Differently
The podcast for ambitious overthinkers.
Turn your mind into your most powerful catalyst for growth.
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Differently
Breaking Free from Survival Mode
What happens when you've tried every external change but still feel stuck? The answer might surprise you.
Discover the hidden operating system that's silently running your life—what I call your "survival model." This outdated thinking pattern once helped you navigate challenges but has now become the very thing standing between you and the life you truly want. Through years of coaching, I've witnessed this pattern repeatedly: clients changing jobs, relationships, or locations only to find the same feelings resurfacing because they're bringing their internal operating system with them everywhere they go.
The good news? It's a thinking problem, not a capability problem—and it can be transformed.
Enjoy!
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Thank you for listening!
I'm Carla Reeves, and this is Differently. Whether you feel stuck in survival, navigating a change, or seeking more for your life, may this podcast be your weekly nudge to take a risk to build a life that is uniquely bold, authentic and in alignment with your deepest values. What if you worried less about the bumps in the road and instead got equipped for the journey? Get ready to rethink what's possible. Welcome to the Differently podcast. If you're new to the show, welcome. I'm so excited that you're here and listening and if you've been hanging out with me for a while gosh, it's been a while. Thank you so much for being a regular listener.
Speaker 1:I want to talk about something really important today with you, but before we do that, I just want to say that you might notice a little refresh on the artwork and the music and the intro and, as you know, the last 18 months, gosh, I've been growing and shedding and learning and healing a lot, as we all are all the time and, as you know, sometimes your brand has to catch up with your own evolution and growth, and so that's what you're seeing. I feel like my message and mission has gotten more clear and soon all the other pieces will reflect that, and I'm excited to share more about that with you soon. So I want to talk about something really important. If you have been feeling stuck, if you feel like you're spinning your wheels, if you feel like you're doing all the right things but you're not making the traction or the meaningful traction that you want to make in your life, I want you to know that it's not because there's something wrong with you, it's not because you're not capable. It's most likely a thinking problem.
Speaker 1:And I noticed this, or discovered this early on in my coaching work. I'd been coaching, I think, for a few years at that point and I noticed that when people came into coaching, they always wanted to change a relationship or move to a new city or change a job or make some big change in their life. And I noticed after a while that I sensed that that wasn't actually what they wanted to change. And I started asking people if they were willing to suspend that big change, making that big change in their life, so that we could explore something else big change in their life so that we could explore something else. And as I started exploring and getting inside of what they were thinking and what their beliefs are and what this system operating system internally that they're using to navigate their life. I started to recognize that there were patterns in this operating system that were tripping them up and that they were actually trying to escape that not the relationship, job or city. And even if they did still want to make that big change, once we were able to recognize the operating system and make some changes there, then they could make that big transition or change in their life from a very different place. Transition or change in their life from a very different place, a more empowered place, a more proactive place, a place that wasn't a need to escape, but it was a real, intentional choice about making a change in their life.
Speaker 1:So there's something that's in your way that is like a blind spot. It's the biggest blind spot that I have seen show up for people and I call it your survival model, because it is an operating system that literally did help you survive at one time in your life. It's not all bad. The problem is that a lot of times we're grown adults now trying to create change in our life, but we're operating in an old, outdated operating system that literally did help us survive at one time, but now it's the very thing that is in our way, and as I had mentioned on a previous recent episode, is that I feel that we're going to need to get equipped to navigate change, possibly more quickly than we ever have, and we're going to need to have less drag in our life, less struggle, less spinning our wheels, and I feel an urgency to really help people get out of their survival model, to recognize it, know that it's there and choose intentionally in the face of it. It doesn't really ever go away, but once you can see it, you can choose differently in the face of it.
Speaker 1:So a few signs that you might be in survival mode it can look like a constant overthinking or mental spinning. It can feel like you're stuck despite external success. So if you look at your life from the outside, it looks really good, but inside you're just not feeling it. That's a really good sign Operating from fear rather than faith or possibility. Maybe you just feel exhausted and trying to hold it all together. A lot of my clients when they start, they feel that way. They're spread so thin and they're exhausted and they just can't do it the same way anymore. A lot of times it can look like a lack of progress and momentum, despite putting in all the effort. And so these are signs and it can start to feel like, oh, like what's wrong with me? Why can't I tap into my full potential? Why can't I overcome this? And a lot of times it is because it is a blind spot. It's hard to see on your own.
Speaker 1:The cost of staying here is that you perpetuate the same results in your life, even though you might change your actions or, like I said, change a relationship, a job or move to a new city. Oftentimes you'll feel better for a period of time, but then you might start to feel those same old, familiar feelings resurface. That is totally normal and a sign that you haven't addressed the foundation. And once you address that foundation, then you have a clean and clear operating system that you can then make changes with. That follows you, so that if you make a relationship change, you're not going to slip back to those old ways, because you're actually operating in a new way, thinking in a new way, thinking in a new way, behaving in a new way. And again, this is a practice. I recognize this in my own life a lot of years ago, and I still practice.
Speaker 1:And there's a big cost to staying here because we perpetuate those same unfulfilling results and feel at the mercy of our circumstances when we don't have to. By the way, we miss opportunities for growth and impact right Because we dismiss things or we shrink, because the view and perspective we hold of ourselves and what's possible is small and outdated. We remain caught in cycles of overthinking and inaction for longer periods of time than we need to and we watch life slip by, you know, realizing that we're not stepping into that full potential or what we know is possible in our heart for our life. And if I know who you are which I feel like, I have a sense, if you've been listening to this podcast, that that's not okay with you. It's not okay with me either, and that's why I'm on a mission to really share this and teach people about what this is and help you get out of it. It's a thinking problem, not a you problem or a capability problem. It's a thinking problem problem or a capability problem. It's a thinking problem.
Speaker 1:I want to share a few simple examples where this has a profound impact. Years and years ago, I was coaching a woman who didn't feel like she had value. She had inside of her old survival model operating system. She had a belief that she didn't have value, that people didn't see her, understand her, and it really showed up in every interaction she had with her boss at work. Because she was looking through always looking through the lens of she wasn't valuable and that's all she could see when her boss would behave in certain ways and we actually. I actually had her send me one of the emails her boss sent that she was really upset about and as I read the email, there was really nothing to be upset about in that email. However, when you're looking at something through a lens of not being valued, not being seen, it shades the entire experience you have of reading that email and so we misinterpret things over and over and over again. That's one example. Another example is watching people behave in relationships where they're perpetuating unfulfilling, debilitating patterns in relationships because of this operating system and survival model. Because when we think a certain way and we believe either we're not lovable or we're not capable of great love, that impacts how we show up and how we behave in relationships, and I've worked with many people who we start to adjust their thinking just a little bit. That starts to impact how they show up in relationships and over time, I have seen people create brand new relationship patterns in their life.
Speaker 1:This is, you know, my mission is to renew minds, because renewing your mind renews your life. It's biblical and I've seen this in people's lives. This has potential to change legacies and when you do this in your own life, if you have children, it downloads to your children and the people around you. The last example I want to share with you is one I think that you'll relate with is, and one that I had to work really hard in my life to change.
Speaker 1:But this working hard and your work becoming your identity and this need to achieve, achieve, achieve, prove, prove, prove. And it's like never enough and we just can't check enough boxes to actually start to feel fulfilled. It's an illusion that if we achieve more, we're going to feel better. It's an illusion that if we achieve more, we're going to feel better, and this is also your survival model in action, because somewhere along the way you learned to get value identity from your work and it becomes like it's a strength, right, but it becomes a weakness when you overuse it. And I see this so often with my clients, and we think that if we can just get to a certain level, then we can relax and then we can live a more fulfilling life. But the opposite is true. You have to start to learn to flex that muscle and separate your identity from your work, and so these are three examples that I see a lot in the work I do with clients. The survival model can be really debilitating until you know about it and you can recognize it.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about what can you do. Again, getting out of survival mode isn't about doing more or being more. It's about thinking differently. First we have to get to the foundation of things, and kind of my favorite work with people is to help you pull apart your thinking and shine light in your thinking so that we can pull out the lies, challenge your thinking and start to invent a model that is updated, that allows you to become who you're designed to be today and have the impact that you really, really want to have in your life. So what do we do? First we have to raise that awareness to our thinking, and this is why I promote journaling so much. It's really not about journaling.
Speaker 1:Journaling is a vehicle to understanding your own mind, and I believe that this is really true. Self-love and self-care is understanding the landscape of your mind, understanding what's going on in there, what you're allowing to hang out in there, and really intentionally choosing and cleaning up the environment of your mind, and so ways that you can do that is just like a simple daily check-in practice Check in with the way that you're thinking, check in with the thoughts that have been hanging around all day. This is one of the first exercises I do with clients is just looking at your thoughts, the power of your thoughts on any given day. What were you thinking today? How did that make you feel? How did that impact your mood? Just starting to tune in. That's all I want you to do to start.
Speaker 1:If you're ready to like really address this. If you feel like, wow, this is really speaking to me and I feel like this blind spot is having a huge impact in my life and my work, let's talk, get on a call with me. I am feeling like this is so important that I've actually changed the way that I'm coaching and I'm offering a program where you can just get your survival model, because it's so powerful for people. I want to make it more accessible for you, so I have ways of doing that. I'm also hosting a class If you're listening live on May 9th, where it's called get out of survival, where I'm going to go a little bit deeper into this. So I invite you to the free class, I invite you to schedule a call with me If you know, you just just you want to know more about this or you're ready to dive in. It would be an honor to talk to you.
Speaker 1:So a recap getting out of survival mode isn't about doing more or being more.
Speaker 1:This is good news. It's about thinking differently. Next week, I'm going to talk about journaling and prompts that can help you to continue to raise your awareness around this and get out of survival. And lastly, remember there is no perfect time to do this. It's always going to feel like, oh, I'll do this in three months when my life slows down. Life doesn't slow down. There's always something down. Life doesn't slow down. There's always something. Your life will start to change when you make an interruption and say yes to you and your life and there's nothing selfish about this. It's one of the most generous things you can do, because it will ripple to everyone around you.
Speaker 1:Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Differently. It's been an honor to share this conversation with you. You know, one of the keys to living fully is to take action when you're inspired to do so. I hope you found that spark of inspiration today and would you help us spread the word. Did someone you know come to mind while you were listening? If this episode could impact someone you know, please share it and pass it along. Thank you.