Welcome back to She Wears the Pants — the place where high-growth women come to build companies that match their calling.
I'm your host, Ashley Deland.
Today I want to talk to you about fear - but not in the way most people talk about it.
Because most of the conversations around fear are about how to calm it down, manage it, make it smaller, or even get rid of it.
And instead I want to flip that completely on its head today.
Because I have a motto that I genuinely live my life and my business by, and it's: Whatever makes you want to throw up… that's the direction you need to go.
And I really mean that.
Whatever the thing is — whether it's showing up on camera, getting on the stage, going live, starting the YouTube series, sending the bold pitch, raising your prices, having the conversation you've been avoiding for months — whatever it is that makes your stomach flip over just thinking about it…
That’s the exact direction your growth is asking you to walk towards.
Because here's what I've come to understand - That fear isn't a stop sign, it’s actually your compass.
The thing that scares you the most is almost always pointing directly at your next level.
Think of it this way; Your fear and your greatness live at the same address.
Yet greatness lies on the other side of that fear - and wherever you’re feeling the most stuck — wherever you feel like you've hit a wall and you can't figure out why you’re not moving, revenue seems to have capped or enrollment is stuck at a certain number — I promise you the secret to unlock it is sitting right there inside the very thing you've been avoiding.
The fear is the unlock.
The thing you're scared of is the key.
So let me ask you something, and I really want you to sit with it…
What is the thing you keep circling but never actually do?
The one that makes you a little nauseous every single time it crosses your mind?
Perhaps it’s an idea you've had for a year that you keep finding reasons not to start? Finally applying to get on stages to share your message or voice, taking the trip across sea’s to get into bigger, bolder rooms.
Whatever it is (and you know what it is) that my friend, is your work. That's the door. And the fact that it scares you is not a sign to stay away from it — it's the confirmation that it's exactly where you're supposed to go.
Now let’s talk about why this feels so damn hard and why we avoid that throw-up feeling like our lives depend on it.
As human beings, we’re wired for safety, security and stability.
From the very beginning, our whole journey in life is built around moving towards those levels of comfort.
And obviously those are wonderful things to have and there’s nothing wrong with wanting them.
I mean, we all work so incredibly hard to build a stable life, a steady business, a sense of solid ground underneath our feet.
I want that for you. I want that for me.
But here’s the trap, and it's such a sneaky one.
The moment we finally find that stability, we tend to do whatever we can to hold onto it.
We grip it. We protect it. We start making every decision around keeping the comfortable thing comfortable.
Because it’s natural for us to work towards getting that kind of safety that we’ve worked for then - building our whole life around trying to control it and keep it.
This can show up in relationships, revenue jobs - the list is endless.
But the thing is, the moment that we start nurturing that safety, harnesses that stability and pretending that we have control over it all….
Is the exact moment we stop growing.
Because your calling was never about staying comfortable.
Your calling is actually about a profound evolution. It's about progress. It's about being pushed into the uncomfortable rooms and the uncomfortable scenarios that unravel layers of you that you didn't even know were there.
Those uncomfortable moments are the ones that reveal different parts of your personality, different strengths, zones of genius you didn't even know you had — and then they up-level you into a whole new version of yourself.
You do not meet that next version of you in the comfortable seasons. You meet her in the stretch, in the shitty seasons, the ones where you barely make it out the other side.
So with all of that said, I want you to get really, really honest with yourself today.
Where are you trying so hard to stay comfortable in your life? What are you hiding behind to pretend to keep that stability — when life is actually asking you for the discipline to evolve, and the risk to level up?
Really sit in that question, because most humans never actually do.
Most people spend their whole lives protecting the comfortable thing and calling it being responsible, when really it's just fear wearing a more acceptable outfit.
And here is the part I really need you to hear today, because this is the truth that changed everything for me.
If you do not design yourself and your life to grow — aka - if you refuse to push past the boundaries and the walls that you have built up around yourself — then there are other external factors. Call it God. Call it the universe. Call it whatever you believe in. But there is something so much bigger than you that will not let you stay small forever.
And if you don't choose the growth on your own terms, it will rain down the scenarios that push you into it anyway.
It will challenge you - on purpose, to make you grow.
And I know how hard that is to hear when you are standing in the middle of one of those seasons. When everything feels like it's falling apart and you can't understand why this is happening to you. But I've lived it enough times now to believe it all the way down in my bones...
Those painful things in your life are not punishments. They are a call.
A call to grow and a call to push you forward into superior circumstances — into something far greater than what you're experiencing right now.
Here's something that took me years to really understand.
Sometimes the shittiest experiences, the hardest seasons, the episodes of your life you would never, ever choose again… those become your greatest assets.
The thing that nearly broke you becomes the very thing that built you and the season you begged to be over becomes the foundation everything else gets built on top of.
You just can’t see it while you're in it. You only see it later, looking back, when you realize it was redirecting you the entire time.
So here is what I want to leave you with today.
I want you to look around your life right now — really look — and notice what you're fighting against.
Notice what you keep pushing up against, the thing that keeps challenging you, the pressure you keep praying will just go away.
And instead of resenting it, instead of asking why is this happening to me, I want you to ask a completely different question.
Instead of; "how do I make this go away?" I want you to ask yourself - What if this isn't happening to me — what if it's happening for me?
What if this is trying to challenge me in a good way?
What if this is the exact thing trying to grow me into who I'm supposed to become next?
Because continuous progress creates continuous rewards. That's the rhythm of a life that keeps expanding.
You walk toward the scary thing, you grow through it, you're rewarded on the other side — and then you're handed the next scary thing - As proof you're ready for more.
So - whether it showed up as a fear you get to choose, or a season you didn't — go toward the thing that makes you want to throw up. Walk straight at it - that’s your compass - ….
Because that feeling in your stomach isn't your fear trying to talk you out of it.
It's your future, calling you forward.
Until next time — keep rising into the woman your calling requires.
