If you’ve ever found yourself holding back from going for that promotion, doubting your readiness for the next level, or replaying “what if” fears in your mind, this episode is for you. Sarah shares practical strategies, neuroscience-based insights, and mindset tools to help you stop getting in your own way so you can move forward in your leadership career with confidence and purpose.

Whether you’re ready to make a bold career move or simply want to stop second-guessing yourself, this episode will help you understand what’s behind your fears and how to take empowering action.

Show Notes

[00:00:00] – Welcome to Unstuck and Unstoppable

[00:01:00] – Why Self-Sabotage Happens

Sarah opens up about her own experiences with self-sabotage and how fear often lies at the root of it.

[00:02:00] – Recognising Self-Sabotage in Your Career

What it looks like when you’re getting in your own way - procrastination, overthinking, and talking yourself out of opportunities.

[00:03:00] – The Four Core Fears Behind Self-Sabotage

Fear of change, failure, making the wrong decision, and fear of what others might think.

[00:04:00] – How Fear Keeps You Stuck

The exhausting mental cycle of wanting change but feeling paralysed by fear.

[00:05:00] – Early Beliefs and Conditioning

How messages from childhood, school, and early career shape your beliefs about what’s possible.

[00:06:00] – The Power of Other People’s Opinions

How the need to please, meet expectations, or avoid judgment can hold you back from taking bold steps.

[00:06:45] – The Role of Circumstances and Security

Why financial or family responsibilities can heighten your fears about making a change.

[00:07:00] – Step 1: Understand Your Fears

How unpacking where your fears come from helps you manage and move through them.

[00:07:20] – Step 2: Visualise a Positive Future

Learn how to “direct a new movie” in your mind and why your brain responds powerfully to positive visualisation.

[00:09:00] – Step 3: Turn Your Vision Into a Plan

How to translate your positive vision into small, concrete actions that build confidence and reduce fear.

[00:10:00] – Step 4: Take Action and Build Momentum

Why taking even small steps forward helps you feel more in control and less afraid.

[00:10:30] – Step 5: Surround Yourself with Positivity

The importance of connecting with people who have a growth mindset and believe in what’s possible.

[00:11:00] – Final Reflections and Invitation

Sarah wraps up with encouragement to take action and invites listeners to reach out for support if they’re ready to stop self-sabotaging and step into leadership with confidence.

Useful Links

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If you're kind enough to leave a review, please do let Sarah know so she can say thank you. You can always reach her at: sarah@careertreecoaching.co.uk

Mentioned in this episode:

Lead With Impact Group Coaching Programme

https://www.careertreecoaching.co.uk/lead-with-impact

Welcome to Unstuck and Unstoppable,

the podcast for ambitious female

2

leaders who want to create more impact,

income, and influence in their careers.

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feel connected to their passion

and purpose, but without

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selling out or burning out.

5

I'm Sarah Archer, a leadership coach

and career strategist, helping women

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like you thrive in leadership roles

while staying true to your values.

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I'm the founder of CareerTree

Coaching and have over 15 years of

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coaching experience and significant HR

leadership experience to share with you.

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I know as a female leader it can

be hard to find time to focus

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on your career aspirations.

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The day job can be all consuming.

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Plus, no matter how senior you are,

there are always going to be times

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when you feel stuck, when you have

self doubt, or feel like an imposter.

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And that's where unstuck

and unstoppable comes in.

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Each week I'll be sharing practical

strategies, insightful interviews and

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inspiring stories to help you boost

your confidence, lead with purpose

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and achieve sustainable success.

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If you're ready to stop playing

small and unlock the incredible

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potential you have within you and feel

unstoppable, you're in the right place.

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Let's get started.

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Welcome to episode 53.

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Today we are talking about self-sabotage,

and I can really relate to this.

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I have self-sabotaged

big time over my career.

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I can hold my hand up and say that I have.

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Definitely done that.

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, And it's always come from a

place of fear, which is what

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we're gonna talk about today.

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And I wanna share with you some

strategies, some tools and tips that

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you can use if you know that you are

also somebody who self sabotages.

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So I hope you enjoy the episode.

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I always appreciate you being

here with me and let's dive in.

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I do a lot of work with clients around

career confidence and there's lots of

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different aspects to career confidence.

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It's quite a complex topic.

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So I wanted to pull out one of those

aspects, which is self-sabotaging.

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And you might notice this if you

find yourself thinking about the

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next step in your leadership career.

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But you find yourself holding

yourself back from going from it.

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And maybe your inner voice is

telling you're not ready or that

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it's not the right time, or you find

yourself, talking yourself outta

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going for it for whatever reason.

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You're just putting off.

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Applying for that new job or

going for promotion or whatever it

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might be that you want to do next.

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You just find yourself

getting in your own way.

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We want to understand what's going

on and often that self sabotage

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has a root of fear behind it.

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And when we feel fear, what can happen

is we can get paralyzed by that fear.

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So it stops us taking action,

it stops us moving forward.

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And it can be quite exhausting because

cognitively we're thinking about the

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time I should be going for that role.

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Why am I not going for it?

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And it can feel quite exhausting.

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If we let it carry on, then we can

start to see ourselves differently.

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We can start to see ourselves as

smaller or lesser in some way as

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somebody who doesn't take risks,

who doesn't put themselves forward.

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It's a dangerous place to be.

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If you are recognizing this is happening

to you, it is about taking action to

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prevent it becoming a semi-permanent

state, I did some research a few

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years ago with some of my clients who

were thinking about career change.

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But this self-sabotage can take place.

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Whatever kind of change you're

thinking about, whether it's a

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shift upwards or sideways or whether

it's a bigger change in some way.

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And the things that came out for them

as the major obstacles for them taking

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action around the change that they wanted

to happen were the fear of change itself.

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The fear of failure.

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The fear of making the wrong decision

and the fear about what other people

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might think they were the main things

that were getting in their way.

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The result of that?

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Was that they were feeling stuck, that

they just weren't taking action in.

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The direction they wanted to travel.

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The first thing that you can do, and

this is I've found that I've worked

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with clients around change in lots of

different ways for the last 15 years.

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Lots of experience at helping people

unpack what's actually going on for

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them and what's getting in their way.

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So understanding why you are

fearful can be really helpful

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because then it'll unlock and be

able to manage some of those fears.

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The fear can be around or can be

linked to the belief that we have

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about ourselves and what is possible.

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You can think back to your early life, so

school, parents, maybe early career, and

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think about the messages that you were

given, about what was possible for you.

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Were you encouraged to expand your

dreams about what was possible for you?

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Or were you encouraged

to keep your dreams?

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Small, manageable, realistic,

limited in some way.

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Were, you, were your aspirations, quite,

lower than perhaps where you would like

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them to be because understanding, why you

might be putting a ceiling on where you

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can get to can actually be quite helpful.

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And those influential experiences

early in our life, early in our

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career can definitely play into that.

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Going alongside that is that fear

about what other people might think.

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. Those voices that we have that come

from society, from our parents,

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from our peers, from our managers

can also, impact us in terms of

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what are other people gonna think?

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How am I thinking they're gonna

judge me about my next move?

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And maybe you feel like you've got to

live up to their expectations or maybe

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you've gotta please them in some way.

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And all of that stuff can get in

the way of you taking action because

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you're worried about what other people

might be thinking about your choices.

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then we have our circumstances might also

be playing into some of our fears around

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making that next step, that next move.

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Because if you are the main breadwinner,

or you are a solo parent, or you

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live alone, or you have family

responsibilities, that impact on your

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financial wellbeing, your financial

security can keep you feeling a bit stuck.

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I don't want to make a change

because what happens if.

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being able to unpack where the fears

are coming from can be then helpful.

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. Now, I'm gonna give you a few techniques

to help you with that, but obviously,

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depending on how deep rooted those

fears are, you might find that you need.

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Some support to help you

move past those fears.

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That could be a coach or some other kind

of professional to help you with that.

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But if you feel, actually I just

need a bit of a kickstart to get

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me moving, then you could think

about these techniques to help you.

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The first one is to think about

visualizing the future positively.

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When we're feeling fearful, when we

think about the future, it can be a bit

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like playing a bad movie in our head.

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It might go something like this.

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, If I leave my current job and I go to

that next level role in that organization,

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what happens if it doesn't work out?

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The company gets into difficulty or

I'm not performing, and then they let

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me go and then I don't have a job and

I've got my mortgage to pay and I might

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lose my house, and then I might lose.

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Everything.

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And you can catastrophize about what's

going to happen if you make that move.

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If you're playing that bad movie in

your head, you're not gonna be taking

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action because , your brain is taking

you to the ultimate , bad outcome.

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But what I want you to think about

is if you are the director of the

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movie, you are in charge of your.

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Destiny, you can rewrite

the script at any point.

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What you can do is think about

rewriting that movie if you like,

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when you're visualizing the future

and thinking about all the positives,

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all the good things that could happen.

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If I take that next leadership role . It's

gonna make me more fulfilled 'cause I'm

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gonna feel more challenged and stretched.

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I'm gonna get a great pay rise, which

will help with my financial security.

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I'm gonna get the opportunity

to work on the kind of things

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that really interest me.

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I'm going to meet some great new people.

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It's gonna be stimulating.

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I can visualize it going well.

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I know that I've got the skills and

capability to do it, and so you can play

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out that really positive movie in your

head about the way it's going to go.

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And what you would have to do is play

that movie to yourself every day,

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tweaking it, refining it, making it even

more compelling for it to then balance

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out the fears that you might be having.

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And there will be the temptation to go

back and play the old movie, but you've

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got to resist that temptation and just

play the new movie in your head about the

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successful shift you're going to make.

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Whatever that shift might look

like because then you're going to

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feel more confident about taking

the action to make that a reality.

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What's really interesting and this comes

from neuroscience, is that the brain

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can't distinguish that well between

what's real and what's visualized.

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So by you visualizing it in a really

positive way, your brain is going

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to connect with that and see that

as a reality and a way of being.

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So it's more likely that

will be the outcome.

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The, the new role is gonna go

well, you're gonna do well in it.

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You're gonna have the stability that

you are fearful, you might lose.

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The other great thing about then

having that kind of movie in your

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head is that you can then break

that down and make a plan about how

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you're going to make it a reality.

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What you want to do is take out some

of the overwhelm of making this.

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Shift.

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So by playing that movie, you can

think about, okay, if I'm gonna go

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for that role or that promotion,

what do I need to think about now?

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What are the gaps I need to fill?

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Who do I need to be visible to?

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Who do I need to be networking with?

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What are the practical things I need to do

about my CV or my interview performance?

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What else do I need to put

in place to make it happen?

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And you can create a

plan for yourself, which.

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Action.

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Conquer fear.

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I love that quote.

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By taking action, concrete action towards

that goal, the goal being your positive

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movie you'll start to reduce the fear

because you'll see that things are

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going well, the steps are taking place.

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And then the other thing you can do to

give you support during this period is

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look for positive people to be around.

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So positive people with a growth mindset.

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So people who believe that anything

is possible will help you to shift

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your view as well to see that

anything is possible for you.

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Noticing people around you.

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It could be friends, it could be peers.

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Could be people in your organization who

exhibit that kind of positive mindset

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and see things as possibilities and

exciting opportunities rather than risks.

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Hanging out with them as much as

possible will help you to manage

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some of those fears and see also

that things are possible for you.

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I'm hoping that's given you

some food for thought about A,

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where the fears are coming from,

and B, the action you can take.

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, If you need some help with

this, then please do DM me.

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We can have a chat about how I could

support you to make that shift if

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you feel like you're getting in your

own way and holding yourself back.

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Love to know if you try any

of these, ideas how it's

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worked for you, do let me know