Why We Fear And Hold Back From What We Want | Stuti Singh | TEDxSevenoaks

[Applause] every once in a while something big happens that changes our lives forever but if we look carefully the life-changing moments come to us every day and one such small but significant and rather embarrassing moment happened to me a few years ago i was at a leadership development workshop i was hard at work in a group task with three other people we'd been going all day we'd been given a task that we had to complete by the end of the day and i'd been working hard i've been concentrating really hard until i started to realize my concentration was waning something else was grabbing my attention nature was calling me quite urgently and i needed to go so what did i do well i crossed my legs i sat there and i held it and i carried on there was a slight glitch with this plan though because soon i realized i just couldn't hold it anymore so then i did the natural thing i looked to the lady on my left and said would you like to go to the toilet i can come with you and she looked back at me and said no i'm okay for now darn that didn't go according to plan but not one to give up i turned to the gentleman on my right and said we've been going a long time you must be tired should we take a quick break and he looked back at me and said no i'm good to carry on thank you oh dear in one last desperate attempt i looked straight across the man opposite me i probably would rather watery eyes by now and said to him would you like to go get a drink if we leave now we can be back in a few minutes and he looked back at me said nothing for a moment he looked he gave me this really strange look and then he looked me straight in the eye and said if you need to go to the loo why don't you just say you need to go to the loo ah that was an option was it i didn't know in that moment whether to be mortified or to be grateful actually i quickly decided i laughed at myself i was grateful put my hand up and said yes please i need to go to the loo and off i dashed and all was well i was back in five minutes and we carried on but this simple incident stayed with me i'm a grown woman clearly i have a degree in psychology i have an mba i've had leadership positions in top global companies so why couldn't i just say i needed a bathroom break why was i willing to hold back such a basic urgent need rather than just say guys back in five and i started to wonder if i was holding back my needs and really essential needs in this area of my life where else was i doing it and by the way was i the only one doing this was there something wrong with me why wasn't i expressing myself so i got curious i went back and dove deep into the study of human literature i went back to observing myself in different situations and i started over a period of time to work with people and teams to understand who we really are underneath what we see one of the things that emerged i was glad to know is that i wasn't the only one doing this all around me people were holding back from saying doing creating what they needed what they wanted but why it didn't make sense but three other things also started to emerge that could explain why we engage in this peculiar behavior why did we hold back from what we want and why do we do it in various areas of our lives well the first thing i realized i found really interesting what we think we want is not always what we want unbeknownst to us there's often a subconscious drive which directs our behavior now i thought what i was going for in that situation what i wanted was a bathroom break plain and simple but what it was really about for me what i was really looking for was the approval of the group what i was really seeking was permission from the group to go to the bathroom but why why would i need to do that and that brought me to my second realization that we human beings attach a meaning to situations now this is normal by the way we have evolved to quickly ascertain the context that we operate in are we in a dangerous jungle are we in a hostile boardroom or are we at a dinner party meeting new people or are we at home with people we know and feel safe with the context the meaning allows us to quickly know how to behave in that situation and indeed we do act for the meaning in that situation imagine meeting somebody at a pub or that same dinner party you have a great chat and you share a little bit about your life story you might tell them about the crazy family you have you might even indulge some details about that late night you had on wednesday when you went dancing to 2am and you realize this is a nice person i can really talk to them and then imagine you walk into a job interview the next morning and you realize the same person is the ceo of the company you're interviewing for would your behavior change might you even go oops would you hold back on some of the things you might otherwise have said the person hasn't changed you haven't changed the meaning has changed and we go a step further in our quest for meaning because to be really safe we like to figure out who we are and who the other persons are so if i know my place in society i know my role in the world i know how i'm supposed to be and how i'm expected to behave then i know how to be and to be safe because that's got me this far right i know how to survive and if i can figure you out if i know that you're a good person and you're a tough person and you're a critical person and you're a friendly person i know how to be around you to maximize my chances for reward and minimize my chances of you punishing me in some way or the other it sounds logical but what we end up doing is limiting ourselves and others and certainly limiting the way we act in situations now the meaning that i was giving to my situation all those years ago is that it's a professional situation and a professional situation means i don't express my personal needs or so i thought at the time and by the way my role was to be the good girl i'm the person that looks after other people's needs i'm considerate i don't inconvenience others i don't disrupt things and the more my group said no actually i don't have a personal need at this point the more it confirmed my belief that i was the one who'd be the disrupter who'd be in trouble if i said anything about what i needed i did everything i could to avoid the group disapproving of me because if they disapproved of me i wouldn't get what i wanted in the future i wouldn't get my needs met in the future if the group didn't like me so i was willing to completely give up on my needs now because of the meaning i was giving and this other need that was driving me which led me to a really third realization very powerful as well to see this that we manipulate ourselves and others to avoid what we fear i did everything i could think of to get my group to take a break it didn't work i also manipulated myself into painfully sitting there holding it for an hour and i thought this would help me avoid being rejected by the group being punished being an outcast being talked about as oh she's not professional look at her she always needs to dash the loo but it didn't get me what i wanted so why do we do this why are we willing to go about things in a roundabout way then simply to go directly for what we want why do we hold ourselves back why do we try to change other people's behavior well the answer i found is in this one word fear every time we think that something is at stake and something is at risk and we won't get what we want our fear is triggered a fear is designed to watch out for what's wrong or what could go wrong or what looks different and suspicious here and his job is to keep us safe but of course when our fear comes up the classic flight or fight response is triggered again completely natural that in one part of our brain this happens but what it ends up doing is impacting our self-expression in one of two ways either we end up under exerting our authority we make ourselves less we become small it's not our role to do this it's not our position to do this i often catch myself doing this even today especially in professional situations especially when i'm in front of a person that i consider to be the authority oh and if it's a male authority wow this really plays out my shoulders will hunch i'll become really small i won't say what i mean sometimes if you listen carefully my style of speaking will change and my voice will go up a few notches and it just happens because the fear is triggered i hold back but watch me at home oh oh it's a whole other story my husband will be happy to tell you more when i'm afraid that i won't get something when i won't get my way oh i become bigger it's my way or the highway it's my voice that has to come out the loudest because of course i know the right way to clean the dishes and you don't so you better listen to me because i'm smarter in every department and ooh cooler too yeah he'd be happy to have a chat with you afterwards and tell you his side of the story but how often do we do this how often do we also feel we have to show ourselves to be bigger to be smarter to be invulnerable to be really powerful how often do we feel we have to show our authority or else or else something will go wrong someone else will come and get us the truth is neither of these approaches actually get us what we want in either instance i'm cut off either from expressing what i would love and creating what i want in my life or even from the connection that i would love with the people around me but the truth is every time we want something every time we have a desire our mind will quickly come in to make sense of things for us and it'll tell us what can i expect how do i have to be to make this happen how do others have to be to make this happen how do i need them to be what do i need to change and if we're not careful this will very quickly take us in the zone of fear which will tell us the way we're supposed to be and close us off from everything around us because the role of fear is to keep us safe is to keep us in the comfort bubble that we've lived in all our lives the role of fear is not to help us go get what we love but luckily that love does exist it is that higher side of a hierarchy of wants because every time we want something there's also an emotion that says ah i would love this and love says to us this is what gives me joy this is the end outcome i would love in my life this is what i truly desire beyond achievement or gratification or control and love takes us into a really powerful realm of courage and courage is a lot simpler than we think because courage is not the absence of fear it's simply the presence of a love that is stronger think about a parent they'd fight off a tiger to protect their child would they be would they be terrified probably yes but they do it anyway courage says to us what is the vision you hold so dear that you would do anything to make it happen never mind the fear that exists alongside it anyway i'm standing on the stage with you and all my fears came up again i've been on stage before i've addressed hundreds of audiences in my time but because this means so much to me my voices of fear had a field day they came out and said to me who are you to do this you're not good enough you won't be perfect you won't make a difference you won't do this justice heck you won't even look the part and if i'd listen to my voices of fear more than once in the lead up to this event i would have seriously considered backing out as late as last night they were talking to me but in those same moments when the fear was talking to me courage would come and say gently what would you love and i'd say to share this message then share this message isn't it great it's not about you anyway so share this message you don't have to be perfect just turn up be you and share the message and have fun doing it so here i am a humble messenger with my fears and flaws standing on this beautiful red carpet sharing my love of this message with you and i just want to leave you with a few thoughts that courage speaks to us in simple words every day that we understand courage can ask us to say yes to something we love courage can ask us to say no to something that doesn't serve us courage tells us to ask when we need help or support but not demand to ask and courage tells us to give when all else fails just share what you have to give and let the rest take care of itself and the big moments come to us in the little everyday moments so all you really have to ask yourself is what would you love what makes your heart sing how is fear holding you back how are you letting fear hold you back and how can you choose to be a little more courageous today in this moment and in the next because life really does happen in the we everyday moments and if there's one thing i've learned in all my adult experience and all my recent wisdom it's simply to speak before you leak thank you very much [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 87,924

Rating: 4.9143376 out of 5

Keywords: Business, English, Leadership, Mindfulness, Motivation, Overcome, TEDxTalks, Women in business, Workplace

Id: tFDRXgDUea4

Length: 18min 56sec (1136 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 30 2021