Note 67: You’re Not Stuck, You’re Just Comfortable
You’ve been saying you’re stuck, but what if that’s not actually true? In this note, Yaya is calling out the difference between being stuck and being comfortable, and why that distinction matters more than you think. Comfort feels like safety. But staying where you’ve outgrown? That has a cost and it’s one most women don’t even realize they’re paying.
Inside this episode:
• Why “stuck” and “comfortable” are not the same thing and why the difference changes everything
• The story of Kiana: 20 years in a job she’d outgrown, and what it cost her when comfort was taken away
• The real price tag of staying comfortable (it’s not what you think)
• Why the discomfort is coming either way and how to choose it before life chooses it for you
• The one decision that separates the woman who grows from the woman who stays
This is a note to sit with. Where are you comfortable right now in a way that’s actually costing you? Be honest with yourself and then decide. The link to the Confidence Kit is in the show notes below.
You can check out the new website here.
Transcript
Foreign.
Speaker A:Hey, girl.
Speaker A:Hey.
Speaker A:Welcome back to Notes to her, the daily pep talk.
Speaker A:I'm Yaya, your confidence and mindset coach, here to make sure that comfort doesn't cost you everything you were actually meant to have.
Speaker A:Now, before we get into today's note, I want to share a couple exciting things.
Speaker A:So I recently rebranded Coaching with Yaya to the Confidently Heard Collective and the new website is officially live.
Speaker A:I am so excited about that and I really wanted to share why the rebrand happened because I think that it matters.
Speaker A:Honestly, Coaching with Yaya never fully felt like me.
Speaker A:It never felt like it was the right fit.
Speaker A:But I had a vision, I had a calling, and I wasn't going to let a name stop me from starting.
Speaker A:So I went with it because I wanted to get to work.
Speaker A:I wanted to start making an impact on women's lives, and I wasn't going to wait until everything was perfect to do them.
Speaker A:And years later, the name finally came.
Speaker A:The Confidently Her Collective.
Speaker A:Because that's what it's really about.
Speaker A:It's about her.
Speaker A:You.
Speaker A:The woman who used to be confident and somewhere along the way she lost herself.
Speaker A:The woman who's always wanted to walk boldly into her life but never quite knew how.
Speaker A:The woman who walks into a room and knows that she belongs there.
Speaker A:Who doesn't doubt her worth or discount it, who isn't afraid to use her voice because she knows she has value.
Speaker A:That's her.
Speaker A:That's who we are building here.
Speaker A:And the collective piece, that matters too, because this is bigger than just a one on one coaching session.
Speaker A:There are digital products, there's a membership coming, and we are building something for every woman at every stage in every season.
Speaker A:And I'll be honest with you, putting this out into the world was scary because I'm an artist and I am sensitive about my.
Speaker A:No, I'm joking.
Speaker A:But stepping into a new name, a new brand, a bigger vision, that takes courage.
Speaker A:That takes deciding that growth is worth more than discomfort of the unknown.
Speaker A:And the time isn't lost to me either, because as we are gearing up to the end of season one of this podcast, very, very soon, we are beginning something new and something big.
Speaker A:This season has been a love letter to you and what's coming next is even greater.
Speaker A:So stay close and make sure you are following the show.
Speaker A:Get on the email list, the link will be in the show notes because you don't want to miss what's coming, I promise you.
Speaker A:Which brings me to today's note, because stepping into something new, choosing growth over comfort.
Speaker A:Deciding you are worth the risk.
Speaker A:That is exactly what we're talking about today.
Speaker A:So let's get into it.
Speaker A:Now.
Speaker A:There's a word that we throw around a lot.
Speaker A:Stuck.
Speaker A:I feel stuck.
Speaker A:I don't know how to get unstuck.
Speaker A:I've been stuck for so long.
Speaker A:And I hear you.
Speaker A:I. I do.
Speaker A:But I want to offer you something different today that might sting just a little bit.
Speaker A:What if you're not stuck?
Speaker A:What if you're just comfortable?
Speaker A:Because here's the thing about being stuck.
Speaker A:Stuck implies that you have no choice.
Speaker A:Stuck implies something outside of you is holding you in a place, stuck as a cage with a lock you don't have a key to.
Speaker A:But comfort.
Speaker A:Comfort is a cage.
Speaker A:You decorate as yourself.
Speaker A:You put the throw pillows in there.
Speaker A:You hung the curtains.
Speaker A:You made it cozy.
Speaker A:And now you're sitting there wondering why it feels so small.
Speaker A:The comfort zone doesn't always feel like a trap.
Speaker A:That's the whole point.
Speaker A:It feels like safety.
Speaker A:It feels like certainty.
Speaker A:It feels like, okay, at least I know what I'm doing here.
Speaker A:And when everything outside feels uncertain and unknown, that little decorated cage starts looking really good.
Speaker A:But I need you to hear me on this.
Speaker A:Comfort and safe are not the same thing.
Speaker A:Comfort just means familiar.
Speaker A:And familiar can absolutely be killing your growth, your potential, and your future.
Speaker A:Slowly, quietly, without you even noticing.
Speaker A:Now, I want to tell you about someone.
Speaker A:We're going to call her Kiana.
Speaker A:Kiana had been at the same job for 20 years.
Speaker A:20 Years, which is almost unheard of in this day.
Speaker A:And before you say anything, yes, that's loyalty.
Speaker A:Yes, that is consistency.
Speaker A:And yes, there is something to be said about that.
Speaker A:But here's what's also true.
Speaker A:Kiana had outgrown that job, probably somewhere around year 10.
Speaker A:She was talented.
Speaker A:She was capable.
Speaker A:She had skills and ideas and a mind that was made for more.
Speaker A:But the job was steady.
Speaker A:The PayCheck cleared every two weeks.
Speaker A:She knew everybody.
Speaker A:Everybody knew her.
Speaker A:And it was comfortable.
Speaker A:So she stayed.
Speaker A:She told herself, it's fine.
Speaker A:She told herself it was being responsible.
Speaker A:She told herself, girl, you got a good thing.
Speaker A:Don't rock the boat.
Speaker A:And then one day, the boat rocked for her.
Speaker A:The job was gone.
Speaker A:And when it was, Keanu didn't just lose a paycheck.
Speaker A:She lost footing.
Speaker A:She lost her sense of self.
Speaker A:Because without realizing it, she had let that job become her identity.
Speaker A:Her confidence wasn't rooted in who she was.
Speaker A:It was rooted in where she worked.
Speaker A:And the moment that it was taken away.
Speaker A:She didn't know who she was without it.
Speaker A:She came to me and she said, yaya, I just feel so lost.
Speaker A:I don't even know what I'm capable of doing anymore.
Speaker A:And I want you to sit with that for a second.
Speaker A:Because the hard truth is the comfort didn't protect her.
Speaker A:It actually made the fall harder.
Speaker A:20 Years of not being challenged, 20 years of not having to bet on herself, 20 years of coasting unfamiliar.
Speaker A:And then when it was gone, she had no muscle for the unknown.
Speaker A:That's what comfort costs.
Speaker A:Not always dramatically and not always at once, but over time, it costs you your resilience, your confidence, your sense of what you're actually capable of.
Speaker A:Now, let me ask you something.
Speaker A:What are you comfortable in right now that you have already outgrown?
Speaker A:Is it a job that you could do in your sleep, but it stopped challenging you about two years ago?
Speaker A:Is it a relationship that's fine, not bad, not amazing, just fine.
Speaker A:And fine has become the ceiling.
Speaker A:Is it a business that you've kept small because scaling means risking something?
Speaker A:Is it a version of yourself you've been performing so long that you forgot she's not actually who you are anymore?
Speaker A:Because here's what I really need you to understand.
Speaker A:Comfort has a price tag, and we don't always see it on the front end.
Speaker A:On the front end, it looks like stability, predictability, safety.
Speaker A:But on the back end, the receipt reads, missed opportunities, underdeveloped potential.
Speaker A:A confidence that was never fully tested, so it was never really built.
Speaker A:Kiana didn't lose her confidence when she lost the job.
Speaker A:She lost her confidence because she never had to build it beyond that job.
Speaker A:And I'm asking you today, are you doing the same thing?
Speaker A:Are you so comfortable that you're actually just slowly shrinking?
Speaker A:Because staying in a place that you've outgrown isn't stability.
Speaker A:It's slow stagnation with a steady paycheck.
Speaker A:And I don't mean a real paycheck, because we are talking about more than just a job or a career here.
Speaker A:Here's what I really need to say.
Speaker A:You're not stuck, but you might be choosing comfort.
Speaker A:And that is a real valid human thing to do.
Speaker A:I've done it before, but it's still a choice.
Speaker A:And choices can be changed.
Speaker A:The woman who grows and the woman who stays are not separated by talent.
Speaker A:They are not separated by circumstance.
Speaker A:They aren't even separated by opportunity.
Speaker A:They are separated by one decision.
Speaker A:The decision to get uncomfortable on purpose before life makes the decision for you.
Speaker A:Because discomfort is coming either way.
Speaker A:You can choose it you can walk into it with some preparation, some intention, some support, or you can have it handed to you the way Kiana did.
Speaker A:When the comfort is removed and you have no muscle built for what's coming next, the women who are out here thriving, they are not more talented than you.
Speaker A:They are not more qualified than you.
Speaker A:They are not luckier than you.
Speaker A:They just decided that their growth was worth more than their comfort.
Speaker A:They chose discomfort of the unknown over comfort of staying small.
Speaker A:And I need you to know that you can make that same choice right now, today.
Speaker A:Not when it's the perfect time, not when you feel ready, not when everything is lined up.
Speaker A:Now, do you want to know what happened with Keyonna?
Speaker A:She did the work.
Speaker A:Not because it was easy, not because she woke up one day feeling confident and ready, but because she made a decision, a real one, that she was not going to let this moment break her.
Speaker A:She was going to let it build her.
Speaker A:And slowly, she started remembering who she was outside of that job.
Speaker A:She started reconnecting with the skills she hadn't used in years.
Speaker A:Interest she had put on the back burner because the job was steady, and steady felt like enough.
Speaker A:She started building confidence the real way.
Speaker A:Not the borrowed kind you get from a title or position, but the kind that lives in your bones because you earned it.
Speaker A:She bet on herself, probably for the first time in 20 years, and she won.
Speaker A:That's what's available to you on the other side of your comfort zone.
Speaker A:Not perfection, not a guaranteed outcome, but a version of yourself that knows what she's made of because she's actually tested it.
Speaker A:You don't find that woman in the comfort zone.
Speaker A:You find her just past it.
Speaker A:Now, I know the comfort zone feels like protection.
Speaker A:I know that staying where it's familiar feels like a responsible choice.
Speaker A:Because when you've got people depending on you, when you've got bills that do not care about your dreams and a world that can be really unpredictable right now, it can be scary to step outside your comfort zone.
Speaker A:And I'm not dismissing any of that.
Speaker A:Trust me, I am not.
Speaker A:But I'm asking you, how long are you going to let fear of discomfort be louder than the call of your potential?
Speaker A:How long are you going to keep choosing the version of your life that feels safe over the version that feels like you?
Speaker A:Because the comfort zone will always feel reasonable.
Speaker A:It will always have a good argument, it will always make the case for staying, and it will always cost you.
Speaker A:You are not stuck.
Speaker A:You are capable.
Speaker A:You are qualified, and you have everything you need to move.
Speaker A:You're just choosing not to.
Speaker A:And I say this with love.
Speaker A:Real love, the kind that will not let you off the hook because you didn't come this far to stay comfortable.
Speaker A:You came this far to grow, to expand, to become the woman who keeps catching glimpses of.
Speaker A:Of when you're being honest with yourself.
Speaker A:She's not stuck.
Speaker A:She's waiting for you to decide she's worth the discomfort.
Speaker A:And before you go today, just a reminder that we are wrapping up season one of notes to her.
Speaker A:We only have a few notes left, and I want to make sure that when the season ends, you do not lose me.
Speaker A:So here's what I need you to do right now.
Speaker A:If you are not following this show, go do that.
Speaker A:Whatever platform you're listening on, hit, follow, subscribe so that you don't miss a single note before we close out.
Speaker A:And I want you to be the very first one to know when season two is coming.
Speaker A:Get on the email list.
Speaker A:You can find it in the show notes.
Speaker A:That's where I will drop everything.
Speaker A:First dates, announcements, all of it.
Speaker A:And I don't want you to miss what is coming because it's good.
Speaker A:Okay?
Speaker A:Now go out and go be uncomfortable on purpose.
Speaker A:The comfortable version of your life will always be available to you, but so will the one that stretches you, challenges you, and shows you exactly who you were meant to be.
Speaker A:The question isn't whether you can handle the discomfort you already have.
Speaker A:The question is, are you ready to choose it with love?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
