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A podcast for women doing a lot and craving more soul alignment — motherhood, business, healing, relationships, growth — trying to do it without running themselves into the ground.
We talk about:
* intuition & energy
* nervous system regulation
* trauma healing
* self-compassion
* emotional processing
* entrepreneurship
* motherhood
* creating routines that actually support you
* staying connected to yourself while juggling real life
This is about learning how to feel energized, grounded, cared for, emotionally honest, and fully alive.
Your soul called - are you ready to answer?
Welcome to Your Soul Called. A podcast for those feeling like there's something more. More alignment, more purpose, more peace, more connection, more joy. I'm Nicole your host. Each week we explore the invisible things that shape our lives.
Nicole:Our intuition, our energy, our emotions and the lessons we came here to learn. Through personal stories, meaningful conversations and practical tools my hope is that every episode helps you trust yourself a little bit more, love yourself a little deeper and remember something your soul has always known. So without further ado let's dive in! Hello everyone welcome to episode 20 It's called stop waiting until you feel ready and I want to talk today about something I think that so many of us do is we put off the hard thing because we're waiting and waiting and waiting until we feel ready. We're waiting till we feel confident.
Nicole:We're waiting till we know exactly what we're doing. We're waiting till we have enough money, enough information, enough experience, enough certainty, enough safety. And I want to talk a little bit about why I don't think you actually need any of those things to take the next big step in your life. I want to share this because realized that jumping head first before being ready is something that I'm rather pro at. It's something that I personally have just done my whole life and I don't know if it's just something in me but I'm really really really good at doing hard things before I'm ready doing scary things before they feel safe.
Nicole:And so I want to share a little bit about my experience and the way that I think about this kind of stuff because I think it could help a lot of you. And when I do these scary big things it's not because they're easy or simple it's because they challenge me and I think deep down I know that doing big scary things forces me to grow in some way that I really need. And I like that. And I realized recently that this is a skill set that not everyone has. So I want to just share a little bit about why I think this skill set is so important to develop and how it can help you and why doing the hard thing before you're ready is really not that hard It's scary, yes, but hard?
Nicole:Not really. And once you've done the hard thing a bunch of times, it gets easier. One of my earliest memories I have of doing this was when I was eight, maybe even seven. My dad took us to this place called Kappena Falls. I live in Hawaii and Kapena Falls is this like pond waterfall, you know, forest.
Nicole:I don't know off the side of the freeway. I don't even know how he found it. Maybe all Hawaii people just know about it but it's this 30 foot high jump into this little pond below and people go there just to jump off this cliff into this pond. But it's high, and it's scary. And I remember getting there and seeing a bunch of big kids, like probably high schoolers doing this jump.
Nicole:But when I saw it I watched it a few times as a little girl and I decided I wanted to do it and when I decide something I'm I'm like all in I'm gonna do it So something about the challenge of it, the scariness of it, really intrigued me. And so I convinced my dad to do it with me, to hold my hand and jump together, which, in retrospect was a fucking terrible idea, but I thought it would be easier if we did it together. Now as a dad maybe he should have thought of this but he didn't. But no kid should be jumping off a 30 foot cliff into a pond. A ton of really bad things could happen.
Nicole:It's not safe. Like you could land upside down, You could freak out in mid air and turn sideways. You could get really seriously hurt and people do get hurt doing this. But I remember I made the decision I was gonna do it. And once that decision was made there was no going back.
Nicole:So my dad being the dumb dad that he was was like okay Nicole let's do this together so we held hands and we jumped together, but midway down and it was like a long ass fall like it felt like we were in the air forever. I remember it super clearly. But unknowingly, midway down, I curled up my legs, which twisted our weight and I ended up turning sideways. So we both rotated and then he landed on top of me and I can remember very very clearly the green bubbles. Being underwater, seeing green bubbles, thinking I was dead, and this was heaven, and this is what it looked like.
Nicole:And then I realized how much my leg hurt, and then there were people jumping in to pull us out. And, you know, my dad ended up with two broken toes and I had this huge ass bruise across the side of my leg. But was it worth it? Hell yeah! Like I thought I was so proud of the fact that I did it.
Nicole:I did not hold it against him ever. I felt like oh I did something scary that was totally under my out of my comfort zone and even though we both got pretty busted up, we talked about it for years and I felt super proud of this this thing that went terribly wrong. The fact that I did it, I felt very accomplished, powerful even as a eight year old little girl And I would do this again and again throughout my life. I would find something that felt scary and hard and I would make the decision to do it anyway and then figure it out along the way. And I can remember another time when I think I was like 11, I was in sixth grade, maybe I was 12, and I decided I wanted to run for president of my elementary school.
Nicole:And if you're going to do that you had to give a speech in front of the entire school at an assembly on the stage with a microphone not just the sixth grade but like kindergarten, first grade, second grade, third grade all the grades to the entire school with the parents and the teachers it was like a lot of people and this seems scary enough but add to the fact that I was a really really shy sixth grader. I was shy in general as a kid. And talking in front of the entire school was absolutely terrifying to me. And on top of that, during that time, my group of girlfriends, we had like this clan of five girls that we all lived in the same neighborhood and we hung out all the time, but they were mad at me and they were icing me out. And I wasn't in because they didn't like me at the time for whatever reason because girls do that.
Nicole:I knew they were gonna laugh at me on stage and that scared me as well. But deep down, you know, I felt like this is what I needed to do, and I don't know why because it was fucking scary. Probably, like, one of the scariest things I've ever done, and it was hard because I had to get up there and face my fears and just do it and here's the other part I decided that I if I was gonna win and I was pretty determined to win that I had to do something different so everybody else I knew was going to get up there and give a traditional speech you should vote for me because I will do this and blah blah blah blah but I came up with this very clever idea that I was going to sing my speech And I literally sang my campaign speech to the tune of the Mickey Mouse song. And I remember the ending was vote for n I c o l e p a n g. It's that like that.
Nicole:I sang the song. I ended with my name to the m I c k e y m o u s e, and I sang it in front of my entire school. I was a thousand percent not ready. I came up with this totally on my own. Nobody helped me.
Nicole:I wanted to do something different. I decided I was just gonna fucking do it, and I did it. I was not ready. It was the scariest thing I've ever done. I was terrified, but I did it.
Nicole:And surprise, surprise, everybody clapped. I remember I was shaking when I sang that song. I was so little I had this mic and everybody clapped for me and I ended up winning. But honestly that was not the point of the story that I won this campaign and became president of my elementary school, it was that somewhere inside this little 12 year old girl, I already knew something. I knew that doing scary things, doing the hard thing was going to push me to grow in a way that I absolutely needed.
Nicole:I knew it was going to put me on my highest path. I knew it was going to get me somewhere where I needed to be even if I didn't know where that place was yet. Because doing that hard scary thing, it always expands you. It pushes you. It teaches you things you didn't know about yourself, and I've carried this knowing with me my entire life.
Nicole:And I've always been someone who's willing to take that big risk to jump in the deep end, to do the scary thing, to take the chance. So why am I like this? And I've been thinking about it because I don't necessarily enjoy being I don't enjoy uncertainty. I don't enjoy feeling unsafe. But I've learned that every time I do something that really scares me, I get a little more comfortable with being uncomfortable.
Nicole:My self trust grows a little bit more. I've learned that I come out the other side as a stronger person even if I don't do it perfectly. And the next time I do something hard, it gets a little bit easier and a little bit easier and a little bit easier. So, I want to talk about this idea of waiting until you're ready because here's what I've learned we all have moments in life where life pushes us into something new and big and scary before we feel ready and of course you're not ready because you haven't done it before because you don't know what the outcome is going to be you don't know what it's going to feel like you don't know how it's going to work and sometimes it just doesn't feel safe And I think we can interpret uncertainty as a sign that we're not supposed to do it. It's like our brain, you know, will say, Warning.
Nicole:Unsafe. Don't do it. But what if that isn't actually true? What if you're just standing on this edge of something you've never experienced before, and so, of course, it's gonna feel scary. I've never really had the thought, like, who am I to do this?
Nicole:It's always been more of who am I not to? Why not me? Why can't I sing this song on stage and win president? Why couldn't I do this? Why can't I figure this out?
Nicole:Sometimes you just have to make the decision to bet on yourself, to go all in on yourself. It's just a decision. That's it. You don't even have to know how you're going to succeed or if you're going to succeed. You just have to be willing to go all in on yourself and take the next step.
Nicole:And here's something else that I've learned: probably gonna make mistakes. You're probably gonna fuck it up in some big or small way, like how I crunched up my legs midway through that 30 foot fall and landed sideways on the water with my dad on top of me. I totally fucked that up. You're probably not even gonna know how you fucked it up until it's too late, and it's probably not gonna go how you hoped. And that is okay.
Nicole:Because doing the hard thing isn't about guaranteeing that it will work. It's about giving yourself the opportunity to find out giving yourself the opportunity to see what you're made of and I can guarantee that you're going to surprise yourself with how strong, how powerful, how incredibly resilient you actually are. And you do the hard thing because it's part of the learning. If you make a mistake, if you fuck it up, it shows you exactly what you don't want to do next time and you can course correct you can move forward more quickly more efficiently more consistently like after that 30 foot jump I went on to jump off this other thing called spinning case which was a 50 or 60 foot jump? I don't know.
Nicole:I did that when I was like probably 10 years old. I did not curl my legs that time. I went straight, kept my arms straight. I learned how I was supposed to put my body. I learned because I fucked it up the first time.
Nicole:So it's okay to make a mistake. You figure it out and the next time you do it, you do it better. And there's one thing though that I want to make a distinction about because when I was younger, I used to think that I had to force myself to do the hard thing, to do the scary thing. I'd basically push myself to do scary things. Like, I forced myself onto that stage and said to myself, get out there.
Nicole:You're doing it. And I don't know why I I did this, but there and I still do think there is something incredibly powerful about doing hard things. But now I understand something that I didn't understand back then, which is you can support yourself through the hard things. You don't have to force yourself to do anything. And in fact, you shouldn't force yourself to do anything.
Nicole:You get to decide. I get to ask myself, do I actually want this? Is this something that I feel called called towards? Is this something that feels aligned for me? And if this is something deep down, I know with everything I am that this is the right next move, I don't need to force myself through it.
Nicole:I get to make the decision that I'm gonna do it and I get to support myself through it. So I still do the hard things but instead of forcing myself I now support myself through it. That's completely changed things for me because now when I decide I'm going to do something hard, I make another decision. That I'm going to have my back no matter what. Even if it doesn't work, even if I make a mistake, even if I don't get there as fast as I would like to, even if I don't achieve the thing that I thought I would at all, I'm gonna love myself through it.
Nicole:I'm gonna be proud of myself no matter what. I'm gonna support myself the whole way through all of the parts of it when I feel scared, when I question myself, when I start to think, I don't know if this was the right thing to do. I'm gonna support myself and tell myself I've got your back no matter what. And honestly, think this is the biggest piece of doing the hard scary thing. It's also having that self trust that you've got your back, knowing that you're gonna be there for yourself no matter what happens.
Nicole:That even if shit hits the fan and everything goes terribly wrong, you are always supported by yourself. When you know that support is there, it's unwavering. You're always gonna support yourself no matter what. The hard scary thing becomes less scary. And I'm actually living this right now.
Nicole:As I've mentioned before, we're building this new house. That's my big scary thing right now because it's a huge investment that feels hella unsafe. Like, there's been so many moments in this process where I look at it and I'm like, what the fuck are you doing? There is just way too much money going out and there are too many unknowns. I don't like this isn't gonna work.
Nicole:This isn't safe. But underneath all of that uncertainty is this belief that I've cultivated over time through doing the hard thing over and over and over again is that I have this belief that whatever happens, I can figure it out. I've done hard shit before. I can do this. And when you've got that belief, it can kinda carry you, you know, through big things like this house for me.
Nicole:And I also know I don't need to figure out the entire house thing today. I just need the next step. And I think that's one of the biggest ways to support ourselves through uncertainty is that you don't need the whole entire plan figured out. You just need to know the direction you're moving in. And how do you know the direction?
Nicole:Well, that's something you just feel. I think you feel it in your bones, in your gut. You feel pulled to to switch directions, to do this thing, this big scary thing, whatever it is. You know this is what you're supposed to be doing, and you know it's the right next step because you feel it. Then you just make the decision to go for it and you bet on yourself.
Nicole:And after you've made that decision, ask, what's the next best step? Not how do I get to the end goal, but what's the next best step that I can make right now this week right now today that's it I don't need to solve my entire financial crisis today I don't need to figure out my whole life today I don't need to know all the answers or know how everything is going to work itself out all I need to know is the next best step today and then next week I'll figure out the next best step then and then the next one and then the next one and there's one other piece of this that I think is really, really important. Because if you're doing something new, something big, something you've never done before that probably feels scary, like it's freaking you out, you have to allow yourself to have the big feelings because they're guaranteed gonna come up. Whenever I'm stepping into something challenging or scary, I allow myself to feel whatever is there. If I'm anxious, then I'm anxious.
Nicole:I'm not pretending I'm not. If I'm overwhelmed, then I'm overwhelmed. I just let it be there in my body. If I'm scared, then I'm scared. I might be scared for, like, six hours today.
Nicole:That's okay. I don't make the feeling mean anything about who I am, about my soul, about my being. Right? Because I am not an anxious person. I am just a human that's feeling anxious right now.
Nicole:I am not an overwhelmed person. I'm just a human that's feeling overwhelmed right now. I'm not a scared person. I'm just a person feeling scared right now. This feeling is not me.
Nicole:It's not who I am. It's just a feeling that's in my body right now, that's moving through my body, and I can allow it to be there. I can not force it out and make it wrong. It's there for a reason. It's there because it's trying to tell me something.
Nicole:So if I'm feeling scared, I'm gonna allow that feeling to be in my body. I'm gonna sit with it. I'm gonna take a moment to feel where it is, and I'm gonna say, you know, hello scared scaredness in my throat, in my face, in my chest. I see you. I feel you.
Nicole:What do you need from me right now? Stay as long as you want. And I will recognize the feeling. Sometimes the feeling will talk to me. It'll say, you know, tell me what it needs.
Nicole:Sometimes it will move. I can actually feel it move through my body. I sit with it. I let it be there. I don't try to force it out or pretend that it doesn't exist or, like, ignore it.
Nicole:Keep doing other stuff, scroll through your phone or check emails or make a phone call. I let the feeling be there because it's there for a reason. I process it. I let it move through my body. I don't say why are you like this?
Nicole:You shouldn't feel this way. You're not ready. What's wrong with you? I don't criticize it. Okay?
Nicole:I allow it to be there and stay for as long as I want. I talk to it. I support it. I love on it. And here's the other thing that I do a lot.
Nicole:When I'm doing big scary things, I often feel those kinds of big scary feelings and then I do this pep talk to myself which I've talked about before in previous episodes but it's really really helped me because I've always wanted this kind of support from my mom, from my dad, from my family. I don't know. And I never got it. And I've learned that I can give it to myself, and so can you. So I will literally pep talk myself while I am doing laundry, while I'm driving in my car, while I am walking to Starbucks, while I am walking around the house, and I'll say, Nicole, I am so fucking proud of you.
Nicole:I know this is hard. I know it feels like a lot. I know you're scared. Of course, you are. But I'm not leaving you.
Nicole:I'm here for you, and I know you feel like you need to figure it all out right but you don't. You're doing an incredible job. I am so fucking proud of you. You're moving forward slowly, and you're doing it at your pace, and everything that you're doing is perfect. You don't need to do anything more.
Nicole:You are gonna get there and I'm never leaving you. I know it's scary but you can do scary things. I'm so fucking proud of you. You're doing such an incredible job and even if nobody else says it. I want you to know and I want you to hear it right now.
Nicole:I love you so much. I am so proud of you. I am proud of you for doing this laundry. I'm proud of you for making those enchiladas. I am proud of you for showing up every day when you don't want to.
Nicole:I'm proud of you for doing the hard thing. Because a lot of people don't do the hard thing, but that's not who you are. You are sweet. You are kind. You are caring.
Nicole:You're a good daughter, a good mother, a good friend, an incredible entrepreneur. I am so proud of you. You are doing such an amazing job. And I'll pep talk myself like this and yeah, it does feel weird at first, but the more you do it, the easier it gets. And I do it because I need to hear it because I am actually proud of myself.
Nicole:I am proud of the risks I'm I've taken, and I am proud of the things that I fucked up and learned from. And I think so many of us were just waiting for someone else to tell us that we're doing a good job. We're waiting for our parents, for our partners, for our friends to notice, to see us, to acknowledge us, to to say something that makes us feel seen, loved, cared for, understood. We're waiting for, you know, this acknowledgment before we can feel enough, before we can feel worthy. We're waiting for the business to succeed, for the money to come, for the accomplishment.
Nicole:We're waiting for someone to look at us and say, I'm so fucking proud of you. But, what if you could start giving that to yourself? What if you could become the person that says I'm so proud of you? Not because everything is perfect, not because you've achieved the goal, not because you have it all figured out, not because you've done the big scary thing, but just because you're showing up, because you are thinking about doing the hard thing, because you're taking chances on yourself, because you're trying, because you're becoming And I think that's the real shift. It's it's not that you have to become this big thing.
Nicole:You don't have to become someone who has it all figured out, who isn't afraid. You don't have to eliminate all the fear. You don't have to, you know, become this person. You have to love yourself as you are through it all. And, you need to know that you're going to have your back through the entire process.
Nicole:You're going to be there for yourself while you're figuring it out. And, if you don't trust yourself yet, and if this process of, you know, pep talking yourself or being proud of yourself out loud, if it feels weird, like, that's okay too. Self trust, that's something you build. It's something you practice, and you've never heard anybody say they're proud of you, they see you, they acknowledge you. You've never had that growing up.
Nicole:Like, of course, it's gonna feel fucking weird. It still feels weird for me. I don't have, you know, a foundation of family that is like, oh, Nicole, what a great job you're doing with your life. Like, no. Never.
Nicole:So when I say it to myself, it feels weird, but that doesn't mean I don't need it. And that doesn't mean that I'm not going to keep giving it to myself because I know I need it so bad. And the more you do it, the more you start to feel supported and cared for and loved. And this self trust within you begins to build. And one day, you're eventually gonna look at, you know, this big, hard, scary thing and say, yeah.
Nicole:I fucking trust myself. Not because you've never failed, not because, you know, it's not big and scary, but because you've learned that no matter what, you don't abandon yourself through the hard scary things. And I want you to and I want to leave you with this simple practice which I've given to you before but I'm going to say it again because I swear to god this makes such a big difference I want you to give yourself a two minute pep talk when you're feeling scared, when you're feeling anxious, when you're feeling overwhelmed, and I want you to imagine yourself as a little girl, maybe five years old. Little girl feeling exactly like you're feeling. She's scared.
Nicole:She's freaked out. She feels alone. Maybe she's standing at the edge of something she doesn't know if she wants to do. She doesn't feel safe. She feels, you know, uncertain, freaked out, scared, alone, and I want you to become the adult in this situation.
Nicole:I want you to be her mother. Grab her hand, look her in the eyes, and talk to her. Just talk to her. Just be there for her for two minutes. Tell her how proud you are of her.
Nicole:Tell her how special she is. Tell her that you see how hard she's trying and that you're proud of her just for trying. Tell her you understand why she's scared. Tell her she doesn't have to have it all figured out. Tell her even if she doesn't do the hard thing you're going to be proud of her anyway.
Nicole:Even if she does it and fails and it doesn't go perfectly, you're going to be there for her through it all. Tell her that you love her. Tell her she's enough, more than enough. Remind her of how special she is. Tell her that even if she fucks it up, you're gonna love her.
Nicole:You will never stop loving her. You're always going to be proud of her. Even if the timing isn't perfect, you are going to have her back no matter what. Say it out loud tell her all the things she needs to hear. Do it in your car when you're driving.
Nicole:Do it in the shower. Do it while you're walking. Say it out loud And you want to say it out loud because you need to hear it with your own ears. And do it for two minutes every day. Because you're teaching yourself something that is going to benefit you for the rest of your life.
Nicole:You're teaching yourself, I am safe with me. I am supported by me. I am loved by me. I have my own back. No matter what.
Nicole:I am always going to be there for me. When you have that kind of foundation, you can do some pretty fucking big things. So stop waiting until you feel ready because you're never going to feel completely ready and you don't need to. You just need to know where you're going. You just need to know the direction, and then you just need to take one step and support yourself through it because the goal isn't to create a life where nothing scary ever happens.
Nicole:We live in this earth of that has balance of good and bad. There's always gonna be something that feels big, balanced with things that feel safe. There's always gonna be both. And the goal is not to become someone who knows that whatever, you know, that bad things aren't gonna happen. The goal is that whatever happens, no matter what, I will be there for me.
Nicole:And that to me is real self support is real unconditional love is it's going to change your life so I hope that you can take a little bit of this do that two minute pep talk in real life. I know it's going to feel weird, like it will feel weird, I will tell you that, but that's okay. It doesn't mean you don't need it. It doesn't mean after you've done it ten-twenty times that it's not going to start feeling really really good. And the more you do it, more supported you'll feel, the more cared for you'll feel, the more loved you're going to feel and you deserve that.
Nicole:We all do. Alright guys, that's all I have for you today. I'll see you next time. Bye for now!