The 3 Stages of Growth

So this is the same with you in stage two of growth. When you hit that obstacle, you'd have been cruising along really well, feeling great, feeling amazing, and you're going to hit this challenge. What you don't want to do is fall back on old habits and go back to what you were doing before. What you want to do is integrate what you learned in that dopamine stage and slow down a little bit. Maybe you take smaller steps while your body gets used to being in this new environment. You're. You're listening to the Circle C Project.

Welcome to the Triple CE Project, the podcast that helps you gain clarity, boost confidence, build courage, so you can live life lit. I'm your host, Ryan Spence, the big lore dropout, life coach, author, speaker, lover of hoodies, hip hop, and big, hairy, audacious goals. If you're tired of living the life you think you should want and ready to start living living the life you do want, this podcast will help you get from where you are to where you really want to be. So now with friends, I invite you to grab a drink, take a seat. Allow me to guide you towards living a life that's lit.

Hey.

Hey.

Welcome to episode 55 of the Triple C Project with me, your host, Ryan Spence, life coach and author of the Triple C Method. And before we start, head to iamrienspence.com and get yourself a copy of my free Confidence Journal. And that would also get you onto my email list. The Confidence Journal is six journal prompts that really kind of help me boost my confidence when I need to. Whether I want to prepare for a TED Talk, whether I want to prepare to launch my book, lots of things that I've done. These prompts have helped me get in the zone and realize that, yeah, I can do this shit. So again, I am Ryan Spence dot com. Download the Confidence Journal and get yourself started. Boost your confidence right now. This week's episode is. It's kind of inspired influence by a conversation I had with a client recently, a conversation I've had before, but it came up again recently, and I thought it would be useful to share this with you. So this client I'm working with, and they are going through another level of growth. They're. They're in a new situation in a new space, and discomfort is. Is coming up for them. And this is something that. That happens a lot. It certainly happens. Happens for me. And it's something that never really goes away because as you grow, as you keep going to another level, these things still come up. So I thought It'd be helpful to share with you what I see as the three stages of growth, because I think once you know what to expect, it becomes easier for you to stay the course and be like, ah, okay, I know what this is, and I know it's not permanent. It's not forever. So I speak about this a little bit through the lens of coaching clients and also share a bit about my own experience as well. So when clients come to work with me, when they book a call, when they decide to go ahead and get started, it's usually because they want to change something in their lives. Maybe they're unhappy where they are and they're burnt out, they're miserable, and they just really want to get out of the situation they're in. Or maybe they're doing okay, but they just feel there's another level for them, there's something more that they could be doing that they want to be doing. So that's why they come to inquire about hiring a coach. And when we start working together, the first few sessions, they. Their mind is blown and they feel amazing. And the reason for that is because it's all new. They are seeing things differently. They are seeing themselves differently, and they are seeing the possibilities that are out there for them in a whole new light. They're more expensive in that view. And they are meeting with somebody once a week for an hour who is wholly focused on them and their success. Now, I don't know about you, but before I started working with a coach, I never had that. I mean, even when you see your friends, it's fun, but it's a different environment because you're going back and forth. And even if you want to share with your friends something new that you want to do, a change that you want to make, and you have the most supportive friend in the world, their advice is still going to come with their own ideas, their own agenda about what's possible for you, what's possible for them. And the beauty about sitting down with a coach is that there is none of that. They are only committed to your success and ensuring that you realize your full potential, get to what it is that you want to get to and get what it is that you want. So all of that is. Is exciting and it makes you feel amazing. Sometimes after the first session, sometimes four sessions, whatever it is, that is the first stage of growth, novelty, that dopamine hit that makes you feel so good. You know, you think about anything that you. That you do that's. That's new or that's novel. And it gives you that hit. Maybe it's that first sip of a glass of champagne, that first hit of coffee, and maybe it's getting on that roller coaster, but you do it, and it just feels amazing, and your body craves more of it. That's. That's just how it is. That's biology. So then what happens is this stage two. Stage two is where you're riding high on this dopamine, and then you hit an obstacle, a challenge, and suddenly you realize that this isn't all plain sailing. And you feel like ass, quite frankly, because your sympathetic nervous system kicks in. Because your body's like, I haven't been here before. And so it does what it does best to protect itself. It gets into that fight or flight. You freeze, anxiety kicks in, and you start to freak the fuck out because you're like, I don't know what's going on, and I haven't been here before. Imagine climbing a mountain. I've never done this, but I've got an idea about what it's like. And as you get higher up that mountain, higher in altitude, the air gets thinner. And if you're not careful, you can suffer from altitude sickness because your body isn't used to being that high, to being in air that thin. And so the tendency can be to give up and head back down the mountain. And the same in life. The tendency can be when you hit this stage in your growth that you fall back on old habits and effectively go back to the start, back down the mountain. But like climbing a mountain, if you prepare yourself and you take it slowly and you allow your body time to acclimatize to this new experience, to this thinner air, your body would eventually be like, okay, we're used to this now. Now we can keep moving forward and pick up the pace a little bit. So this is the same with you in stage two of growth. When you hit that obstacle, you'd have been cruising along really well, feeling great, feeling amazing, and you're going to hit this challenge. What you don't want to do is fall back on old habits and go back to what you were doing before. What you want to do is integrate what you learned in that dopamine stage and slow down a little bit. Maybe you take smaller steps. While your body gets used to being in this new environment, while your body gets used to putting yourself out there, while your body gets used to dealing with the fear of excite, fear of rejection, the fear of embarrassment, the fear of failure, the fear of what other people might say because your body will acclimatize, your mind will acclimatize. It doesn't mean all of that stuff will go away, but it just means that you'll then be able to deal with it from a place of nervous system safety. Your body will not freak out to the same extent as it used to because it knows that you've done this before, you didn't die, and so you can do it again from a place of safety. So that's Stage two.

Stage two is where you feel like ass.

But if you don't quit there, then you're going to get to Stage three.

Hey, I'm interrupting myself to give you this short message now. If you're listening to this part, you're likely looking to change your life.

Here's the thing.

Transformation doesn't happen by doing what you've always done. It happens when you change your thoughts.

About what's possible for you.

My book, the Triple C Method helps.

You do that by giving you the.

Tools and strategies to stop living a life of lethargy and start living life lit, described as a transformational toolkit, and the book I wish I'd had when I decided to leave corporate the Triple C Method will change how you see yourself and how you live your life. Available now as paperback, ebook and audiobook, read by yours truly. Head to iamrinespence.com book or over to your favorite bookseller to grab your copy today so you can stop living a life of lethargy and start living life next.

And Stage three is a nice place to be because Stage three isn't quite your comfort zone. But stage three is where you're okay. I got through that messy stage and I'm intact. I didn't die. And I kind of have a sense of what's going on now. I don't have it all figured out, but I'm cruising along at a nice pace towards where it is that I want to be. I'm no longer where I was when I first decided I wanted to change, where I first had that call with my coach and was trying to decide whether to work with them. I've experienced that hit of dopamine and I know that this whole thing is amazing for me and all the things that I learned in that stage, all the tools and the strategies are really supporting me. And they supported me and carried me through that difficult, messy, horrible second stage of feeling like ass. And so now in Stage three, I've got all of this experience and that's a nice place to be. But then what's going to happen is that as you continue cruising through stage three, you're going to be like, okay, I can do this. Now this is figured out and you're going to want to get to the next stage, and then this whole cycle is going to happen again. So it isn't a one and done. You don't just go through these three stages and then life is great. And that's kind of the myth I want to dispel because I feel that in the world of personal development, of coaching, sometimes it can seem that you go, you do this work or you work with that coach and your life is amazing and you live happily ever after. And what I want to share with you is that that isn't the case. But what does happen is that with each. Each time you go through these three stages, you're gaining experience of dealing with them. So when you get to that horrible stage two of growth, the second or the third or the fourth or the fifth time, you're approaching it from a level of experience, and in your brain, you're like, aha, I've been here before. So although your nervous system will have a little bit of a freak out, it's not going to be as intense as it was the first time. And you'll know that you can get through this because you've got through it before. And that's the beauty of continuing this work, of not giving up at the first sign of the first obstacle, the first sign of stress, the first challenge, you keep going because you know that you've been here before and you can get through it. So for me, just to share a little bit, to kind of give you something tangible to leave with. When I left Big Law, I'd already been working with a coach for a couple of months at that point, and I was in that stage one of dopamine of have a high of this is exciting. There are all of these things that I can do, these whole world of possibilities out there. And I was loving the process, loving the anticipation of what might come. And then as I kind of started to sort of figure out where I wanted to go, what it is that I wanted to do, I realized there were all of these things that I didn't know. I realized that just starting an Instagram account and sharing some stuff wasn't kind of going to help, wasn't going to get me to where I wanted to get to. Even just sharing was hard. As I've said before, I would agonize for days or weeks over posts about whether they looked right, whether they said the right thing, the right tone over what people might say. And that was definitely me in stage two. And I was there for a good while and then I kind of got through the podcast came out, I got through, that was getting well received and I was kind of like, okay, I think, I think I'm. I've got an angle here. I know kind of what I'm doing. And then I decided to coach and then went through this cycle again. And I've been going through these cycles periodically for the last, well, three years really, ever since I left Big Law. And I'd say that at this stage where I am now recording this podcast, I'm probably in a stage two again because there's another level of expansion of growth that's happening for me. I'm going through this new certification on coaching the unconscious mind, which I'm almost coming to the end of, which has been absolutely mind blowing and giving me a whole host of new tools to use with my clients to kind of help them deal with changing habits, seeing possibilities, whatever it is that they want to change. But I've also got a whole host of other things going on. Teaching a university, which is new for me, contracting as on the legal side, which is, which is very, very busy. But it's supporting my family and my business right now. You know, I mean, personal issues that are going on as well. So there's a whole host of things that are going on. And I'm definitely in this messy stage two of growth, but I'm quite relaxed about it because I know I've been here before and I know how to get through. I know where to ask for support, to get the coaching, to get the therapy, to do the self coaching and the inner work, to figure out what's going on with me and where is that I want to go next. And I know that it's temporary, so I'm not freaking out, I'm not stuck still. I'm continuing to take action in a way that feels aligned for the season that I'm in right now. So I hope that this episode shows you that none of us are immune to these three stages of growth. None of us are immune to going through this awful, horrible feeling like ass. Stage two. As I believe I said in the previous episode, growth is messy. That messy stage, the messy middle. And that's fine when you know that that's going to be there. It allows you to, to ride that wave, to take time to, you know, to take time to acknowledge the fact that this is kind of pretty hard and this sucks right now, but to also understand and believe that it's not going to be forever. And so whether you are at the very beginning of thinking of making a change, thinking of hiring a coach to help you with that change, or doing it yourself, whether you're in that dopamine hit, of having made a shift and really loving where you are right now, whether you're in stage two where it just feels like ass and you're kind of thinking, this is all too hard and I just want to quit and go back to what I was doing before, even though I hated it, even though I didn't want to be there, or whether you have got through one of those and you're now in that stage three of feeling, okay, this is good, this is going in the direction I want it to go in, wherever you are, I hope that this episode helps you to realize that you're right where you want to be. And you're never going to stay in one stage. You're never going to feel amazing all the time. You're not going to feel like ass all the time. You know, it's. It's a never ending thing. It's just a part of growth. It's life. So embrace it, accept it, feel all the feelings and just know that it's not forever. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of the Triple C Project. I love just sharing these thoughts with you because I know that I wish that I'd had some of these when I was going through my situation in my last few years of Big Law. I think that a lot of time, with a lot of the personal development that I was listening to on my own quest, it was really helpful for where I was at the time, but I didn't always see myself reflected in what was going on. Whether that was my specific situation, my background, I just didn't see it. So I'm trying to sort of just speak to you, speak my truth, from my background, from my experience, so that you're getting that perspective, which is going to be different from some of the other perspectives that you may have had. If you have already been in and around this space. And as always, if I can help support in any way, this podcast obviously is here for you. It's free. You can go ahead and grab a copy of my book, which gives you more detail on the journey that I went through and share some of the tools that I use that help me to get from where I was to where I am now. And if you need more bespoke one to one support. I'd love to support you on your journey from getting away from a life of lethargy towards a life that's lit and helping you to see what's possible for you and to go off and get it. So head to iamrianspence.com and book yourself a call. Let's get on a call. Let's have that consultation. And as I say, whatever happens, whether we work together or not, that consultation will leave you thinking differently about what you can do, who you can be, the possibilities that are out there for you. So it will be a really good hour. A client once said to me the hours that we spent in coaching was the best hour of her week. Each week she would look forward to them. And I look at a consultation the same way. Even though it's free, it's valuable. Trust me. So, yeah, it's there for you. Hit me up. Iamrinespence.com coaching. That's it for me. Catch you next week. Who knows? Maybe I'll still be in stage two. Maybe I'll have moved to stage three of growth. Who can tell? But whatever happens, I'll be here for you, sharing my my story, my experience, my truth, so that I can help you move from a life of lethargy towards living a life that's lit.

Thanks for tuning in. But before you go, the weight of limiting beliefs is heavy. It literally weighs you down and keeps you stuck in that life of lethargy.

I know.

It's why I stayed in Big Law.

For so long, and it's why so.

Many of my clients don't believe they can do the things that they want to do.

But what causes those limiting beliefs?

It's a lack of confidence. Lack of confidence in the belief that you can do the things that you want to do. And I've got something for that. It's my confidence journal. It's six journal prompts that I created that I've used to help me get from where I am to where I want to be.

To help.

To give me the belief to do the things that seem outside of my control, outside of what I can do. If this sounds like you, you need to get your hands on the journal. Best thing about it, it's free. All you have to do is head to iamryspence.com hit the button for confidence journal and get your copy today. It's going to help you start to reframe your thoughts and get you thinking about what you can do instead of focusing on what you can't do. And shed that load of limiting beliefs that you don't need to be carrying. So you again next week. And until that time, stop living a life of lethargy and start living life lit.