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 learn 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 listening to, The Triple C Project. Welcome The Triple C Project. The podcast that helps you gain clarity, boost confidence, and build courage, so you can live life lit! I'm your host, Ryan Spence, the BigLAw 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 the life you do want, this podcast will help you get from where you are,
to where you really wannabe. So now we're friends. I invite you to grab a drink, take a seat, and allow me to guide you towards living, a life that's lit! 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 iamryanspence.com and get yourself a copy of my free confidence journal. And that will also get you on to my email
list. The confidence journal a six journal prompts that really kind of helped me boost my confidence when I need to whether I want to prepare for a TED talk, or whether I want to prepare to launch my but lots of things that I've done, these prompts have helped me get in the zone and realise that yeah, I can do this shit. So again, iamryanspence.com. Download the confidence journal, and get yourself started. Boost your confidence right now.
This week's episode is it's kind of inspired, influenced by a conversation I had with a client recently, a conversations I've had before but it came up again recently, and I thought it would be useful to share this with you. So it's quite I'm working with and they are going through a nother level of growth, they're in a new situation in a new space. And discomfort 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, 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, I'll 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 let me 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 you they are seeing things differently, they are seeing themselves
differently. And they are seeing the possibilities that are out there for them. And a whole new light, they're more expensive in that view. And they are meeting with somebody who wants 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 work 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 or 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. The beauty about sitting down with a coach is that there is no doubt that they are only committed to your success and you're showing that you you realise 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 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 that 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 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 realise that this isn't all plain sailing. And you feel like us, 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 for what it's like. And as you get higher up that mountain, high wind 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. 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 come back to the stop 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 acclimatised to this you 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. Or 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 acclimatised your mind will acclimatised 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 yes. 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 pod, 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 audio book read by yours truly head to iamryanspence.com/book over to your favourite bookseller to grab your copy today. So you can stop living a life of lethargy and start living life lit! 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 through that messy stage, and I'm intact, I didn't die, and 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, when 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, or the tools or the strategies are
really supporting me. And they supported me and carried me through that difficult, messy, horrible second stage of feeling like as. 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 watered down, 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 freakout, 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 gone through it before. And that's the beauty of continuing this work of not giving up at the first sight of obs, 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
live with. When I left big law, I'd only been working with a coach for a couple of months at that point. And I was in that stage while of dopamine of have a high of this is exciting, there are all of these things that I can do this 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
I wanted to do. I realised there were all of these things that I didn't know, I realised that just starting an Instagram account and sharing 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 agonise 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 gives 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 at a university, which is new for me, contracting as I mean 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 to have 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 it 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 at stage two, as a believer said in the previous episode, growth is messy is messy, stays 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 knowledge, 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 and you're kind of thinking this is all too hard, 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 all of those. And you're now in that stage three are feeling okay, this is good. This is going in the direction I wanted to go. Wherever you are, I hope that this episode helps you to realise that you're right where you want to be. And you're never going to stay 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 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 for my background for 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 helped 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 for 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 iamryanspence.com. And book yourself a call, let's get on the 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 really good. Our client wants said to me, the hours that we spent in coaching was the best out of her week each week, she would look forward to them. And I look at the consultation the same way, even though it's free. It's valuable, trust me. So yeah,
it's there for you. Hit me up. iamryanspence.com/coaching. That's it for me, me. Catch you next week. Who knows, maybe I'll still be in stage two, maybe I'll move 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 or 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 iamryanspence.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 carried. See you again next week. And until that time, stop living a life of lethargy and start living life lit!