If You Aim Low, You Stay Low: Break Free from Small Thinking

Are you playing too small without realizing it? In this episode, I'll dive into the dangers of aiming too low—how it limits your growth, keeps you stuck, and leads to hidden opportunity costs. Whether it’s fear of failure, imposter syndrome, or just playing it "safe," setting the bar too low is one of the biggest threats to success. 

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Transcript

Transcription by Otter.ai.  Please forgive any typos!

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Comfort zone, aiming low, imposter syndrome, fear of judgment, high-level goals, self-fulfilling prophecy, professionalism, opportunities, mindset, personal growth, emotional issues, toxic environment, perseverance, self-worth, public speaking.

 Welcome to the Causey Consulting Podcast. You can find us online anytime at Causey consulting llc.com, and now here's your host, Sara Causey. 

Hello, hello, and thanks for tuning in. In today's episode, I want to talk about the danger of aiming too low. We tend to think that the real danger in life is when we aim too high. And look at the various stories and prohibitions about exactly that concept from mythology, we have the classic story of Icarus and Daedalus. Daedalus tells Icarus, do not fly too close to the sun. If you do, the wax holding your wings together will melt, and that's exactly what happens. Then Icarus falls into the sea, he drowns, and he dies, and we get a sad ending. There's Oscar Wilde's quote that you should aim for the moon, because even if you don't make it there, you will still land amongst the stars. And people will sort of cock their hip out and say, really, not me. I won't land amongst the stars. I'll fall back to the cold, hard earth and smack myself right on the ground. That's where we tend to think. The real danger is if I get my hopes up, if I try something new, if I think big, and then I really start to act on it, bad things will happen. Negative things will come flying out of the unknown to knock me down and put me in my place. All kinds of emotional issues around worthiness, feelings of imposter syndrome, they tend to stir up when we want out of our comfort zone. But think about what Susan Jeffers said in her landmark book, feel the fear and do it anyway. The Comfort Zone does not automatically get bigger. It's not one of those things, like with age comes wisdom. You should be learning. You should be integrating. No, your comfort zone is not like that if you allow your comfort zone to run on autopilot. It will shrink, it will not get bigger. And then you see these situations of people who are trapped in the same job for years and years and years, not because they like it, not because they truly want to be there, but because they feel trapped and they feel afraid. You see people trapped in a crummy relationship. They know they need to split up. They know they're no good together, but it's familiar. They're scared of being single. They're scared of trying to go out and find somebody who actually is a soul mate or a love of their life. Maybe they're cynical and they just don't think that person exists anywhere. And so I may as well stay with this person who treats me like dirt, and maybe that's all I deserve. Anyway, I remember working with a lady some years back who had already been with the company for years and years, and it wasn't because she was happy, it wasn't because she felt like she was treated like a bar of gold or a beautiful diamond. It was because she was scared to leave and she really felt the old cliche, it's Better the devil you know than the devil you don't know. Was true. Like I know this devil. I know what to expect when I walk in here. I know what ownership is like, so I'll just stay to this day, she is still in that job. And I do not know how. It boggles my mind that place was a toxic cesspool. And it's like, how in God's name are you still there? Lady like you just want to shake people by the shoulders sometimes and be like, you could have it so much better. Oh, my God, you don't have to stay in a cesspool. So let's talk today about the dangers of playing it small, the dangers of thinking small, the dangers of aiming too low. Just a reminder, you can find Sara's book decoding the unicorn, a new look at dog hammer schold on amazon.com the link is available in the summary for this episode. And now back to the show. Sometimes we play it small because we feel afraid of judgment. It's like we think we're on a giant stage, and if we move into the spotlight, we become exposed, and that's scary. People might judge us, they might say negative things to us or about us, and sometimes we imagine that those barbs are going to come from close friends and family members. They have an image of us, and what if we upset the. Bucha cart on that image. What if we Zig when they thought we were going to zag and they get upset? I'll tell you a true story from my own life. Years ago, I went to law school for a semester. I was at a good, decently tiered school, and I had a partial scholarship, and things were trucking right along with the plan that I had in my mind. And I hated it. I hated it. It was one of the worst experiences of my life. I did not fit in at law school at all. I wasn't a good fit for the people around me. They weren't a good fit for me, it was just a bad situation all the way around. I had some professors who were awesome, and if I ran into them on the street, I would still be be very positive and have good vibes for them. I had a few that were turds, but for the most part, I had some pretty cool professors that were decent, but man, I didn't fit in there, and I was miserable. And it finally got to the point where I was like, I gotta get out of here. I got very sick, terribly sick, the two times in my life, you know, I would say there's been three looking back, because I want to include childhood, there's been three times in my life where I really felt like the death angel was parked at the door. When I was a kid, I got very bad, sick with double pneumonia, and I had a high fever, and I just remember hurting and feeling so awful, until a good round of antibiotics done in my system, and I felt like I could breathe again. I thought I was going to die. And then after I had the that that was terrible. I don't know what the actually is, we can get into those debates about, did it really come from a bat? Did it really matter? Was it engineered. It was awful, awful. I really thought I was dying and it was just a fait accompli. I hope, to God, I don't ever feel that way again. But while I was in law school, I caught influenza, real for real. Influenza, not like, Oh, he's got a case of the flu. No, I really caught influenza, and I thought I was going to die. I got so sick, and that really became my out. I just thought, you've been miserable now you're ill and trying to keep up with homework at the law school level, when you don't even know who you are or where you are, it's impossible. The human mind is not going to be able to do that. And I thought, it's time to go. It's time to GTFO. I need to do something else with my life. Whatever it is, I know not, but I know it ain't this. And I remember fearing judgment, I called one of my best friends at the time and I told her, I've withdrawn. I can't do this anymore. I'm just going to take my W's so that I don't fail out of anything. And it doesn't look like I left because I was failing. I wasn't I got out. I missed some class because of the illness. I couldn't get caught back up, and I didn't want to get caught back up. I hated that place, and she's on the other end of the phone like, okay, so you quit. Big whoop, she didn't come right out and say, Sara, I couldn't care less, it's your life. But there was definitely that tone, and it didn't offend me. It was liberating, and it really helped me to realize we get these ideas in our head that all these people are judging us, all of these people are going to have some real big snit about what we decide to do. No, they're not. Most people are thinking about themselves. They're thinking about their own life, their own problems, their own little personal dramas, and they're not worried about you, the people who act like Mean Girls that's on them, that's not on you, and they'll forget you'll be a flash in the pan. They might be mean about you for two or three days, and then they'll be on to the next person that they want to judge. So my point is, who cares? Using that as a justification to aim low and stay small is inadequate. It's pointless. Another consideration is the psychological trap that we can fall into when we continue to aim low. Unfortunately, Thoughts become things. Fortunately, Thoughts become things. If you're in a good if you're at a good place, but unfortunately, if you're not, and it can become a self fulfilling prophecy, I'm going to fail. I'm going to get up there, I'm going to have stage fright, and I'm going to look like a buffoon. I'm going to botch this appearance. I'm not going to be able to get in. I'm going to flunk the entrance exam. Whatever it is you may have the idea. Playing over and over and over again in your head that you're going to fail, and that's often what happens. It's kind of like how athletes will envision themselves succeeding, winning the match, winning the race. You don't ever want to get ready for a competition thinking, well, I probably going to fail. Yeah, well, you probably will, as I said at the beginning, the comfort zone does not automatically get bigger as we become older. In fact, it can shrink, and that's when you see these people who refuse to leave a bad job, they refuse to leave a terrible relationship. Some people get to the point where they refuse to leave the house, they start feeling like even going to a fast food joint for a burger, or going to the grocery store, going up the road to put gas in the car, is too scary. It's too traumatic. They don't want to go there. And so their world just becomes smaller and smaller in a very literal way. Some people get to the point where they don't even leave the bedroom. They don't even want to see the other rooms in the house. You don't want that kind of fear to take over. And unfortunately, if you're not expanding, if you're not challenging, you're running the risk of shrinking. When you aim higher, you're forcing yourself out of that comfort zone, which in turn, causes the comfort zone to get bigger. That will help it to expand, and it will also attract in better opportunities. Here's the deal, high level goals help to attract high caliber people, as well as if needed, investors, collaborators, supporters, backers, fans, etc. In America, we like to root for the underdog, and at the same time, we don't we like to root for the underdog, but we also love a winner. If you have the opportunity to hitch your wagon to somebody? Do you want to hitch up with somebody who's like, Hey, I've already made millions of dollars. I know exactly what I'm doing and I'm confident that I'm in control. Or do you want to saddle up with somebody that's like, well, I don't know. I don't think I'm capable. I don't even like to leave the house anymore. No, no, it's a no brainer in that situation. I'll tell you another story that might help, because, as I always say, if I'm going through something, somebody else probably is too. There's a reason why I'm being called to make a particular episode. Whenever I do. I really firmly believe that after I released my book, I felt like I needed to do what I called affectionately but also unaffectionately, a poor man's press junket whenever Hollywood celebrities have a new movie coming out, or whenever a recording artist has a new record that's come out, they want to get that publicity. They want to get the word out. They want to have a lot of album sales right at the beginning, when the movie's in the theater. They want to sell a lot of movie tickets, like they want to get that initial push of awareness. And so did I, and I thought, well, in order to do that, I need to go on a poor man's press junket. I can't afford to go on the big, major media outlets. I can't afford this. I can't afford that. So look at my thinking right there. That should tell you that I was starting out with a bad attitude. I was not coming at this project with the right Mojo. I can't do this, and I can't afford that, and I don't have these contacts. So you know what I did? I aimed low. I want to be careful here, because I'm not trying to call anybody out. I'm not trying to point any fingers at anybody or or sound judgmental. That's not my goal here. My goal is really to make this a teachable moment for myself and for somebody else, I had an assistant who was helping me on this poor man's press junket routine. And initially it seemed like the opportunities that this person presented to me were good. On the surface, everything seemed copasetic. And I thought, well, this is great. This is going to be time and money well spent. This will help me to get the word out. It will help me to be more visible. But whenever I really scratch the surface, when I ask this person to become accountable and to be more transparent about how they were spending their time, who they were calling on, and for what reason? Number one, that person didn't like that, that person didn't want to be transparent. That's a red flag. And then whenever I got the information, it was like, oh, and I realized I've been aiming too low. I didn't realize. Is that immediately, my initial reaction was, what the hell has this person been doing on my time and on my dime? Oh, my God, I can't believe this. It became clear to me that this person was going after low hanging fruit, going after appearances, where people are basically begging for somebody to appear with them. And I just thought, that's not what I want. That's not what I want. I have some real goals here, and this is where I feel like when you love, what you do, and your mission is being formed by a vibration of love, as opposed to a vibration of greed or fear or scarcity, you just become a freaking juggernaut. You become unstoppable. It's like nobody's going to get in my way. If you think that you're gonna tell me no, if you think that you're gonna forbid me, if you think that you're gonna stick up a blockade. No, no, no, it's cute that you tried, but you're not. No, I will bust right through them. Bust right through them every freaking time, because I'm on a mission. And then looking at this information that the person presented to me, I was like, Oh God, I I've aimed too low. It was a mindset thing in my mind, I didn't think that I could aim higher. I didn't think that as an indie author with a brand new book, and not just, like, millions and bazillions of sales, and I'm not on a best seller list anywhere, I just thought it's going to be impossible for me to get major attention. You know, I can't even play in the minor leagues, yet, I'm gonna have to go for like, little kids T ball type of things. And I had to get real with myself. You're playing too small. You're thinking too small. You're aiming too low instead of trying to hit the bullseye. It's like you're not even aiming for the dang target. Sara, you're just slinging arrows out on the ground going, Oh, hopefully somebody will pick one of them up. I want to tell you another misconception that comes around with playing small and aiming low. We tend to think that when we go for low hanging fruit, it's a guaranteed Yes, and we think I will rack up some wins. I'll make some small appearances, I'll do some small projects. I'll get some kind of something under my belt. It'll build my confidence, and then I'll feel better. And then I can move up from little kids T ball to the minors, and then I can move from the minors into the majors. Life doesn't always work that way. It really sucks if you're aiming for little kids T ball, because you think, well, the message that I have is good enough that I can play in the majors, and, damn it, I should be in the majors. And then you get rejected from T ball. Oh, my God, talking about not a good thing for the ego, but that's what happens. It may be that you're knocking on the wrong door. You're trying to go in the wrong room. Maybe you don't freaking belong at little kids T ball. Maybe you don't even belong in the minors. Maybe you're supposed to get drafted and go straight into the pros. But, see, we don't want to think that. Oh no, that's scary. Oh, Sara, that's arrogant. That's scary. I can't cope with that. I wouldn't be able to handle it. I have to, I have to just take things in small doses. Oh my god no, no, no, I can't go to the majors. Oh my God, no, no, no, I couldn't do it. Well, if you keep telling yourself that you're not gonna do it, that is one of the dangers of thinking too small and aiming too low. You get stuffed into a box, and it's really hard to get out, so kick that box away from you bust down that door, but make sure it's the right door that you're knocking on, because if you are trying to get drafted for little kids T ball when you know damn well you belong in the major leagues, that's going to become a problem. Don't think that playing it safe means you'll be safe. Don't think that knocking on a door where you're like, I'm pretty sure I'm above this opportunity. Don't think it's guaranteed that they're gonna let you in and roll out a red carpet before I go, I want to tell you another story, another true story that irked me to death, trying to be polite here, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna be necessarily careful here, even though I shouldn't be. I should call this person out, but I'm not going to. I had an appearance scheduled, and I want to really set the mise en scene here for you so that you can understand why so aggravated. We were under the gun for a blizzard. I. And where I am in the lower part of the Midwest, we're not built for that. There's not the appropriate infrastructure. You start looking at places like Montana, Idaho, the Dakotas, they get massive snowfall all the time. It's basically winter there from like what November to May. They're accustomed to it. They can deal with snow down here in the lower part of the Midwest, not so much snow, just has the tendency to wreck everything. And when you have a farm and you're trying to raise animals, oh my god, it makes everything a lot more difficult and a lot slower. So in addition, it was also like record breaking cold, record breaking lows and record breaking highs, as in, like the high temperature was low. We had, like, minus degree temperatures and minus degree wind chills. It was horrid. So the night before this appearance was scheduled, the way that circumstances were with with transportation and people trying to get home, and everything I had to do the evening tours completely by myself. And it sucked. OMG, it sucked. The snow was blowing all in my face and all in my eyes. I couldn't see very well. It was very, very cold, so I had like, long johns and sweats and coveralls on, and I was about like, you know, Christmas story where that little kid can't even walk. He's so bundled up, he has no mobility. That's basically what I was like. So I'm out there and I'm I'm trying to get water in buckets to give to the animals, and I'm trying to get extra hay to them and high protein cubes, because animals don't have coveralls and sweat suits, you have to make sure that they're staying warm via calorie intake and protein intake and things like that. So it was a nightmare. It was a bleeding nightmare. I was out in that mess for two hours. When I got in, I felt like my hands and my feet were gonna fall off. God, it was awful. I slept that night like a corpse. I don't I don't even remember this, the sleep taking me. I don't remember any dreams or any kind of like spiritual hoo ha that I normally have at night. No, no, I died. I just laid down and died like a piece of roadkill. I get up the next morning and it's the same drill. It wasn't snowing anymore. It had tapered off, but there was tons of snow on the ground for for us, for us, not for the not for the upper Midwest, but for us, tons of snow and snow drifts and everything took longer, and it was cold and all of that. I get back in, I take my shower, I have plenty of hot tea, and I'm like, Okay, I'm ready to do this. I don't really want to do it because it's at an inconvenient time, and it was the time of the day that it was that that we were going to be doing this appearance. I was basically going to have to immediately get done with the appearance, change back into like sweats and cover alls, throw my hair up in a ball cap and just go in order to not be out after dark. Because when it's sub zero temperatures and you're out after dark, that is also a nightmare, at least if you've got light, if you've got sun, it makes some of the chores a bit easier. So I'm like, I'm ready to do this. Because I'm a professional. I'm an adult. I like to honor my commitments. I'm sitting there. I've got everything ready to go. I'm in exactly the location that I want to be in. Hair and Makeup is done. Dress shirt is on. I'm ready. The dogs are quiet. Everything is groovy. Everything is cool. This person blows me off with a lame excuse. Five minutes before showtime, this individual tells me I don't have internet access, so I can't do it. Sorry. And I'm like, well, then how in the hell are you emailing me if you have zero access to internet, how did the email go through? You didn't use a carrier pigeon, you didn't use a smoke signal, you used the flipping internet. Oh my god, I was mad murder. And it wasn't only about the event and the unprofessionalism of this person. It was about the entire thing here. We've had this blizzard. We've had sub arctic temperatures. I'm tired, but I showed up. I could make it work in spite of poopoo circumstances. So why can't you? It really made me mad, and I just found it so unprofessional. The next day, the person was like, Oh, hey, I have internet now. Do you still wanna? I didn't even respond, and I'm not going to the revelation that I had about all this. When I simmered down, I was like, You're gonna have to aim higher, babe, you're gonna have to aim higher. Initially, I thought, well, this person probably treated me this way because I'm not Oprah. I'm not Tony Robbins, I bet if I had been Oprah. Sara, I bet if I had been Tony, this individual would have found a way to make it work. They would have turned their mobile phone into a hot spot, or they would have recorded from their phone, duh. I mean, most phones have better cameras in them now than a laptop does. I just thought, This is absurd, so absurd, and I bet he wouldn't have done it if he had perceived me as an A list guest. He must have felt like I was disposable, and that's why I was treated the way that I was. And I started to realize by talking to a friend like some people are just flakes. It doesn't matter if they have a so called a list guest or they don't. They're just plagues. So for one thing, q tip, quit taking it personally. For another thing, a higher quit dealing with people that are not professional, somebody that's going to blow you off at the least sign of difficulty, somebody who doesn't treat you the way that you want to be treated, somebody that's not giving you the kind of audience that you want to reach. Not all opportunities are created equal, not all audiences are going to be engaged. Not all appearances that you could make are going to be worth your time. And I know this is going against the grain, I've been a little at a time. Pardon, the dryer. I'm going to go shut it off so it doesn't interrupt us again. Moon moment. This is real life on a working farm, guys, there's always a ton of laundry that needs to be done. Now that the snow has started to melt, it's going to be like 70 degrees today, by the way. It's already sunny and 69 right now, so it probably actually will get above 70 so insane a blizzard, and then sunny and 75 Welcome to it, even though I may have dryers buzzing, even though I may have a mountain of laundry, let me tell you something. I show up anyway. I've been working through Gabrielle Bernstein's book super attractor, and she tells this story about a lady who promoted an appearance that she was going to do at a library, and she was all excited. She felt like she had done everything right for the promotional tactics that she used. And nobody showed up. There was one like random lady that was lurking around in the library at the time of her presentation, and so she pitched to this lady like, Hey, do you want to hear what I have to say? And the lady was kind of like, yeah, sure, I'll listen. Is it free? Yeah, it's free. Okay, great, cool. I'll come in and Gabrielle tells this story. Is like, Hey, isn't it cool that this lady still delivered her message? Isn't it cool that she didn't leave the library without telling somebody what she had to say, and I'm sitting there like, is it? I mean, if you're imagining the Thor, is he though face? You exactly know what I look like. Is he though or Marcia Brady, sure. Jan, I'm like, not all opportunities are created equal. They're just not and we need to be honest with ourselves about that. I don't want to go to the public library of nowheresville and talk to two people, one guy that's sitting at the back of the room who came in to get out of the cold, and another guy that's only there for free coffee and donuts. And they don't care about me. They don't care about DAG, which is more important, nobody cares about me. I don't really give a rip, but I do want people to care about DAG. They don't care about the presentation. They don't care about DAG. They're not ever going to read decoding the unicorn. I would just be there for what? Whenever I had my photo shoot, one of the things that I really appreciated that the photographer said was, Who is this photograph for? What do you intend to do with it? Who's going to look at it? And that was amazing to me. I thought that was so savvy. We need to think about that too. Who is this appearance for? What am I doing with my time? What's my intention with this, I don't think it makes you unspiritual or it makes you a bad person to say I'm gonna decline this opportunity, because I don't think there's enough synergy here. I don't think it's in alignment with who I am and what I want to do. You are allowed to say that you've heard me on this broadcast say before that not all money is good money. Some clients will exhaust the ever loving hell out of you. It's never good enough. They want an endless stream of revisions. They're annoying and rude. Not all money is good money. Not all appearances are good appearances either. And you do have the right to say, I want to aim higher. So while we may think the real danger in life is, oh, I might be like Icarus and fly too close to the sun, and then my wings are going to melt, in my opinion, the bigger danger is. Is playing it way too small. Stay safe, stay sane, and I'll see you in the next episode. 

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