The Triple C Project

When You're Struggling To Make Progress, Do You Keep Pushing Or Do You Let Go?

• Ryan Spence • Season 2 • Episode 107

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How do you know when to push forward and when to let go? This episode explores that delicate balance, offering personal anecdotes to illustrate the importance of connecting with your inner wisdom to guide your actions. 

This week, I talk about my decision to delete a talk  I'd spent weeks preparing just four days before I was due to deliver it and how what happened next proved that I made the right decision. 




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Speaker 1:

And so I did what my gut, what my soul, what my intuition was telling me to do and I deleted the talk. You're listening to the Triple C Project. Welcome to the Triple C Project, the podcast that helps you gain clarity, boost confidence, build courage so you can live life lit. I'm your host, ryan Spence, the Big Law 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 want to be. To start living the life you do want, this podcast will help you get from where you are to where you really want to be. 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.

Speaker 1:

Hey, hey, it's episode 107 of the Triple C Project. And be real. Real with you at this particular moment in time. Really, what I want to be doing is laid in my bed watching Netflix. That's it. Sometimes it be's like that Uh, but yeah, things to do, and uh, that's not going to happen right now, but it's great Cause I get to record this and speak to you, which always fills me with joy. It's always a good thing to look forward to for the week. And another good thing I'm looking forward to this week is my birthday. So the day this comes out, on a Friday, so the day after the release of this, it will be my birthday. I you can guess how old I am I'm not going to tell you this time, um, but uh, yeah, it's kind of uh crept up this year, um, but I I always kind of use it as a, as kind of like a marker to reflect, and it's also quite um, quite um apt, quite useful really. That also falls, um, exactly halfway through the year. So it's a good way to reflect on how the first half of the year has gone and how I want the second half of the year to go. And I definitely have some thoughts on that, particularly in terms of my business, in terms of how things are developing and the direction I want to go and the things I don't want to do.

Speaker 1:

So look out for some changes happening in the second half of this year, one of which is I'm probably and we'll see if I can stick to this, but I'm looking to move more away from social media. Not completely, but I've been very as people tell me, very prolific on social media and it's been a really good way, a really good way of connecting with a lot of different people across the world really, and working out ideas and sharing things that I'm passionate about. But it also takes a lot, and when I kind of come back to what I'm trying to do here, the work I'm trying to do, the people I'm trying to reach and the things that are important, connection and community are always at the forefront of that, and I find it quite difficult to build the connection and the community in the way that I would like to merely by sharing on social media, because you don't always get the engagement, the feedback, the responses that you would get when you are sat and stood in front of somebody at an event and having a human conversation. So looking at ways to move more into that realm really of even if it's not in real life because you know I work with people all over the world, I have connections all over the world and, much as I would like to, I can't just jump in a plane at the top of a hat but even if it's not always in real life connections because they're not local definitely trying to find a way to create more spaces where those one-to-one or those one-to-sm small group interactions can take place. So watch this space and, yeah, I hope that you will be a part of whatever these ideas fold into.

Speaker 1:

Update on book number two. I haven't given an update for a while because and this is probably going to tie into today's episode a bit as well it's, yeah, it's, this one's been a bit more of a struggle than the, than the first one, for many, many, many reasons. You know some I've touched on before and some I may talk about more, as, as it starts to come to to its final completion, I guess Um, but it's very much um in a way, the draft is almost done. I have a kind of a self-imposed deadline of the 1st of July for the draft to go to um, my cover designer, and also to to the editor. So I'm kind of up against it at the moment, but I'm almost done. I'm about 25,000 words in. The first book was 30,000 words, so this is going to be there. Well, they're about and, uh, yeah, I'm looking forward to sharing it with you at some point later this year.

Speaker 1:

But one thing I will be over the next month or so. I'm starting to think about my launch squad for the book, trying to do it better than I did last time. So initially getting some beta readers which means you get to read the book in its draft form, probably after it's edited now, and give feedback as to what's working, what you love, what could be better, what's missing, feedback as to what's working, what you love, what could be better, what's missing to or to kind of help me kind of create a book that's really going to work for you and people like you that the book is aimed at. So if that's something that you'd be interested in doing, shoot me a DM on Instagram at I am underscore Ryan Spence, with the subject of beta reader, and I will be in touch with details once I flesh those out. And then, beyond that, there'll be the opportunity to be part of the, I guess, the launch team, the launch squad, where you'll get advanced copies of the book, you'll get to read it, you'll be the first people to kind of drop those reviews and also share and talk about the book a lot more, and that's I'm really looking forward to kind of putting that reviews and also share and talk about the book a lot more. Um and that's. I really look forward to kind of putting that together as well. So, again, if you would like to be a part of that, shoot me a message. Um launch team. Um at I am underscore Ryan Spence over on Instagram or email hey at I am Ryan Spencecom. Or find me on LinkedIn. You know all the places. That's all good, cool. They are the headlines for this week.

Speaker 1:

So let's get to the show, and the show is inspired by an email that I sent out to my email list this week. Actually, if you're not on that list, what are you doing? You listen to the show. Get on the list. I send stories, I send personal development tips and strategies and things to make you, help you to think differently and to help to move you on towards your life. That's lit. So get yourself on the list. Head over to iamryanspencecom and for your details in there and get yourself on to that list. There's going to be more activity on that list as I move through to the second half of the year, uh, with a book coming out and other events happening, so particularly as I try to transition a little more away from social media. That's going to be the way to find out all that's happening and going down. So I am ryanispettscom and get yourself on the list.

Speaker 1:

So the email yes, I wrote the email this week to my list and I love when I get a reply to those emails, which sometimes happens, and this week I did get a reply. I got a reply from a former client of mine, which was beautiful, a really long email about various things that they had been doing in the time, um, things that they had been working on when we were together and kind of how those have progressed. But they replied because they said that that email email really spoke to them and they explained why and what they had been sort of going through and the process that they had gone through and how the email related. And so, even though I'd already sent this email out to my list, I thought it would be a good thing to talk about on the podcast, because if this related to my client, I'm pretty sure it's going to relate to you who's listening to this now. You probably have been in this situation, so I think it'd be helpful for you to think about. So I mentioned on last week's show that I was speaking at an event last Friday. I was talking times and I realised that some you may be listening to this way in the future and these timelines may make no sense, but this is a show that I'm talking to you like I'm talking to you at a bar over coffee right now, so you'd have to just bear with me.

Speaker 1:

Anyway, I spoke at an event last Friday and I got to speak at this event because I kind of put myself out there. There was a call for people to apply to speak at the early part of this year, and speaking is something that we been wanting to do more of, particularly speaking in real life, in real life events, rather than just online. So I kind of was off the back of running a couple of the meditation sessions that I run Legal Zen Meditating Council and I thought that, hey, I could do one of those in real life. So I threw my hat in the ring and I was accepted and invited to speak, which was great. And then, as is my one, I did nothing about it because other things took precedent at the time, until it got to the beginning of June and I realised the talk was a mere weeks away. So I thought I'd better get on with this.

Speaker 1:

So I dusted off my notes from previous sessions that I'd run and tried to start to put a talk together periodically and it was a bit of a struggle but I figured it was just because June was really busy, I had a lot going on and I was trying to sort of do too much. So I persevered with it, kept going, kept going, and then the Monday before the talk. So the talk was on Friday the 21st. So on Monday the 17th I kind of had a finished talk and we're being asked to send our slides in to the organisers. So I started to kind of think about the slides I was going to create to go with the talk. I'd been grinding out this talk for a couple of weeks, a few weeks now.

Speaker 1:

So getting to Monday and having what looked like a finished talk was kind of felt good. It was like a sigh of relief and my ego was proud. It's like, yeah, you've got this, you're gonna smash this, all of that kind of good stuff. But although my ego was really up for it, my soul just felt. It felt really flat. I knew that the subject of the talk wasn't the issue and I knew that the practical exercises in movement, in breathwork and in meditation that I was going to lead the attendees through. I knew that they would land as well and they felt good to me.

Speaker 1:

But the wrapper around that, the words around that, the story I was going to tell and how I was going to tell it to kind of lead into the subject of finding clarity through calm, it just didn't light me up and it kind of always felt like I was trying too hard and maybe it's because I knew I was going to be speaking to a room full of coaches and there was a little full of coaches and there was a little bit of me was like they know all of this, they've got far more experience than you. I mean all the, all the things that that that happen when you standing up to speak to somebody and all the kinds of thoughts that come to you. They don't go away. I've done a hell of a lot of work on that and those thoughts don't go away. All it means now is that I know that those thoughts aren't real. I know that the narrative, the story isn't real and I know what I have to offer. I know my value.

Speaker 1:

So, although the voices were there, I knew that their stories weren't true, but I also felt that I had been listening to them subconsciously and what I had ended up with in terms of this talk and in terms of the struggle I'd been going through to put this together, is because I was trying too hard, and so I did what my gut, what my soul, what my intuition was telling me to do, and I deleted the talk. So this was Monday and the talk was on Friday and I had to submit slides on Tuesday. Well, theoretically I had to submit slides on Monday, but I asked for an extension to Tuesday and now I had no talk. You know, I could have just sat down, cleared some space and sort of tinkered with what I have and try to get it to a place that felt a little bit better, but I didn't feel that that was going to be enough. I just knew that what I had, just no matter what I did with it, it wasn't going to give me the spark that I needed in order to be able to deliver the talk in the way I wanted to deliver it.

Speaker 1:

So I sat down at my Mac, I highlighted the text, I hit command X and everything went and I was left staring at a flashing cursor on a blank screen, and it felt good. Actually, it didn't feel scary, Um, like you think it might do. Um, it didn't feel like, oh my God, scary, like you think it might do. It didn't feel like, oh my God, what I'm going to do now. It felt good because what I had just didn't really feel right, so why keep it? Why keep tinkering away at it? I'd already spent the last few weeks struggling through it, so why continue struggling through it? So why continue?

Speaker 1:

So I left the blank screen, walked over to the meditation cushion in my office, sat down, meditated, and later that day, there was just this sudden spark, this sudden clarity in my mind and this flash of inspiration. And I kind of see it as there was this space occurring because, by letting go of what wasn't aligned, what didn't feel aligned, I was creating space for what was in alignment. And sometimes that's what needs to happen to create space for what you want. Or and sometimes that's what needs to happen To create space for what you want or what you need you've got to let go of what doesn't serve you. And to me, I believe that that's what was happening here, because as soon as that flash of inspiration came when I sat back down at my laptop. I just started typing and I'm not a fast typer and words were kind of falling out of my head faster than I could type and there was a litany of errors on the page. But it didn't matter. I just had to get it down because this thing just was just pouring out of my brain and that was all I needed to know, really, because the way I was putting this talk together before was, as I said, a little bit of a struggle, whereas now it was just flowing and I finished the talk in no time. By Tuesday night I had to talk, finish, I had my slides submitted and I was ready. Okay, I still needed to actually remember what I was going to say, because I like to try and talk without having too many notes. But, you know, I felt good about what I had in a way that I hadn't felt before. So I share that, because I want to ask you if you've ever had a moment like this.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes we can keep struggling through something because we feel that suffering is a necessary part of the process, and sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn't. It's not about having to suffer in order to succeed, suffer in order to succeed. But it's really about knowing when to persevere with the suffering and when to let that suffering go. And this is where connecting with your soul, with that inner wisdom, is paramount, because that's how the clarity comes about, what it is you need to do in that given situation, because that awareness of self leads to a clarity of thought and that clarity of thought allows you to choose the right course of action for you in that given moment and within that given situation.

Speaker 1:

Do you keep pushing? Whether it's a job you're trying to apply for, whether it's a creative work that you're trying to create, a book, a piece of art, a blog, do you keep going? Is this the time to keep pushing? Is this the time to keep pushing? Is this the time to persevere, to accept the suffering, knowing that what you're doing is moving in the right direction? Or is this a situation where you let go, where you say this this is too hard, not too hard in a way that you can't do it, that you're ready to quit, but too hard as in? It shouldn't be as hard as this. It's just not feeling aligned and it can be tricky to figure out which is right, because, particularly for me, like with this second book, it's been hard at times, it's been a struggle, but then it also was with the first book as well. But in both instances I knew the ultimate message I was trying to deliver. So for me, in those situations, persevering and pushing forward was the right choice, because I was deeply connected with the message I was sharing, deeply connected with my why, my reason for wanting to release these books into the world. So it wasn't about not doing that. It was about how do I figure out the right way to do it. Maybe that particular theme I'm writing about I'm not writing about it in the right way, that particular theme I'm running about I'm not running about it in the right way, and maybe I need to give myself some space and then come back to it. But ultimately, I knew I still need to move forward.

Speaker 1:

But for you, do you need to keep pushing or do you need to let go? They're the questions to ask yourself when you find that you are really struggling to make headway in the thing that you are doing. Ask yourself is it fear that's blocking your progress? Are you scared? Are you scared of getting it wrong? Are you scared of getting it right and what that might mean. And if that's the case, then maybe you just need to build some courage. You need to do some of that courage stacking and keep pushing forward. But if it's a lack of interest or a lack of alignment, if you really just can't get yourself fired up to do the damn thing, if it's just not lighting up your soul, then, no matter how great you think the idea might be, maybe it's an idea that's not for you, or maybe it's an idea that's just not for you right now. Maybe there are better ideas and better things that will serve the mission, the purpose that you are not for you right now. Maybe there are better ideas and better things that will serve the mission, the purpose that you are looking to live up to. And if that's the case, maybe that's one that you just let go this time.

Speaker 1:

Knowing which way to go, which choice to make it is a skill, but it's a skill that you can develop. It's a skill that you can develop by coming back home to yourself, by shutting out the external noise about what you should do, about how it should be, about what the process should feel like, and really connecting with what it feels like deep within, deep within your soul, connecting with that inner wisdom, that wise advocate that knows you better than you know yourself, that knows what to do and when to do it. It's going to require you to get quiet. It's going to require you to get still so you can hear and feel what that inner wisdom, that wise advocate, is saying to you. So if you're struggling with something right now, maybe you've struggled with something in the past and for damn sure you're going to struggle with something in the future. That's the nature of being a high performer, of being successful, of being somebody who's always looking for more, who's looking for that next level.

Speaker 1:

You're going to come up against this and when you do, I want you to come back to this episode. Do I want you to come back to this episode? And I want you to really take some time to be still, to be quiet and to connect with your inner knowing, your inner wisdom, so you can find out the answer to the question do you keep pushing forward or do you let it go? And the more that you can ask this question and listen to the answers and follow what the answers tell you, the more progress you're going to make and the more fun you're going to have on your quest for growth, for success, whatever it is that you're looking for, the more it's going to help you move from survival to thrival mode and the more it's going to help you move towards living a life that's lit.

Speaker 1:

Oh. So I guess, before I go, I should tell you well, how did the talk go when you scrap your talk at um on the Monday and you've got to talk on the Friday? Um, the talk went great. It was fucking amazing, uh, and what I love about uh about it is it wasn't perfect, like I hadn't completely memorized the talk and I know there were kind of bits that I that I missed out, but the session itself worked, worked phenomenally well and the feedback that I've got um has been has been amazing, and it reminded me of the uh, the, the Maya Angelou quote, which I don't have in front of me, but the general gist of it is that people won't remember what you said, um, but they remember how you made them feel and hearing people um say to me or message me that they took some of the tools and they've kind of gone and they've sat and done some breath work today or they were in a particular stressful situation and they remembered my meditation and they did that today, or they remembered the movement and allow them to release some tension. That's, to me, is that's just again, just a reminder of why I do the work that I do because it is about changing people's lives, changing people's perceptions of themselves and what they're capable of and how they can feel, how they can affect their own energy, their own well-being by using simple tools and strategies to help them to do that. Simple tools and strategies to help them to do that. So I'll be doing the talk again. I've already actually been asked to give it to another group in August. So looking forward to that, and that's the thing. That's more where I'm going to be trying to move things over the second half of this year, to getting into these spaces, to sharing in person more of the experiences and the stories that have colored the direction of my life and set me off on this quest to live a life that's lit.

Speaker 1:

Another week, another show, and when I speak to you again next week, I'll be another year older. Um, thank you uh for listening, uh for being here. Um, go ahead and grab a copy of the triple c method, the current book. Uh, in preparation for book two. You won't have to have read it to get book two, but it's gonna. Book two is gonna make um, gonna have a bigger impact on you if you've already read the triple c method and also worked your way through the accompanying workbook and done the exercises to help you gain clarity, um, boost confidence and build courage. So the triple c method head to iamryanspencecom, book um or anywhere you get your books from, and grab your copy today until next week. Go ahead, have a fantastic weekend and week ahead and stop living a life of lethargy. Start living life. Thanks for tuning in to the Triple C Project.

Speaker 1:

In the spirit of the Triple C, here's three things that you can do to support the show. Head to ratethispodcastcom. Slash triple C or over to your favorite podcast app and leave a review. Reviews really help people checking out shows to see what they can expect and how this show can help them. Second thing you can do share. Share this episode, share a previous episode with a friend, someone who you feel could benefit from what I'm throwing down on this here show. And number three head to IamRyanSpencecom. Get on the main list. I'll be sharing news about the show, news about what I'm up to my new book. Start writing soon, so to be the first to be in the know, you need to get yourself on the list. Really appreciate you being here and until next week, stop living a life of lethargy. Start living life lit.