your thing is going to devastate you, the first person who asked for a refund, it’s going to devastate you. The first critical remark you get about, Oh, her work is not that great. It’s going to devastate you by the hundred.
And then you’re going to be like, Oh yeah. Some people react that way. Sometimes people ask for a refund. That happens, right?
Here’s what to do: even though the shifts feel really radical, we’re really only making one degree shifts. You are one degree away from everything you want. You are one degree away from everything going perfectly. You are one degree away from being able to bring in exactly the life you want to be leading. And we know that, right? Because first of all, people are pretty consistent. You’re still you- you’re still the person you’ve always been.
But the little one degree shifts- we know this for rocket ships, right? If you do a one degree shift, it’s going to take the rocket ship to a totally different destination. So remember that, even though the shifts feel huge, and they feel huge to tell your family, “Nope, I’m not available on Saturday cause I have to write”… it might feel huge to claim that 15 minutes every day.
One of the ways you want to hang on to who you are is by having a mantra. Having some word or phrase that you can repeat to yourself that you can hang on to when it feels like the crazy town winds are blowing. One we’ve used is that I got from David Nagel is “nothing is more important than my transformation.”
Read the books that nourish you, block out the noises that deplete you, and know that you will get to the other side.
