You Say You Want It. But What Are You Rehearsing?

You can want something with every part of you and still spend most of your day rehearsing the exact opposite. You can want confidence while constantly thinking about all the ways you’re not good enough. You can want a different relationship while mentally replaying the old one. You can want your business to grow while waking up every morning thinking about all the reasons it probably won’t work. You can want peace while your mind spends half the day preparing for the next disaster. And then you wonder why you feel stuck.vLately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the difference between what we consciously say we want and what we’re actually practicing underneath it.vBecause those two things aren’t always the same.

You Can Know What You Want and Still Feel Stuck

Most of the women I talk to aren’t walking around completely unaware of themselves. Quite the opposite. We’ve read the books. We’ve listened to the podcasts. We’ve journaled. We’ve gone to therapy. We know about childhood patterns and attachment and boundaries and limiting beliefs. Some of us have become so self-aware we could probably explain exactly why we do what we do over cocktails. And yet we still do it. That’s the part I’m fascinated by.

Because knowing why you do something and actually being able to live differently are two very different things. Sometimes you don’t need another planner, morning routine or person telling you to take action. You already KNOW what you should probably do.

The more interesting question is: 

Why aren’t you doing it?

What’s underneath that?

Your Subconscious Loves What It Knows

We naturally assume that if something is painful or no longer working, we should be able to walk away from it.

But human beings don’t always choose what’s better. Sometimes we choose what’s familiar.

There’s a huge difference.

Maybe you consciously want a healthy, peaceful relationship, but somewhere along the way you learned that love feels intense, unpredictable or like something you have to earn. Maybe you desperately want to leave a job that makes you miserable, but the uncertainty of doing something different feels scarier than staying somewhere you already know how to survive.

Maybe you want your business to grow, but being truly visible brings up every old belief you have about being judged, failing or not being good enough.

So you procrastinate. You overthink. You start and stop. You convince yourself you need one more certification, a better website, new pictures or another week to figure everything out.

From the outside, it can look like self-sabotage.

Underneath it, there may be a belief or pattern doing exactly what it learned to do: keep you somewhere familiar.

What Are You Collecting Evidence For?

Here’s another question I’ve been sitting with:

What am I collecting evidence for?

If somewhere underneath everything is the belief that you’re not enough, you may unknowingly collect evidence that supports it. You tolerate things you shouldn’t tolerate. You don’t ask for what you need. You overgive. You compare yourself to everyone who seems further ahead. Then something doesn’t work out and your brain says, See? I knew it.

If you believe money is always a struggle, every unexpected expense becomes evidence.

If you believe people always leave, every moment of distance feels significant.

If you believe you’re too old to start over, every person who started younger becomes proof that you missed your chance. If you believe you’re not ready, you can spend years finding new reasons you need more time.

Belief influences behavior. Behavior creates outcomes. And then we use those outcomes as evidence that the original belief was true.

Around and around we go.

That’s why simply telling yourself to “think positively” can feel so useless.

You’re trying to put a new sentence on top of a story you may have been rehearsing for decades.

This Isn’t About Blaming Yourself

I want to make something very clear, especially when we start talking about manifestation, mindset and subconscious beliefs.

Not everything that happens to you happened because you thought the wrong thoughts.

Life happens. Bodies get sick. People make choices that hurt us. Relationships end. Jobs disappear. Terrible things happen to wonderful people.

I have absolutely no interest in turning personal growth into another reason for women to blame themselves. What I am interested in are the places where we have agency.

Our patterns. Our choices. Our expectations. Our reactions. The stories we continue telling ourselves. The things we tolerate. The familiar places we return to even after we’ve realized they no longer fit. That’s where things get interesting. Because noticing a pattern gives you an opportunity to question it.

What If You Actually Got What You Want?

There’s another question that may be even more uncomfortable:

If you actually got what you keep saying you want, what would change?

If the relationship showed up, what would that require from you?

If the business became successful, how visible would you have to become?

If you made the money, would you feel comfortable having it?

If you finally had peace, would you know how to live without constantly waiting for something to go wrong?

If you trusted yourself, what decision would you have to make?

Sometimes we’re not only afraid something won’t happen.

Sometimes there’s a part of us that’s scared it actually will.

And that doesn’t mean you don’t really want it. It means there may be something underneath the wanting that deserves your attention.

Stop Asking What’s Wrong With You

This is where I think we’ve gotten personal growth wrong sometimes.

We immediately make our patterns mean something is wrong with us.

Why do I keep doing this? Why can’t I just move on? Why am I sabotaging myself? Why can’t I make a decision? Why do I know better and still keep ending up here?

What if you stopped asking those questions for a minute?

Instead, ask:

What does this part of me believe?

What am I rehearsing?

What has become so familiar that I’ve mistaken it for who I am?

What am I afraid would happen if I actually chose differently?

Those questions create curiosity instead of judgment.

And sometimes curiosity is where change finally begins.

Maybe You Don’t Need to Know Exactly What Comes Next

This is also the reason I created Finding Her™, my eight-week live group coaching experience.

It’s for the woman who knows something needs to change, even if she can’t quite name what yet. She’s tired of thinking, overthinking, starting, stopping and circling the same things. She may know exactly why she does what she does and still have no idea how to actually do something different.

Finding Her isn’t eight weeks of trying to turn you into some shiny “highest version” of yourself. I’m kind of over that anyway.

We’re going underneath it.

We’re looking at the beliefs you’ve been carrying, the patterns you keep repeating, what you’ve been rehearsing, what you actually want, where you stopped trusting yourself and what happens when you stop waiting to feel completely ready before you move.

I’m bringing coaching, hypnotherapy, subconscious work, reflection and real conversation into the experience because I’m interested in that space between knowing something intellectually and actually being able to live it differently.

You don’t need to show up knowing exactly what you need to change.

You just need to know that the way you’ve been living, thinking, choosing or rehearsing your life isn’t the way you want to keep living it.

Maybe you don't need the entire answer yet.

Maybe you just need somewhere to begin. To find out more about our group coaching special click the link below

Group Coaching

One Question to Take With You

Before you close this page and move on with your day, forget about what you’re trying to manifest for a minute.

Forget the vision board. Forget the five-year plan. Forget everything you think you’re supposed to want.

Ask yourself:

What am I rehearsing every day?

And if what you’re rehearsing doesn’t match the life you say you want, don’t immediately try to fix it. Get curious about it. Because maybe finding her isn’t about becoming somebody new.

Maybe it starts with recognizing what’s been keeping you from trusting the woman who was already there.

I talk about this on my podcast. Listen here