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Leaning Into the Discomfort of Your Dreams

What happens as you get closer to your dream?

It’s an interesting thing, to stand outside yourself and observe. While we often think we want something, our actions betray us.

I’ve become more aware and have gotten better over the years, but I can feel the pull of old, outgrown instincts. As I get closer to my online course launch date (which is at the end of February, by the way), I have to work to overcome my own inertia.

What gives?! I’ve been working for almost eight months on this! Why in the world would I stop right before the finish line?!

Well, I won’t. But if I left myself unchecked and didn’t pay attention to my insides and hadn’t done enough work on myself to realize what’s happening, I very well might.

Because I’m human and that’s what humans do.

We all think that fear is a conscious thing, but in most cases, we don’t even realize the demons we battle. Whether it’s fear of failure or fear of success (and I’ve no idea which is trying to take the wheel), if we’re not careful, we subconsciously sabotage ourselves out of living our dreams.

Our “reasons why not” start to make sense to us. We start to make other things, anything, more important. We let ourselves down without even realizing we’re doing it until the uncomfortable feelings fade, and our dream is in the rearview mirror.

We have this strange, illogical expectation that we can do big things that take us out of our comfort zone, without feeling uncomfortable. But that just isn’t going to happen.

Discomfort is part of the deal.

So, I’ve been feeling really uncomfortable this week, as I get closer and closer to making this thing a reality. Luckily, I can see it for what it is, simply a guise to keep me safe from the cliff. My survival instincts kicking in.

But the thing is, if we don’t allow ourselves to stand at the edge, we never get to experience ourselves…fly.

Where might you be holding yourself back from the very thing you want most? Get curious. Lean into the discomfort. Keep taking action to move yourself forward. To build your momentum and watch your dreams….take flight.

©A Thoughtful Company, LLC

Kimberly Davis
Kimberly Davishttps://www.braveleadershipbook.com/
An expert on authentic leadership, Kimberly Davis shares her inspirational message of personal power, responsibility, and impact with organizations across the country and teaches leadership programs world-wide; most notably, her program “OnStage Leadership” which runs in NYC and Dallas, TX. Additionally, Kimberly teaches for Southern Methodist University’s (SMU) Cox School of Business’s Executive Education Program's Transformational Leadership Program and their Latino Leadership Initiative. She is also privileged to teach for the Bush Institute’s WE Lead Program (empowering female leaders from the Middle East). Kimberly is a TEDx speaker and her book, Brave Leadership: Unleash Your Most Confident, Authentic, and Powerful Self to Get the Results You Need, is the 2019 winner of the Benjamin Franklin Silver Award for Business and Career; an Amazon Bestseller in Business Leadership, Business Motivation, and Self-Improvement, and Motivational Business Management; and was named as the number one book to read in Inc. Magazine’s “The 12 Most Impactful Books to Read in 2018,” with a cover-endorsement by best-selling author Daniel Pink.

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6 CONVERSATIONS

  1. Thank you for the reminder to remain in the discomfort-getting comfortable being uncomfortable. Taking those daily actions makes the difference in getting over the finish line of a project, a book, the creation of class/workshop. How important to keep taking the next steps-like a marathon runner. Congratulations on creating an online course, Kimberly! YEY!!

  2. Thank you, Dennis, for posting this! So this was written about a month ago. The launch happened and I have a remarkable group of people going through the course for the first time. In another month we open it up to the public, so while the soft launch is in the rearview mirror, the big launch is still lying in wait… So I needed to re-read this today! LOL! Thank you!

  3. Of course Kimberly explains better than me what happens in these circumstances.
    I believe that when we are close to achieving a dream we are excited but also worried. Because every time we try to step out of our comfort zone, our brains will tell us to be careful, there can be dangers there. The mind does its job, which is to think about survival and try to make as little effort as possible to save energy. But I also think that it is fear that prevails, that speaks louder than the heart.
    Then the only possibility to overcome this fear is to start moving your limits, every day by a few steps, to start doing something in the direction of that dream that scares us today but that we would so much like to do and in a short time that will become the new one. normality, and our comfort zone will enlarge.

    • I absolutely agree, Aldo. Beautifully said! My favorite analogy I’ve heard about the comfort zone is that it’s like a rubber band. A rubber band is going to always return to it’s same size unless you stretch it consistently, pulling at it every day. Thank you, friend, for taking the time to read this and join in the conversation!

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