48. Stop Waiting to Arrive: A Better Way to Think About Growth

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: Hello friends, welcome back to the podcast. I have an episode for all of you today that is a little bit more off the cuff. I don't have it as polished as many of my other episodes because it's something that has come up with multiple clients of mine and I just wanted to jump on and record something because I've heard it over and over again enough and I actually started experiencing it within myself. So I'm like, huh. This must be living in the collective consciousness. So I wanted to create an episode ⁓ really to bring this to you. And it's a different way to think about growth. Okay, so what do I mean by that? I mean how when we think about ⁓ growing like our goals or growing as humans, as people, as becoming better versions of ourselves. So I think most people, or at least my experience is that many people believe that growth is you're going from point A to point B. And it's like you're going to some place and then when you get there, you will finally be whatever. You'll finally be ready. You'll finally be a leader. You'll finally have more visibility, more success. You'll finally be able to be more confident. You won't have imposter syndrome anymore. All of those things. There's a thought that when you get to this place, you are going to feel better and all of a sudden your dreams are all going to come true. And I think that's a fallacy and it's really, really hard for us to live our lives like that because what that does to us is it tells us that number one, we are not there yet. If I'm waiting to get to this place, then I'm not at that place. And if I'm not at that place, it means that where I am is not enough. means that where I am, I'm still waiting for something. And when we think about growth that way, it also means that You have to get to somewhere, but how will you know when you're there? How will you know that other place over there is so elusive? Where is over there? Where are you going? How like, how will you know? And sometimes I ask my clients these questions and they'll say when I have X number of followers or when I make X number of dollars. And I want to tell you that if you think that yourself, that I will finally be able to speak my truth, be more visible. Be more courageous, have more confidence when this happens. I want to tell you that it's highly, highly unlikely. And let me just give you personal experience, a story about myself. Many, many years ago, when I first started my online coaching business, I came from a pattern. So used to have this patterned way of thinking that I wasn't doing enough and it caused me to overwork. And the, how that protected me is that I would overwork a lot and I would create a lot and I would gain all these like accolades and success. The shadow side of that, because everything has a shadow side is that I was always creating from a place of inadequacy. So when I first started my business, I had this thought when I make X number of dollars, let's just say six figures, I'm finally going to be successful. And then I did it. And when I did it, it didn't feel like anything. I didn't feel like, ⁓ I did it. I'm finally successful. Ooh, fireworks. I didn't feel any of that. And then I did it again and I made more money. Same thing. I didn't feel anything. And I started realizing like, uh-huh, I told myself that I was going to finally feel all these things and then I'm there and I don't feel any of it. Why? Because it's not that place that causes you to feel growth. So there is no there. And I think that's really important because The other thing that happens when you are thinking that you're waiting for this other elusive to get to this elusive place to finally feel a certain way is that you are blocking yourself from fully accepting where you are right now. Not just from fully accepting it, but from fully loving where you are right now, accepting it, loving it, being at peace with where you are. And if you don't accept where you currently are right now, It's going to be really hard for you to move past it because what you are doing when you're not accepting it is you are resisting it. You are resisting where you are. And as Carl Jung says, what you resist will persist. So if you are resisting where you are because you think you're inadequate, you're not good enough yet, you're not speaking enough yet, you don't have enough followers, whatever, whatever the story is you're telling yourself, you're going to stay stuck in that space. I coach this. this really awesome physician coach and she's an entrepreneur. She's one of my clients and she has a really successful clinical practice. Started this coaching business and has a ton of visibility online. And I bring her example up because when she first decided she wanted to get actual coaching clients, she started off with small goals. I just want one. I just want two. ⁓ and then she would get them and she'd feel really good. And I had another client who's like, nope, want 15, I want 20, big goals, beautiful, all for them. But she was the opposite. When she didn't hit that, she was so hard on herself. She would really go down on herself and start feeling really disappointed. She'd have like three or four clients, but still wouldn't feel good about it. And so I'm sharing those two stories because it doesn't matter where, like your goals totally matter. where you want to go matters, but how you get there matters even more. And how you feel on the way there is going to matter. So that first example of that first client who was setting smaller goals, she was feeling really good about herself all the way there. Calm, present, regulated nervous system versus my other client who was feeling disappointed, upset, dysregulated all the way there. And they both eventually got to the same place. So, I'll start with this. First of all, there is no there. Wherever you think you're going to go and start feeling better, that does not exist. That place does not exist. You get to do that now. And the way you do that is by fully accepting where you are right now. Because what if that place you're getting to is just now? What if that's just today? Because what you're actually doing when you're telling yourself that you're waiting for there is you're blocking yourself from fully accepting. and loving yourself where you are right now. And the faster you can love yourself and the more deeply you can love and accept yourself where you are right now, the easier it's gonna be for you to continue to move forward. I'll give you an example, another example. So I'm in my mid-40s and okay, a lot of things change when we go through hormone changes in our mid-40s and 50s. One big thing that I started noticing is my fat distribution. I started getting a lot of extra adipose tissue or fat tissue around my belly. And I have always been an athlete. I've always run. I've always been athletic. And I, I've been super, super fortunate that genetics and other things, haven't had a lot of belly fat. And when I started noticing that I was like, okay, this is happening. Like I'm going through life transition. And there were two ways for me to approach this. One is I could have been super upset. I could have been really resistant. Why is this happening? I can't believe I'm getting older. This is so frustrating, so annoying. Or I could approach it with acceptance. Okay, well here I am. This is happening. I see it very clearly. What am I gonna do about it? That is why acceptance is so powerful because when you can accept where you are in the moment, it totally unlocks possibilities. What's possible? What else can I do? What can I do about this? So for me, I'm like, okay, here I am. What can I do about it? All right. So I did a lot of research and it turns out that the same exact things that you do before you turn 40, you got to do when you're 40, no sugar, no alcohol, a ton of like exercise. There's no secret to how do you stay healthy and fit when you're over 40. It's all the same things from before, except I don't metabolize sugar and alcohol. I mean, I don't really drink alcohol anyway, but sugar, like I don't metabolize that as well. So I don't have as much sugar anymore. Smaller portions stay super active, really fit, lift a lot of weights. And so that's what I'm doing. No magic pill, just doing the work. But I had to know that this is where I was fully accepted and then go to work to create the results I wanted to create. So when we're talking about growth and growing into the next version of ourselves or what we want to create, The first thing we got to do is accept 100 % where we are right now. Where we are right now. I had another client who, I think this is probably what triggered this episode. My client said, I worked through all of my shame. I don't have any more shame anymore. I'm shame free. That's what she said, I'm shame free. And the reason why that came up is because they wanted to post on social media. They want more social media following, but they're not. And I said, why aren't you doing that? And her response is, I don't want to be judged. And I'm like, ⁓ that's interesting because I thought you were shame free. And so I just think it's so important for us to notice those absolutes. When we are growing, absolutes are what's going to keep us small. Absolutes is perfectionist thinking. It's fantasy thinking. It's like the all or nothing black and white thinking, catastrophic thinking. They all mean the same thing. When you think like, I've overcome my perfectionism, I no longer experience shame. Those types of things, they're going to keep us boxed in because they're black and white thinking. Yeah, maybe you don't experience shame anymore when it comes to these things, but shame is a human emotion. It might come up later. You know, it's like, so I want us to be really careful because we put ourselves in a box. It's okay to say I've worked through a lot of these things, but to say I'm... ⁓ I'm complete. I'm whole. I no longer experience whatever. That's a trap. That's a brain trap. That's a perfectionist thinking mental trap. And so I want us just to be really, really careful when you're thinking about growing and expanding that everything is stages. Maybe you got over it over here, but you might experience it at your next level of growth, the same thing. And you want to leave room for it. Leave room so that you can notice it. And that, cause when you think that you're completely over something, I've already dealt with that. I've solved it. I'm good. And then it shows up again at your next level of growth. It causes a whole bunch of disappointment, disappointment and sadness. And then you'll have thoughts like, I thought I already worked through that. I thought I didn't have shame anymore. I can't believe this is showing up again. And it just makes it harder for us. It emotionally harder and it's more time consuming. And it causes us to have less self-compassion. And self-compassion is magic. I have a lot of episodes about self-compassion. So you want to make sure that you're leaving space to know that we're human. Every time we grow, new things are going to show up for us. And some of the old patterns might show up again at another level that we get to work through again at another level. And all of that is okay. Doesn't mean we're going backwards. We never go backwards. It just means it's showing up for us again. So I want you to think of growth instead of I'm at point A and I have to get over here to point B. Instead, I want you to think of growth as expansion. I am whole and centered and complete where I am today. My growth means I'm expanding. It's like your auric energetic field is expanding up and around you. And when you think about growth that way and you think about like, what is it that I wanna create? What are the goals I want? Because honestly, when you set goals, what you're essentially doing, you set the goal, you have the desire, the thought, you set the goal, and then you take the actions to do that. What you're doing when you're growing and expanding, you're essentially attracting those things to you. You're taking the actions and then you become an energetic match for what it is that you want to create. And that is how the law of attraction works. think ⁓ when think about growth as expansion, There's nowhere to go. You're already there. All you got to do is expand, expand past those limiting beliefs, expand past the resistance that you're not good enough. You just get to expand. And so the ways we do it, let's get, let's do some steps here. Number one, the first thing we got to know is growth. When you're trying to grow into your next version, you're not going anywhere. You're growing from where you are right now. So we have to fully step into the belief that there is no there. That other place is elusive, it's nebulous. We have to let that go because if we think there's a there, then we're never gonna really live and be a full self today because we're always waiting for something to happen. So we have to believe that we are there now. This is it right here. This is your life right now, today, this is it. So if this is it, and you want to grow, then step two is accept it. Accept that this is it. Accept that those are your number of followers on social media. Accept that that's how big your list is. Accept that those are the number of clients you have. Accept that you haven't maybe tuned in your messaging exactly how you want it. Accept all of that because when you can accept it, you have full control over it. Whatever we the more we can accept something, the more agency we have over it to change it. When we resist it, it's like we're giving the control away to something else outside of us. But I don't have this yet, but I don't have that yet, but this, but that. And when we fully accept it, we take back 100 % control and then we can change it. And that's what I want for all of you. So number one, know that you are there now. There is no other there. You are right now there where you want to be fully accept where you are. And then I want you to visualize your growth, not going anywhere, but expanding. expanding out in all of the directions that you want to grow. And I think that that is one of the most liberating places to start because your growth is unlimited. Your capacity for growth is unlimited. Your capacity to create is unlimited. Your capacity to receive is unlimited. And the more you grow and you start undoing all the little patterns underneath and the more you give yourself the space, you have a growth mindset to know that you're never going to be complete. Nothing is ever done. You're always growing. The more space you have to grow, the more space you have to continue to expand. All right, sweet friends. This is like a pop-up episode, a pop-up podcast. I hope you found this helpful. I will see you all next week. Adios.