What emotions are you willing to feel?

March 8, 2024

What’s holding you back isn’t the not knowing what to do

It’s the resistance to doing it because of the emotions you’re afraid to feel.

You’ve had the feedback.

You know exactly what you need to do –

〽️Increase your visibility internally and externally

〽️Be more present with clients, front and centre on deals

〽️Speaking up more in meetings

〽️Building better relationships with your colleagues

The reason you’re not doing these things is because of the emotions you’re afraid to feel when you do them –

Shy
Embarrassed
Awkward
Stupid
Ignorant
Inadequate
Vulnerable
Exposed

Which means the key to your progress is not the action you need take, but the emotions you are willing to feel.

One of my clients has been holding back from building relationships with potential clients because she’s afraid of being found out.

Afraid she doesn’t know enough.

Afraid the potential client will reference some recent case law that she’s completely unaware of.

So I took her to the thing she was most afraid of –

What would happen, I asked her, if the client did discover this?

It turns out that what she was most afraid of, the reason why she wasn’t taking action, was a set of emotions.

“I’d feel shy and embarrassed”, she told me.

And are you willing to feel shy and embarrassed to achieve your goal of building your practise? I asked her

Hearing it this way, she answered without hesitation.

“100 percent yes” she said. “Without a shadow of a doubt, yes.”

The reason you’re not progressing the way you want to isn’t that you don’t know what to do.

Most likely it’s the fear of the emotions you might feel along the way.

Which means all you need to start progressing right now, is figure out which emotions you’ve been avoiding and the deciding you are willing to feel them.

Happy Friday

P.S. Figuring out the emotions behind why you are not taking action and being willing to feel them so they stop holding you back are skills I teach you in Be The First Coaching for Black Lawyers. If you’re a black lawyer and you are tired of feeling stuck, I invite you to join. Enrolment for the next cohort is coming. Places are limited. Join the waiting list and be the first to know when it opens.

Click the link below to join:

https://carolineflanagan.com/be-the-first-coaching/waiting-list/

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