170: Fear, Growth, and Saying No: Lessons from My 12-Month Experiment

This week I’m getting very real with you about something we all face as working moms building a business: fear.

• Fear of rejection. 
• Fear of not being approved of. 
• Fear of doing something that feels uncomfortable but is necessary for growth.

I share a very personal story about how even something as simple as saying “no” can feel terrifying, and how I’m learning to check in with my gut (through Human Design) and take action anyway.

In this episode, we’ll explore:

• Why most of our default reactions come from fear (and how to shift to love-based action).
• How discomfort isn’t a sign you’re on the wrong path but often the exact signal you’re growing.
• My 12-month experiment to practice “doing the scary thing” and leaning into what feels uncomfortable.
• A personal example of how saying no revealed where I still needed growth.
• Why trusting yourself is the most important step in creating a life and business on your terms.

If you’ve ever felt stuck in fear or struggled with people-pleasing, this one’s for you.

Resources & Links

• Connect with me on LinkedIn or Instagram @sharonsinghsidhu
• Want support signing your first client without burnout or cold DMs? DM or email me (sharon@sharonsinghsidhu.com) me “FIRST CLIENT.”

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hello and welcome to another episode of the podcast. So today I wanted to talk about the idea that, you know, feeling afraid, afraid to do something that you know that you have to do or you want to do. So I think when it comes to growing your business and just life in general, when you're trying to do something new and different for the first time, there's always going to be a lot of doubt and uncertainty and that's all rooted in fear, right? I mean, Everything comes down to either a fear-based feeling or a love-based feeling. They're only like these two primary, to me, two primary emotions in the world. And everything is either coming all the way down rooted in fear or rooted in love. And so today I wanted to kind of share also something that I have recently been dealing with and my process of doing scary things that sometimes might feel very scary because it's uncertain and For me, in this particular example that I'm going to share with you, I have a lot of stories around it that is also coming from the fear of not getting approval from other people, the fear of not pleasing other people. So I think if you can identify with people pleasing and the need for approval, this example, you might be able to relate with it. But before I get into the specific example of what exactly this was, I was trying to do that using be so afraid of and it's feeling like I'm feeling less and less afraid of it and I'm sorry if I'm clearing my throat I don't know what happened but I seem to have like a dry throat but yeah so what was I saying yeah so it's something that I used to be very hesitant and afraid and didn't have the confidence to talk about and with practice and over time I've really been kind of pushing myself to step out of that comfort zone and just to do it, right? And I know that whenever I talk about this, stepping out of your comfort zone to do something, a lot of people still find that very scary and very hard to do. And so I wanted to share my process. But before I get into the specific example, I wanted to talk a little bit about this idea of fear-based actions or fear-based emotions that then lead you to take fear-based actions. I mean, I think that it's the default. The default for all of us is actually to just simply be driven from fear. it is purely a survival instinct. You know, it is from fear that we are able to protect ourselves. And that's what a lot of our, I mean, a lot of times our ego is trying to do that. Whenever there is a perceived threat, then, you know, we kind of like jump into this very fear-based kind of actions and feelings. And so the thing about this default mode of being fear is that it's really not, the whole purpose of it is to keep you safe, right? And what it's saying is what's familiar and comfortable. But the thing is, if you want to grow a business or you want to do anything big in life, like a goal or an outcome you're going for that you've never achieved before, it is going to feel scary because you've never done it before. A lot of things are going to be untested and uncertain and you're not going to know what's going to happen. You may not even know how to even go about doing it, right? And so that's kind of stepping out of your comfort zone. And the moment you take a step out, it's very scary and it's very uncomfortable. This scary feeling is very very uncomfortable and that actually pushes a lot of people back straight into their comfort zone but we know like you intellectually and logically know that if you never move out of that comfort zone and never try something different and new you're never going to get different results and different outcomes and which is why your life is going to remain the same so how do we then go about doing this because we know that it is everything that we want is actually on the other side of the fear when we have actually stepped out into the discomfort because the discomfort what what feels so scary about and so uncomfortable about it is that it's something so foreign we've never done it before but when we live in that discomfort zone it's actually forcing us to to learn it's forcing us to gain new skills and it's actually creating new pathways in our brains right to help us to do something we've never done before and in the process we are actually going to build we're going to gain experience and we're going to gain some new skills and then eventually our comfort zone expands. And this is why there is this whole area of growth, right? When we are in the outside of our comfort zone, there's a lot of growth and growth is often painful. I mean, even with our physical growth, when we grow, sometimes we have growing pains, right? We see little kids having growing pains. When the teeth is about to cut through the gums, it's painful. Anytime there's growth, sometimes it comes with a little bit of discomfort. And the thing is, it's kind of the process that we have to get through in order to get everything that we want, right? Those big goals and dreams that you're after, they're actually requiring you to go through this path of like going through the fear, going through the discomfort, going through the growth phase before you actually become a different person, really, because you're growing all these new neural pathways in your brain. You're thinking differently. You're behaving differently. You've got different skill sets and experience. You literally like turn into a different person. And this different person is the version of you that can actually get those outcomes that you are because she's taking different actions. She's thinking differently. She's probably interacting with different people and she's coming across, you know, her whole entire being and energy is coming across differently. And that's going to open up and create opportunities that's going to attract events and people into your life that you wouldn't have if you were not this new version of yourself. And why am I taking you through all of this just to talk about how to get through the fear? Because I just wanted to explain, well, first of all we want that outcome but yet we don't want to go through the path that gets us to that outcome because it is scary and uncomfortable it forces us to grow and you know my example now coming to the example I wanted to share with you is probably something not so much related to a business but I feel like in life you know these skills and the practice that we are kind of going through in different aspects of our lives it is all part of us. We're all the one same person, the one same being. And it's a skill that once we can apply in one area of our life, we can also apply in different areas of our life. So this specific example I'm talking about is actually the fear of saying no. So my fear of saying no, like I said a bit earlier in the episode, I think that I have for a long time actually been someone who was very afraid of rejection and I always wanted to have people like me. And that meant that I always needed people to approve of me. I had to be the good girl and I had to do things that would please others and not disappoint others. And so whenever I had to say no to somebody or someone who's asking me to do something and I have to say no, it feels very uncomfortable for me. It's difficult for me to say no sometimes. It's a lot less difficult now because I've been practicing. I've been a lot more aware of this and I've been practicing a lot now in different, different like different things, right? Where the stakes are a little bit lower. It doesn't feel so scary to say no. I've been practicing on those small little things like saying no to taking on more work, for example, or saying no to solving someone else's problems, saying no for, yeah, basically like these are for me things that are a lot easier now. But the one that was recently still very difficult is just saying no to lunch at work with male colleagues. And I know this is so specific. You might be wondering, what the heck are you talking about? So just to give you a little bit of context, right? I mean, my husband and I, we've been married now for 20 years. And the reason why we've been able to stay married, I think it's because we both have always made the effort to do what needed to be done to protect the marriage through thick and thin, up and down. If you're married, you know that it is not always so easy, right? It's not always rosy. And I think sometimes we look at people who have like a long and happy and blissful marriage. We only see the surface and we don't actually see what's behind the scenes. And behind the scenes, you know, sometimes involves a lot of difficult things that we have to do. And we do it for the sake of the marriage. And we do it because it may not even make sense. Like sometimes this doesn't make sense to me, but my husband is pretty particular about me going out for lunch with male colleagues even if it's a group, not just with a one-to-one. But, you know, because of his experience, his background, his upbringing, his occupational hazard, I suppose, you know, he was ex-law enforcement. And so I think he's seen a lot in life, probably a lot more than I have. I've lived a very more sheltered and protected life. And so he's very protective of myself and our kids, you know, which used to really frustrate me because I used to think he was paranoid, you know, And sometimes I still think that he is. And I think that's the beauty of being in a partnership. Like we balance each other out, right? He always says that I look through life through rose tinted glasses and I do. And often it's also a choice I make because of course I'm aware there's bad things in the world. There are bad people in the world, but I choose to see the good in everything. So even if something doesn't work out the way I expected it to, I would always try to still find the lesson and find what I can get out of it. So that's just my perspective. And of course, my husband has his own perspective because of his own experience, right? And so anyway, so this is like, so whenever like, you know, male colleagues would say, hey, shall we go for lunch? And especially when they are more senior than me, that makes it a little bit harder because it feels like, oh, you know, it's like the big boss is saying, and then how do I say no? Would that be rude? And what will they think of me? And I'll have these thoughts going through my head, right? And I've kind of like really practiced it now a lot that it has become easier but sometimes in the moment I'm still a little bit caught you know and I'm like suddenly caught off guard and I sometimes will feel like I don't know the words to say it and decline in a way that's respectful and polite and then people will look at me all funny like you are strange you're in HR you're supposed to be building relationships and you need to be visible and so you need to do these things but to my mind I mean there are lots of different ways that I can make myself be available to support my you know the colleagues and the employees and for me to be visible so I just see it in a different way I think there are a million and one ways you can always get to a specific outcome and for me you know in terms of my preference in terms of just being sensitive also to how my husband would feel if this is something that's important to him for whatever reason that even I may not actually fully comprehend the extent of because I think we are each different people with different experiences yeah so anyway recently something came up and it was a little bit harder for me this time because you know I've just joined a new company it's a new job you know how this idea like you've gone to a new school and you want to fit into the with the whole crowd and this is very basic human need of wanting to belong and to be accepted so there was this as well and so it wasn't as easy and I was a little bit surprised and my my gut immediately knew is like I have to stand up and say you know what I believe in what I what are my practices you know what are the alternatives and without giving people alternatives so that people don't feel like you know they are completely I mean they don't understand where I'm coming from and so it was it wasn't it surprised me that it I felt like as uncomfortable that I did to say no and so that led me to realize that huh okay this could be something that I still need to work on. And what better way to work on than to come on a podcast and publicly talk about this? I think it's the first time I've ever talked about this topic on a public forum. I've talked about it, of course, privately with people, with bosses, with colleagues and people who know me and who have worked along with me. They understand this. But of course, in a new context, most people probably won't know this about me. I guess this practice that I have with, you know, lunches or any kind of activity outside of the working professional working context and not to say that people have ill intentions of course I can't speak for other people's intention but you know people a lot of them are very well intentioned they are trying to actually be welcoming and warm and friendly to a new colleague and I get that right and that's why sometimes it feels like hard I don't want people to misunderstand where I'm coming from too and so I'm always so worried about what people would think about me but this time I decided you know what I'm if it's and of course I will check in with my gut and ever since understanding that learning human design and knowing that I am a generator and as a generator we are actually meant to listen to our gut our gut instincts how it feels in our body and I knew without a doubt that you know I should just just be open and just talk about it and just say you know we can always talk about we can always discuss and talk and get to know each other and they offer content but not going out outside of work. And yeah, and so I knew that in my gut that was something, was the right thing for me to do. But I also could feel that there was fear rising up in me. And I think sometimes fear can be very sneaky. Fear can disguise itself so well. Fear, ego and pride for me, right? These three other things I'm always very, I always am very conscious about because I know how sneaky they can be. they can actually disguise themselves as my gut, like saying, okay, this is your gut instinct, you need to go, but actually it's driven out of fear. Recently, I can't remember what was the exact thing now, but I recently also had such an experience and I had to take a moment to just pause and just notice, okay, is this coming from my gut or is this coming from my fear, pride and ego? And it turns out that it indeed was coming from my fear, pride and ego because, you know, my mind, I had this voice that says that this thing that you want to do it is not coming from your gut because if it was coming from your gut you would not be so afraid this is coming from your fear I literally had this dialogue this monologue I guess this inner voice and and it seems to make sense right this is what I mean the fear is so sneaky it seems to make sense yeah then I thought yeah if it's coming from my gut why am I afraid so if I'm afraid it must be coming from a fear-based kind of emotion but then I realized that you know sometimes when your gut instincts is telling you to do something it doesn't mean it's not scary it doesn't mean it's it can be scary because it's unknown and it's new and it's foreign right and often for us generators when we're coming from our gut it often makes no sense whatsoever no logical sense to an outsider they're going to say that you're impulsive they're going to say you're irrational they're going to say you haven't thought through this but our job is not to think it through our job is to feel it through and it's not going to apply for people who are not generators and we have five different types in human design, which I don't really want to go into like so much detail in here. I'll talk about it in probably other future episodes. But I know that as a generator that I needed to listen to my gut and that, you know, and that sometimes can also be scary. And so what I did was to try to discern between is this a voice that's coming from my gut versus a voice that's coming from my fear or ego or even pride sometimes, right? Because pride is actually coming out all the time. fear you know it is rooted in fear so um so i had to just be quiet for a minute and sometimes you know especially for the bigger things i would take some time and just revisit it and just see how it feels like uh in my body whether it feels like something i'm drawn towards and i i really feel like yes i i really feel like i want to do this my body is really saying yes versus like you just know maybe it's it may not be a no it might just also be like, maybe not right now and I just need to pause. And sometimes I would just do that. I'll just pause. Right. So anyway, so my gut coming back to the example, my gut immediately at that moment, even though I was a little bit caught off guard, I didn't really have the words to kind of say no. It seems so simple now as I talk about it, I could just simply just say, oh, no, you know, that's not something that I would do. That's not my preference. And in fact, I think eventually, you know, in like a couple of seconds later, I did say that's not really my preference. I would prefer if we could do this instead and so that's what I did but then yeah I knew like just at that moment just being conscious and aware to check in with how it felt in my body and what my gut was saying and then acting on it but yeah what was surprising was that I thought I had dealt with this already and I thought that I have come to a point where I'm pretty comfortable talking about it but clearly I'm not because it did feel scary for me to do that But I did it anyway. And what I told myself was that, and this is actually part of my one-year experiment that started probably two weeks ago. I'm starting this experiment within the next 12 months, one year. I am actually going to do what scares me. I'm going to do what's uncomfortable, but it's what my gut is telling me to do. And so I'm kind of conducting this little 12-month experiment by myself, with myself, within my business, at the workplace, with my relationships, you know, with my husband, with my kids, I'm just, you know, and with my finances, something I'm going to be doing that is going to feel quite scary and uncomfortable is to really kind of commit to really just giving money, okay? Even though things might be tight, but just to commit because when we give money and we're generous and we donate, whether it's to a charity or to help somebody out, just for no reason whatsoever we are actually believing that more is going to come back we're actually saying that there's enough I have enough therefore I can give yeah so that's something I'm going to be trying out as well but anyway back to my one year experiment and linking to this example is to do what's uncomfortable and whenever something feels uncomfortable that's going to be my cue to check in with my gut because of course sometimes it can be uncomfortable because it truly is not for you it's truly your body and your your ego right is trying to protect you your gut instincts could also be trying to protect you if you're a generator right and you really respond more to your gut and we need to listen and and those moments that would be a no right do not proceed okay um and so i am actually going to really lean into the discomfort and whenever something feels uncomfortable that's going to be my cue to just double check that with my gut and if it's a yes i am going to do it because the way i is see it is if I continue to do everything that feels comfortable to me it just means that I am just being the same you know I'm still in my comfort zone and that is not going to help me get to where I want to go in my business in my finances in my marriage in my relationships in my career it is not because I mean it is if I just want to maintain what I have now which for some areas of my life that are going very well for sure I want to keep it going and maintain that. But there are certain areas like, you know, my business, I definitely have some place I want to go with it. I have goals I have set for myself. And so I cannot be doing things that are only easy and comfortable all the time, because that would mean that I am not growing. And if I'm not growing, going back to that path I told you about, if I'm not uncomfortable and I'm not growing, it means I'm not on the path to actually getting to where I want to get to. And so this is going to be my thing for the next 12 months, which is to practice getting really comfortable with the discomfort and also practice really discerning when the gut is saying a yes versus a no versus when it's a fear response or something that's coming from my ego and pride. And so it's, you know, really, you have to really try it out in real life. You have to apply it in real life. And this is an example I wanted to share with you something recent that happened that I'm applying in my day-to-day life in like real life and I hope this inspires you I hope it gives you some ideas about you know well definitely first of all I want to just say you're not alone when it comes to feeling afraid and also that it is okay for you to have your own definition of whatever is right for you like I know with my example a lot of people are not going to understand it in fact there are going to be people who say well you know with that you're never going to be able to succeed because you're not networking you're not doing this that and the other but for me I know the networks I want to build I know the relationships I want to build I know what works for me and my marriage that and I know that it's you know what's worth for me to do and what is going to put everything that matters to me at risk and so I'm not I'm just not going to do that and so I think like with that I hope that you You know, it gives you also encouragement, inspiration and confidence to really go create the life based on your definition to achieve your goals. There's so many ways to get to the outcome that you want and you want to pick the one that is right for you, even though it may, everyone else might be looking at you weird and thinking that you're never going to get there. But you have to believe in yourself, like I'm believing in myself and taking a bet on yourself and kind of really investing in yourself and finding what works for you it's trial and error as you can see I'm learning every day myself it's trial and error go out there apply it if it works great see how you can continue to do that to get more of that outcome that you want and if it doesn't work you know what you just try another way that didn't work so you can kind of it's like a process of elimination to then figure out what is going to work for you okay I hope this episode was helpful it encourages you it inspires you that's always my wish when I share something on the podcast let me know if it has been helpful if you're listening on Apple podcast please leave a review I am trying to build up this podcast and when you're when you leave a review it helps other women like you find the podcast if you're listening on Spotify I don't think that's a review option but regardless you can always send me a DM at Sharon Singh Sidhu on LinkedIn or Instagram and I will catch you in the next episode Bye.