March 28, 2025

Why We Abandon Our Big Ideas and How to Stop (Ep. 21)

Send Mind Your Midlife a note

Have you ever talked yourself out of something before you even tried? Maybe you thought, That business idea is too hard, They probably wouldn’t want to be friends, or I won’t get that job, so why bother applying?

If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. In this episode, Cheryl dives into the psychology behind self-rejection—why we shut down possibilities before they even have a chance to unfold. Whether it’s a career move, a relationship, or simply putting yourself out there, you’ll learn how to break free from self-doubt and step into new opportunities with confidence.

BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU’LL DISCOVER:

Why we reject things before we’re rejected—and how it’s keeping you stuck.
The hidden role self-doubt and past experiences play in holding you back.
How to recognize when fear of rejection is making decisions for you.
A simple mindset shift to help you say yes more often and open new doors.

🎯 OMG Moment: You cannot create a life you love without experiencing some rejection—if you’ve never heard no, you’re playing too small.

Take Action

Want to stop holding yourself back? Download Cheryl’s free Story Cycle resource at cherylpfischer.com/storycycle and start rewriting the beliefs that keep you stuck.

Let's Connect

Come join us in the Mind Your Midlife Podsquad on Facebook for extra content, input into the episodes, coaching, and more.

Why This Episode Matters

So many midlife women play small out of fear of rejection, missing out on opportunities for growth, success, and joy. This episode will help you recognize self-sabotaging patterns and step into the confidence you deserve.

🎧 Hit follow now and join me next week for a powerful conversation about ageism, movement, and how to stay active and strong as we get older!

Find all podcast and coaching resources at cherylpfischer.com.

Chapters

00:00 - The Challenge of Big Ideas and Self-Defeat

01:16 - Mind Your Midlife Introduction

02:50 - Jane's Sales Struggle and Fear Patterns

08:40 - Avoiding Rejection by Not Asking

13:20 - Fear of Rejection in Different Life Areas

19:15 - Practical Steps to Overcome Rejection Fear

25:34 - You Need Rejection for an Amazing Life

Transcript

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00:00:00.763 --> 00:00:02.769
I bet this is going to sound familiar to you.

00:00:02.769 --> 00:00:08.551
What if I could really be at the top of my game and do all these things?

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I'm so excited, but it'd be hard, maybe not.

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What if we could?

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Takes too long to get there.

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Have you been there?

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You got some big idea and you got excited for a second and then feels too hard.

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How do you decide?

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How do you decide whether to go with the big idea or whether to just cut it off?

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Now, before there's any chance of it getting difficult, let's talk about it.

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Of it getting difficult, let's talk about it.

00:00:48.402 --> 00:00:51.387
Welcome to Mind your Midlife, your go-to resource for confidence and success, one thought at a time.

00:00:51.387 --> 00:01:04.210
Unlike most advice out there, we believe that simply telling you to believe in yourself or change your habits isn't enough to wake up excited about life or feel truly confident in your body.

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Each week, you'll gain actionable strategies and oh my goodness powerful insights to stop feeling stuck and start loving your midlife.

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This is the Mind your Midlife podcast.

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Here we are at Mind your Midlife, and midlife is a pretty broad definition, right 40s, 50s, 60s, I don't know.

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It's a period of change, is what it is, and the reason we even call it midlife is because it sort of sits in the middle of the hundred year life that we may have.

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It's a period where a lot of things are changing our bodies, our responsibilities, our kids, our parents, really almost every aspect of life might have some change going on during this time, and that means there are decisions to be made and that means there are opportunities for us to hold ourselves back.

00:02:06.173 --> 00:02:16.627
Now, if you're hearing me say that and you're thinking, hey, I take a lot of risks, I do not hold myself back, don't say that, well good.

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And also we all hold ourselves back sometimes.

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And so while I want to talk about kind of rejecting things before they have the opportunity to reject us whether it's an opportunity or whether it's a person I want to go about that by giving you a coaching example.

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Now, my client's not here to talk with me directly today, but I'll walk you through the story and let's see what we can gain from it.

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So my coaching client let's call her Jane that I'm going to talk about today is someone who is just a very gregarious, fun person and she decided in her career that she wanted to be an entrepreneur, and so she is in the position where she has her business and she needs to be talking to people about her products.

00:03:19.842 --> 00:03:23.326
Once we have a business, we have to market it.

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Once we have a business, we have to market it, we have to sell.

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And if you have a business, maybe, like me, you're thinking, oh, and that's the part that's more challenging.

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So some of us have sort of a natural talent for sales and some of us maybe don't have that naturally.

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We can all do it.

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So Jane is in sales, and for anyone in a sales position or a sales responsibility, there's two ways that you can think of sales.

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You can think of sales, on the one hand, as your job is to annoy people and talk them into things, and maybe it feels that way some days.

00:04:04.911 --> 00:04:16.209
Or you can think of sales as finding a need and providing a solution to fill that need or solve that problem.

00:04:16.209 --> 00:04:18.533
And guess what?

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The second way is the way that is most healthy to think about sales, and when I was first learning about the fact that sales could be problem solving, someone said to me well, you were a math teacher, weren't you?

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And I said yes, 12 years.

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And they said you sold math to a hostile audience.

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Math to a hostile audience meaning reluctant high schoolers for 12 years and I thought you know what?

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That's right.

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They had a need.

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They may not have accepted that they had a need, but they did and I was providing a solution and sometimes I had to make it fun and talk them into it.

00:05:03.204 --> 00:05:11.987
So, getting back on track here, jane has been working on looking at the sales part of her business as that second perspective.

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She is finding a need and she is providing a solution.

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She is helping them and if we take that perspective further, jane and I have talked quite a bit about the fact that helping them means okay, let's identify who is it that has this need.

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How do we find those people?

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And the irony of that is that, with my podcast coach, this is what I needed to talk about too.

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It's often that we need a coach, even if we are a coach, but I digress.

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So I've been working with Jane on this.

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Taking that second perspective, this is problem solving, it's finding a need.

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Maybe it could even be fun and she's doing really well and at the same time, one of our calls recently was really all about Jane being stuck in a pattern of talking with just a few people over and over again, even though they had said not sure, not right now, or they'd been sort of so-so they definitely were not excited to say yes, but she was continually noticing herself going back, and going back, and going back and talking to the same people again about the same thing.

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Now there's some logic and some strategy, I suppose, in that.

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And in fact, I always think of my sister-in-law when I talk about no's, because she had her own business, was very successful for many years, and she had been told no towards the beginning by a store where she wanted to offer her products, and she had put a sticky note and it said something like no, it's just right now, it's not forever.

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So if we're in sales or we're in marketing or we're trying to find new opportunities and we get a no, do we stop and never go back to that person?

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Well, no, and we get a no, do we stop and never go back to that person?

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Well, no.

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But what Jane finds herself doing is always staying with this same little group of people that she's already talked to, and so what she's really doing is avoiding talking to anyone else.

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Okay, and that's because she's rejecting them before they have a chance to reject her.

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And so Jane and I talked through this in a lot of detail.

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Okay, so do you feel good about the fact that you went back to this particular person and asked them again about the products and she was feeling discouraged about it?

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Why do they keep saying no?

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I know that this could really help them and what they're trying to do with their business.

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I don't understand why they keep saying no and, to Jane's credit, she has a friendly and cordial relationship.

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I don't get the sense that this person that she keeps going back to at least for this person, this example is frustrated with her or upset at her or anything like that.

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She's doing this in a professional way, but why, over and over every month, is she going back to the same person and the same small group of people and just getting the nose again and not doing anything else?

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So the not doing anything else part is what we really wanted to see.

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Yes, we should follow up.

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I am not saying to you that we shouldn't follow up, and if we stay in our same little circle of who we're talking to and we're going to expand this in a minute, I imagine you're already able to tell that then we're never going to have the opportunity to go bigger.

00:09:20.744 --> 00:09:31.025
So I said to Jane are there other people on your list of potential clients?

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And she said, of course.

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And I said, well, okay, do you have this written down?

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Let's get out the list.

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And I said you know, let's look at the list.

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How many of these people have you reached out to and had a conversation with about your business and your products?

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And it was of the list she had in front of her.

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It was maybe a third of the list.

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And I said okay, what is the situation with the rest of the list?

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I see two thirds of the list here still available for contact, potentially.

00:10:06.746 --> 00:10:09.792
So what is going on with them?

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And coaching, of course, is about asking questions and helping the client to figure out.

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Okay, what actually is going on inside my head that I'm doing this.

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And so Jane kind of struggled with the answer to that why wasn't she contacting these other two-thirds of the list?

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It was her list, she made it.

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These seemed like good contacts, potential customers, clients.

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She made this list and then she stayed for a significant period of time with this one third group and kind of went round and round no, not right now.

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No, not right now, no, not right now.

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So what happened to the other two thirds of the list?

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About that, jane started to say well, I think these probably are not going to be interested.

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I kind of questioned why I put them on the list, these few here, and you can't see me, but I'm, you know, thinking as if here's a few lines, here's a few lines, so I probably should take them off anyway.

00:11:28.524 --> 00:11:32.333
And then she said oh, like this one makes me nervous, I don't know.

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I don't know how I would reach out or what I would say.

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And so you can see kind of a pattern forming here.

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She's rejecting them, taking them off her list before they can make her feel some kind of way one of my favorite sayings before they can make her feel rejected or make her feel bad about herself.

00:11:54.844 --> 00:12:02.961
Now, from the outside, when we look at someone doing this, maybe it doesn't necessarily make sense.

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Why would we have our own business, a product we feel strongly about, and not offer it to someone who we identified as maybe being a potential client?

00:12:12.679 --> 00:12:16.135
From the outside, we might say, well, that doesn't make any sense.

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Of course you would offer it to them, and if they say, no, it's not about you, it's about the product.

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So okay, keep going.

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It's easy to say that from the outside.

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It's probably easy to say that about dating from the outside too, but from the inside of the situation this is totally normal.

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It feels really vulnerable to open yourself up to hearing no Because someone saying no to your product, because someone saying no to your product, even when it's not personal, even when it's not a date or something like that it's a product or it's some sort of business decision, even when it's not personal.

00:12:59.077 --> 00:13:05.669
If someone says no, we feel rejected and we feel down on ourselves.

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Maybe not every time, but that is a normal way that we can feel in these situations.

00:13:13.557 --> 00:13:26.580
And one of my favorite examples to start helping clients to just switch the thinking a little bit, just try it on a different way of thinking about these interactions.

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A different way of thinking about these interactions is a waiter at a restaurant or a what do you call it?

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A cashier at a fast food place what do you even call it At the register?

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So a waiter comes over to your table and I waited tables two different summers in college and grad school, so I've done it and the waiter says can I get you some dessert?

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Would you like coffee?

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Would you like dessert?

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Now, I love dark chocolate.

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However, I don't anymore, oddly enough, have that much of a sweet tooth and I'm usually full after eating dinner, so I usually don't want dessert.

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It has nothing to do with that waiter.

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It has nothing to do with the restaurant.

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Maybe once or twice I've really wanted to go because I wasn't enjoying the restaurant.

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But generally nothing to do with the restaurant.

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I simply don't have any room or want to have dessert room or want to have dessert.

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So the waiter knows that and the waiter is not going to be taking it personally.

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They might be wishing for a bigger tip I remember those days but they're not taking it personally.

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If you think about a fast food restaurant, they might ask do you want fries with that, or do you want a drink, or do you want, you know, medium or large?

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And if you say medium, they don't get upset that you didn't say large, it's just a question.

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And they're trying to figure out what is it that you, the customer, want?

00:14:56.923 --> 00:15:10.264
And so when we have a business that feels more personal, sometimes it's hard for us to make this separation and go oh, it's just a question, I'm just trying to figure out what someone wants.

00:15:10.264 --> 00:15:21.303
And the problem with that is this two thirds of the list that Jane hadn't yet contacted is automatically basically that many no's.

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If we don't ask, nothing's going to happen.

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It's a no.

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So Jane and I are still talking about this.

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I sent her away from the coaching session with some ideas that she had come up with on how she might reach out to some of these the ones that she just assumed would say no and the ones that she was nervous about reaching out to Together.

00:15:46.437 --> 00:15:47.703
We came up with some wording, some ways that she could do that.

00:15:47.703 --> 00:15:48.831
So that she was nervous about reaching out to Together.

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We came up with some wording, some ways that she could do that, so that she had some concrete steps to take, and I have some of that for you as well.

00:15:57.624 --> 00:16:00.775
So let's make this a little bit bigger and more general Now.

00:16:00.775 --> 00:16:03.104
You've heard the story, you've heard the coaching.

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When we stop, like I said at the beginning of the episode nah, never mind, or we give up on something, or we assume someone's going to say no before we ever go into the occasion for them to be allowed to make the decision, or we never try it.

00:16:25.067 --> 00:16:29.745
It's often because of a fear of rejection.

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So this is what I've been saying, and whether it's in this sales type of example, or whether it's asking someone on a date or whether it's asking someone to go hang out at a happy hour.

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Remember we talked about avoiding isolation in midlife.

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So if I'm trying to make new friends in this period of time, I might need to ask someone to meet me for coffee, right, that feels a little scary sometimes because we have a fear of rejection.

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That is normal.

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Rejection's not fun.

00:17:03.961 --> 00:17:09.490
It might be because of some feelings of unworthiness.

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We might have a little bit of low self-esteem in the situation.

00:17:14.515 --> 00:17:31.449
Maybe you are a powerhouse businesswoman and yet making a new friend feels really scary, and that would be because you've defined yourself as being an amazing business person, a leader.

00:17:31.449 --> 00:17:44.996
But in that self-image, in that subconscious brain, you're not so convinced that you're fun or interesting to hang out with or that people really find you fascinating or they love to be your friend.

00:17:44.996 --> 00:17:50.407
And who knows I mean certainly in therapy you could dig into it potentially.

00:17:50.407 --> 00:17:52.381
But who knows where that came from?

00:17:52.381 --> 00:17:56.915
We all have little hidden beliefs that might slow us down like that.

00:17:57.517 --> 00:18:03.996
Or maybe you just have some past experiences of rejection that make you not want to do it again.

00:18:03.996 --> 00:18:07.462
Maybe you had before this business.

00:18:07.462 --> 00:18:19.160
Jane's got her own business, but maybe she was in a job before that that required some similar skills and there were some rejections that were hard for her, and so her brain's going to bring that up now.

00:18:19.160 --> 00:18:39.340
Or maybe you're dating or you're trying to make new friends or you're trying new hobbies or sports For me that's the one and your brain is bringing up past situations where you felt silly or you felt rejected or somebody didn't want to play with you or they couldn't meet with you and you wondered why.

00:18:39.340 --> 00:18:43.517
So our brains store that and they bring it up and that's okay.

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That's the first thing I really want you to hear.

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It's normal, it's okay.

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It's your brain keeping you safe and it's also your brain keeping you small, and by small I mean not as big of a business, not as fun of a friendship, not as fun of a life, potentially Missed opportunities.

00:19:03.538 --> 00:19:06.387
What if you could have connected?

00:19:06.387 --> 00:19:09.457
What if you could have had an even bigger success?

00:19:09.457 --> 00:19:13.222
If we never ask, we never get.

00:19:14.424 --> 00:19:27.380
And I was just talking with someone in her 20s recently, so not midlife, but I was talking with her about asking for a higher salary when she had been given a new job offer.

00:19:27.380 --> 00:19:29.005
Now, have you done that?

00:19:29.005 --> 00:19:34.365
There's a I'm tempted to just reject before getting rejected situation, isn't it?

00:19:34.365 --> 00:19:58.666
So she was had received a job offer in a job that she had originally been excited about, and yet the salary was at the very bottom of the range that she thought they had listed, and she didn't believe that that's what the salary should be for her and, quite frankly, it wasn't worth it for her to go to the new job for that salary.

00:19:58.666 --> 00:20:03.105
So she was reaching out to figure out what do I do?

00:20:03.105 --> 00:20:09.031
And we talked through how can you ask Are you worthy of asking, is this a good thing to do?

00:20:09.031 --> 00:20:09.108
Is it okay?

00:20:09.108 --> 00:20:09.134
I do.

00:20:09.134 --> 00:20:10.763
And we talked through how can you ask Are you worthy of asking, is this a good thing to do?

00:20:10.763 --> 00:20:12.285
Is it okay to do?

00:20:12.285 --> 00:20:14.288
Do you feel okay to do it?

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Does it feel valid?

00:20:15.568 --> 00:20:17.391
And now, how do you ask?

00:20:17.391 --> 00:20:23.182
And just to give you the result of that, she asked.

00:20:23.182 --> 00:20:37.800
She didn't get exactly what she asked for, but she got a really significant bump from where the salary had initially been and in the end, even if she hadn't gotten anything more, she would have felt good about the fact that she asked.

00:20:38.836 --> 00:20:51.955
So how do we overcome this, this fear of rejection that causes us to just scrap the idea before we even try it or before anyone can say no to us?

00:20:51.955 --> 00:20:55.882
The way to solve this is in small steps.

00:20:55.882 --> 00:21:12.798
So, first of all, there are thoughts in your mind that are telling you to reject the idea or the person or the thing you're thinking of doing now before you go any further.

00:21:12.798 --> 00:21:29.769
So recognizing that and then questioning whether those thoughts are true is the very first step and is shockingly effective in helping you to get out of this pattern.

00:21:29.769 --> 00:21:37.115
You wouldn't think that just recognizing would be as powerful as it is in helping you to change the way you think.

00:21:37.657 --> 00:21:46.318
So what you need is my story cycle resource, which is at CherylPFishercom slash story cycle.

00:21:46.318 --> 00:21:47.942
The link is in the show notes.

00:21:47.942 --> 00:22:03.885
You're going to learn how to recognize and name the emotion and in these situations it could be fear, it could be overwhelm, it could be embarrassment, so many things.

00:22:03.885 --> 00:22:12.482
There's a word in there and I'm going to give you a whole wheel of emotions and then dig into your brain a little bit more.

00:22:12.482 --> 00:22:16.250
There are thoughts creating those emotions.

00:22:16.250 --> 00:22:19.578
You're telling yourself something.

00:22:19.578 --> 00:22:20.780
They don't want this.

00:22:20.780 --> 00:22:22.423
I'm not fun.

00:22:22.423 --> 00:22:34.116
I'm not good at X, I'm not good at X, they don't like me, whatever.

00:22:34.116 --> 00:22:34.838
And recognizing those is powerful.

00:22:34.838 --> 00:22:38.484
Because now I want you to ask, and the story cycle walks you through this is that story true?

00:22:38.484 --> 00:22:42.195
And it's almost spoiler alert.

00:22:42.195 --> 00:22:43.558
Never true.

00:22:43.558 --> 00:22:46.443
True, as in could be proved in a court of law.

00:22:46.443 --> 00:22:50.009
100% true, absolutely no question, of course not.

00:22:50.009 --> 00:22:58.368
So challenging those thoughts is the first step and it will take you really far, let me tell you.

00:22:59.576 --> 00:23:02.806
And then let's add a dose of self-compassion Be kind to yourself.

00:23:02.806 --> 00:23:31.655
In fact, I was telling someone the other day the theme that is coming out from every interview I do and I guess every episode I do when we're in midlife, we just need to treat ourselves a little bit better physically, mentally, emotionally, socially just a little more kindness to ourselves in this period of time.

00:23:31.655 --> 00:23:40.538
So there you go, self-compassion, and then let's do a few things to kind of help you grow a little bit.

00:23:40.538 --> 00:23:42.140
So I have two ideas for you.

00:23:42.140 --> 00:23:45.284
Number one self-worth.

00:23:45.284 --> 00:23:50.411
What if you could start encouraging yourself to be proud of yourself?

00:23:50.411 --> 00:24:02.286
What if you put a little notebook by your bed or you had a note open in the notes app on your phone and every day you wrote down three things that you're proud of from that day.

00:24:02.286 --> 00:24:07.921
And if your brain is saying to me, how would I have three things I was proud of from a day, please?

00:24:07.921 --> 00:24:09.583
Then one.

00:24:09.583 --> 00:24:24.439
Just start with one, or maybe it's not proud of it's that you accomplished, that you did that day that were productive.

00:24:24.439 --> 00:24:26.007
It's starting a habit of noticing that is powerful for your self-worth.

00:24:26.028 --> 00:24:41.147
And then the other thing is vulnerability and I definitely am going to come back with a vulnerability episode because this is such a powerful thing, but I was looking this up online and here's the coolest I guess you would call it a definition I found.

00:24:41.147 --> 00:24:49.607
Vulnerability is consciously choosing to not hide your emotions or desires from others.

00:24:49.607 --> 00:24:51.089
That's it.

00:24:51.089 --> 00:24:56.165
You just freely express your thoughts, feelings, desires.

00:24:56.165 --> 00:24:57.788
That's it.

00:24:57.788 --> 00:25:27.202
So if you could take little baby steps into situations where you might feel a bit vulnerable and maybe the thoughts or feelings that you want to express are a little harder to express, and just try that practice is powerful, because you're going to learn that the discomfort is okay, that you're going to be okay and, quite frankly, something else good is probably going to happen.

00:25:34.835 --> 00:25:47.253
Now, if you really really have maybe I would call it rejection sensitivity and this really just takes you down, then maybe therapy or counseling with a licensed therapist might be a good idea for coping mechanisms, and that's absolutely fine.

00:25:47.253 --> 00:25:48.737
Maybe that will be really helpful.

00:25:48.737 --> 00:25:52.484
So what do I want to leave you with?

00:25:52.484 --> 00:25:54.689
What's the oh my goodness moment?

00:25:54.689 --> 00:25:59.606
There's one thing that you should remember from this episode here it is Okay, here it is.

00:26:00.916 --> 00:26:13.247
It is not possible to live an amazing life that you will have tremendous joy in looking back on without being rejected occasionally If you have never heard.

00:26:13.247 --> 00:26:21.047
No, you've been playing small and you haven't reached far enough, and I want you to have an amazing life.

00:26:21.047 --> 00:26:25.464
Isn't it funny that to have an amazing life, there has to be some?

00:26:25.464 --> 00:26:28.775
No, in there it's balance All right.

00:26:28.775 --> 00:26:32.902
So go to CherylPFishercom slash story cycle.

00:26:32.902 --> 00:26:36.887
Grab that resource and just start.

00:26:36.887 --> 00:26:40.941
Just start understanding yourself better, start.

00:26:42.042 --> 00:26:54.338
And then, if you want to have some say in what goes on in these episodes and what I asked the guests, come hang out with us in the PodSquad group on Facebook Mind your Midlife PodSquad.

00:26:54.338 --> 00:26:55.140
The link is in the show notes as well.

00:26:55.140 --> 00:27:03.961
Now make sure that you have hit the follow button, because next week my guest and I are talking about ageism.

00:27:03.961 --> 00:27:16.656
She is an expert on helping women stay active and healthy in midlife and remember a healthy mind needs a healthy body, and we're going to have a pretty cool conversation.

00:27:16.656 --> 00:27:24.566
She, in fact, has even written a book called Mind your Movement, and if that isn't an excellent fit for the Mind your Midlife podcast, I don't know what is.

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And in the meantime, oh my goodness, let's keep creating confidence and success, one thought at a time.