When I launched the Signal Strength website, a friend texted me: “your copy punched me in the face.” (As a writer, this thrilled me, obviously.) When I asked her more, she said: “I think just the idea that most people know what to do but don’t have the courage to do it.”
She wasn’t wrong. But it’s more specific than that.
The clients I work with are smart, self-aware, and well-informed. They know what they’re good at. They know what they care about. They know what’s keeping them up at night. Many of them have known for a long time what needs to change, or at least that something does. These are courageous people. They’re not missing courage. It’s how they’re using it. People need clarity — and, perhaps, more importantly, the permission to act. I’ve started to say: permission is the product. Here’s what I mean.
A client said to me recently, “I always talk myself out of things.” I said: same.
Have you ever thought about doing something — starting the Substack, applying for the role, having the conversation, leaving the job — when a part of you shows up and says you can’t do that? It has a whole repertoire of reasons. That will be too much for you. It’ll never work. No one will believe you could do that. It speaks in the language of risk and practicality, with a soupçon of shame. What if it doesn’t work? What if you’re wrong about what you want? What if you fail?
That part is not your enemy. Talking yourself out of things is not a character flaw. That part has one goal: to protect you. It genuinely believes it is keeping you safe — and in some technical sense, it is right. If you never try, nothing bad can happen as a direct result of trying.
And if you’re someone following a career path that no longer fits you, despite your desire to change, it’s that part that keeps you on the career highway - grinding through the miles, making great time, following the map laid out vs. taking exits to explore other roads. Driving at a different speed, taking the a different route is unknown. When that part is driving, you’re making great mileage, but you’ll never see the world’s biggest yarn ball.
“You can sit in the passenger seat,” is what I tell that part. “But you absolutely cannot drive.”
Your protective part is considering a couple of outcomes: one where you change things and the outcome is unknown, and one where you don’t and the outcome is known. It has already done the math. Known outcomes, even bad ones, read as safer than unknowns. The discomfort of staying stuck is a known entity. One that comes with frustration and sadness, but feels safe to that part. The discomfort of what might happen if you actually go for it is open-ended, and open-ended is terrifying to that part.
So, that part whispers in your ear that you probably shouldn’t try, and your brain registers this as safety. Your brain knows not trying is a choice with a guaranteed outcome. You stay exactly where you are.
A client who struggled with a fear that making a change would leave her jobless told me her therapist asked her, “Have you ever been in a situation where you weren’t able to find a job?” This client worked for big, impactful companies and had a stretch of creating her own business before the job she is currently in. She thought about the answer and it was “No, no I’ve never *not* been able to find a new job.” That was revelatory to her even though it was a hard fact. The threat is a spectre - and the evidence doesn’t support it. And once she knew that, she could work from a place of confidence instead of a place of fear.
Your protective part is a good thing, in many respects. It prevents you from tumbling over cliff edges or playing with bears, things with real life or death consequences. Our protective part is very serious about doing its job. Don’t shove it aside — sit with it. Take its concerns seriously. Acknowledge what it is trying to do. And then, carefully, tuck it into the passenger seat and buckle up.
Permission is not the same as courage. Courage is dragging yourself forward despite the fear. Permission is when the protective part agrees to trust you (or at least stops actively working against you).
You will not manufacture that permission by pushing harder. In fact, pushing past that part’s concerns can actually make it that much louder. You build the conditions for yourself to listen to what the part has to say, acknowledge those concerns, and say, “Don’t worry. I got this.”
If your protective part is trying to talk you out of something this week, try this:
Let that part go wild. Sit down and write out all of its catastrophic fantasies. If I post about this on Linkedin I’ll never get a job again. My spouse will divorce me. My house will be set on fire by angry mobs. I’ll have to have an F for failure tatooed on my forehead. Put vivid color to the generalized dread.
Then do a little reality testing. Notice that you have survived uncertainty before. Offer up version of reality -- we’ve no evidence that my boss even looks at Linkedin.
Sit with the part that is trying to help until it believes you when you say you have considered the risk, and the risk is worth taking.
What have you talked yourself out of lately?
(Also, a friend asked what happens if you reply to the email form of this newsletter — the answer is that it goes directly to me. And I’d love to hear from you!)