EP 291: Why Hopelessness is a lie

Hey there, I'm Natalie Fisher. I'm a six-figure business builder, a mom of a two-year-old, the recoverer of a ten-year narcissistic relationship, and now in a super healthy one. And most of all, I'm a human who's figuring this out with you. This podcast is about how to use your mind to thrive in your career and create the subconscious breakthroughs that you need to get there. The subconscious blocks that you don't even know you have to achieving your highest levels of earning and your best. zone of genius moments and days in the flow. That is my goal for you. Let's dive into the episode. And before we dive into today's episode, I want to remind you that I'm the coach who is always going to point you back in the direction of your own wisdom. And so before we get started, I want to remind you, listen to your own wisdom first. This means listen to yourself first and me second and anyone else for that matter. Take what resonates and throw away what doesn't unapologetically. I won't be mad. I won't be offended. In fact, I will be proud of you for doing so, because I know from a lot of personal experience that anything is only as effective as the amount of resonance that it has within your uniquely built brain. And something is only going to work if it feels right to you and if you believe in it, or if you want to do the work to believe in it. And that's what I'm here to help you do. Your inner wisdom is infinitely more valuable than mine when it comes to getting your outcomes and for what you are here to do on this planet. So I'm here to help you steer that wisdom in the most powerful way possible. I'm so happy you're here. I'm so glad you're here, part of this. I'm so glad we're here on the planet at the same time. Let's dive into today's episode. Hello, welcome to the podcast this week. I am recording an episode today on hopelessness, the feeling of hopelessness. So I felt this feeling. I've been coaching clients on this feeling, and it's very clear to me now what this feeling comes from. It comes from a series of thoughts that go like this. The thoughts are, I'm never going to be able to get this job. I'm never going to get out of this situation. This is just never going to work. It's never going to happen. And that creates a feeling of hopelessness. So the opposite of that would be like, say you're in a financial crisis and you are like, you're like, yeah, but I'm gonna be able to borrow some money and then I'll get back on track, or I'll be able to get this part-time job and then I'll get back on track, or like, that's the opposite of hopelessness. It's like there's hope, there's a step, there's a thing, right? And there's always hope. Hopelessness is A lie. And I'm going to expand on that in this episode because we never know what's actually going to happen. Our brain wants to think it's going to predict the future and it's going to tell us that, you know, we're never going to succeed at what we want because we— because it's telling us that the past evidence says we won't succeed. Like, I just had this client, she's like this wonderful client, and She's like, I've been at this for 8 months. And she just— we just had our first session. And she's like, I've been at this for 8 months and I just feel like it's never gonna happen. And I'm like, okay, how old are you? She's like, 24. And I'm like, okay, so you're telling me that you seriously— you seriously believe that you're gonna be 80 years old and you're still gonna be sitting there being like, I can't get a job. And I'm like, no, that's ridiculous, right? Like, how ridiculous is that? Of course it's gonna happen. And the hopelessness thing, it's very— it's a painful emotion. It's a vicious emotion. It sucks. And I've been there. And one of the stories that one of my mentors shared on her podcast was the thing that moved me to tears. And it was proof that hopelessness is a lie. Hopelessness is a lie. And she's the one who coined that phrase. Her name is Cara Lowenthal. She is a feminist. Confidence coach. She used to be a lawyer. Anyway, go follow her, Kara Lowenthal. She's amazing. She talked about this on her podcast and the part about hopelessness being a lie, which which is what made me you know I know that I never have to feel hopeless now because of this story. So the story was told by the woman who plays the marvelous Miss Maisel, and she was talking about her grandma or her great grandma or something who was in the Holocaust. and how she was— she was standing in line to be shot into a pit, and everybody was just lining up to go— to move and get shot. And, and that would seem like the most hopeless situation that you could ever go through in your whole life, right? Like, I would think that's the most hopeless situation you could ever be in. And her great-grandma, or her grandma, I don't remember the exact details of the story, had asked one of the guards What happens if I step out of line? And the guards responded with, I don't have the heart to shoot you, but somebody will. And so she stepped out of line and she survived. And now her descendants and her— like, her family is alive because of it. And that situation is the most hopeless situation I think that we could ever think of. And— And that situation wasn't hopeless, but because she had that question, she had the guts to ask that question, her brain thought, okay, well, if I'm gonna get shot anyway, I'm stepping out of line. And she survived. And with our brains, what we tend to do is when we start telling ourselves it's hopeless, the thoughts are, you know, this is never gonna work. What if I never get there? What if I never succeed? Then our brain will spiral into that and it will just get better at thinking those things and it will make it less likely for us to find ways to succeed, right? So if we're thinking it's hopeless and there's no point, then we're not going to send the message, we're not going to go to the event, we're not going to send our resume to that person that said we should send it to them, we're not going to ask that person a coffee. We're not going to send the message. We're not going to do the things we need to do when we're believing it is hopeless and there is no point. And the things we need to do are the things that will make it hopeful, right? It'll make, it'll make it more possible, and it'll look like you're making progress, and you'll see the progress that you're making, and you will see exactly how that path is going to unfold. That's another episode I've done in the past, or could do another one on. The how is not predetermined. Like you are figuring out the how with every step that you take, and the how is not something that just gets handed to you. I I believe that it was supposed to be for a long time, and I was like, "Hey, let me do these step by steps, and if it doesn't work, I'm going to blame the coach. I'm going to get mad at the person who who sold me this program. It's not working right," and. The how is nuanced. The how is different. The how is different for me than it was for that other person who got that great testimonial. The how is up to me to figure out in taking the next steps, and the how will never be figured out. And if you are feeling hopeless more more than you are feeling determined, right, or more than you are feeling committed to making something happen for yourself, and. So if you're feeling hopeless right now, which I've coached clients on this thought, I know that it's something that people feel. I know that I have been there myself. Then I want you to remember hopelessness is a lie. You have no idea what is going to happen if you were to show up as your best self, and your best self doesn't wait around for you to feel great to do something. Your your best self will will take the steps if you're showing up as your best self. And you are giving yourself a legitimate chance to succeed. Even though you cannot control everybody's responses, everybody's response time, or everybody's decisions, you can control how you're showing up. And if you're showing up consistently as your best self, you have no idea what's going to happen. You don't know if it's never— like, if— like, and the whole never ever is going to happen is silly, really, because no situation is forever, right? Like you could be in a hard season right now, you could be going through a hard time, but it's not like— it can't be forever. Like I think Tony Robbins said once, he's like, he's like, if you're crying, you can't— you literally can't cry for a whole day. Like your body doesn't have enough water to— like you can't cry for a whole day. Eventually you're gonna get the tears out, you're gonna have processed that emotion, and you're gonna stop crying. You might cry again later, maybe you have more to process, but you literally cannot cry for a whole day straight. You don't have enough tears in your body, or I don't know how he said it, but it made me think, of course, because every emotion is temporary, every season of life is temporary, and everything that you are going through is moving. It's moving and it's buzzing and things are happening. Like in, in the universe, we are— we live in a moving, buzzing universe. Things do not stay still, stagnant all the time forever. So the fact that you're thinking, I'm never gonna succeed, or I'm never gonna get this job, or this is never gonna work out, out for me is a lie in itself, because that's not possible for you to know that. It's not possible for you to know, but it's also not possible for you to stay in the same situation, because things are going to change. And how you show up will dictate whether they change for the better, or they change for the worse, or they, or they stay the same for you in your circumstance now. So hopelessness is a lie. If you show up as your best self, you don't know what is going to happen. You don't know who could respond to you. You don't know what conversation you could get into. You don't know what opportunity you could be given. You don't know what thoughts or ideas you could have from going to a particular event, or going to you know a friend's house, or going out to a dinner, or whatever it is you you know you got invited to do, or you felt called to do, or you saw and. Felt resonance with, you don't know what will happen when you move and take that action. And hopelessness is saying that you do know, and that's not possible. Your brain cannot predict the future as much as it would like to. And the reason it wants to predict the future so much is because it wants to, it wants to be certain at any costs. So even if that means that the cost is it tells you you're not getting what you want or that you failed ahead of time, And that, like, a lot of people, they will pre-reject themselves, right? They'll be going for interviews and they'll be getting rejected and they'll start thinking, well, I'm just going to get rejected. Like, it's not even going to matter. Like, there's not even any point. And they've basically pre-rejected themselves in their own head, right? So you cannot, you cannot predict it, but if you're thinking and predicting it, it's more likely that that's what you're going to see. Because your brain wants to be proven right, right? So if you believe you're going to get rejected with all your heart, you're— the likelihood that you show up in a way that makes them reject you or that makes you easy to reject is higher. If you believe that you are— you have value and you're a great candidate and that you can solve their problems and that you're curious and that you're ready to help and that you have lots of proof to show your value, and if you show up like that, even though you don't have any control over the outcome, you have a much higher chance of them seeing that, of them believing that, of them being drawn to you and you resonating with them. You have all of that, and therefore you drastically increase the chances that they are going to see that and feel that from you and select you. And versus the other side of it, you— if you're thinking, oh, I don't know if they see me as the right person for this role, I don't know if I can really do this, you show up as someone who's like asking them for validation and permission, and therefore that That's how they see you. They see you as someone who isn't confident, or they see you as somebody who doesn't have the validation within themselves to believe that you're capable. And that's what you need to do is you need to go first. You need to be able to go first and validate yourself, choose yourself, approve of yourself before you can confidently go into interviews and expect anybody to choose you, especially in a competitive space where they have lots of other people who are probably showing up really confidently and clearly. So hopelessness is a lie. It's not real. If you feel hopeless right now, just know that it is a figment of your imagination. You are not in a hopeless situation, no matter what it might feel like right now. I hope this helped. Wow, you made it till the end. That's awesome. I'm glad you're here. Sometimes listening to a podcast is enough. And sometimes you have that nudge to go deeper. Sometimes you have questions about your specific situation. You still feel unclear and you'd like to get some clarity around what your next steps are. If that feels like you and this podcast has resonated with you, I invite you to sign up for a one-on-one call with me. This is a free call where we will map out exactly what is going on with you, Where you are now, where you would like to be, and what is getting in the way. We can decide from there what the next best steps are. Worst case scenario, you leave with further clarity. Best case scenario, you leave with a full plan and how to implement with my support. I look forward to meeting you.