Why We Fear And Hold Back From What We Want: Stuti Singh (Transcript)

Here is the full transcript of Stuti Singh’s talk titled “Why We Fear And Hold Back From What We Want” at TEDxSevenoaks 2021 conference.

Listen to the audio version here:

TRANSCRIPT:

Every once in a while, something big happens that changes our lives forever. But if we look carefully, the life-changing moments come to us every day. And one such small but significant and rather embarrassing moment happened to me a few years ago. I was at a leadership development workshop.

I was hard at work in a group task with three other people. We’d been going all day. We’d been given a task that we had to complete by the end of the day. And I’d been working hard.

I’d been concentrating really hard until I started to realize my concentration was waning. Something else was grabbing my attention. Nature was calling me quite urgently, and I needed to go. So what did I do?

Well, I crossed my legs, I sat there, and I held it, and I carried on. There was a slight glitch with this plan, though, because soon I realized I just couldn’t hold it anymore. So then I did the natural thing.

Asking Others to Take a Break

I looked to the lady on my left and said, “Would you like to go to the toilet? I can come with you.” And she looked back at me and said, “No, I’m okay for now.” Darn, that didn’t go according to plan. But not one to give up, I turned to the gentleman on my right and said, “We’ve been going a long time. You must be tired. Should we take a quick break?” And he looked back at me and said, “No, I’m good to carry on. Thank you.”

Oh, dear. In one last desperate attempt, I looked straight across at the man opposite me, and probably with rather watery eyes by now, and said to him, “Would you like to go get a drink?

If we leave now, we can be back in a few minutes.” And he looked back at me, said nothing for a moment. He gave me this really strange look. And then he looked me straight in the eye and said, “If you need to go to the loo, why don’t you just say you need to go to the loo?”

Realizing the Simple Solution

Ah, that was an option, was it? I didn’t know in that moment whether to be mortified or to be grateful. Actually, I quickly decided, I laughed at myself, I was grateful, put my hand up and said, “Yes, please, I need to go to the loo,” and off I dashed, and all was well. I was back in five minutes, and we carried on. But the simple incident stayed with me.

I’m a grown woman, clearly. I have a degree in psychology. I have an MBA. I’ve had leadership positions in top global companies. So why couldn’t I just say, I needed a bathroom break? Why was I willing to hold back such a basic, urgent need, rather than to just say, “Guys, back in five?”

Reflecting on the Deeper Meaning

And I started to wonder, if I was holding back my needs, and really essential needs, in this area of my life, where else was I doing it? And by the way, was I the only one doing this? Was there something wrong with me? Why wasn’t I expressing myself?

So I got curious. I went back and dove deep into the study of human literature. I went back to observing myself in different situations. And I started, over a period of time, to work with people in teams to understand who we really are underneath what we see.

One of the things that emerged, I was glad to know, is that I wasn’t the only one doing this. All around me, people were holding back from saying, doing, creating what they needed, what they wanted. But why? It didn’t make sense.

But three other things also started to emerge that could explain why we engage in this peculiar behavior. Why did we hold back from what we want, and why do we do it in various areas of our life? Well, the first thing I realized, I found really interesting.

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Subconscious Drives

What we think we want is not always what we want. Unbeknownst to us, there’s often a subconscious drive which directs our behavior. Now I thought what I was going for in that situation, what I wanted, was a bathroom break, plain and simple. But what it was really about for me, what I was really looking for, was the approval of the group. What I was really seeking was permission from the group to go to the bathroom.

But why? Why would I need to do that? That brought me to my second realization, that we human beings attach a meaning to situations. Now this is normal, by the way. We have evolved to quickly ascertain the context that we operate in. Are we in a dangerous jungle? Are we in a hostile boardroom?

Context and Meaning

Or are we at a dinner party meeting new people? Or are we at home with people we know and feel safe with? The context, the meaning, allows us to quickly know how to behave in that situation. And indeed, we do act for the meaning in that situation.

Imagine meeting somebody at a pub or that same dinner party. You have a great chat, and you share a little bit about your life story. You might tell them about the crazy family you have. You might even indulge some details about that late night you had on Wednesday when you went dancing till 2 a.m. And you realize, “This is a nice person. I can really talk to them.”

And then imagine you walk into a job interview the next morning, and you realize the same person is the CEO of the company you’re interviewing for. Would your behavior change? Might you even go, “Oops”? Would you hold back on some of the things you might otherwise have said?

The person hasn’t changed. You haven’t changed. The meaning has changed. We go a step further in our quest for meaning, because to be really safe, we like to figure out who we are and who the other persons are.

Roles and Expectations

So if I know my place in society, I know my role in the world, I know how I’m supposed to be and how I’m expected to behave, then I know how to be and to be safe, because that’s got me this far, right? I know how to survive. And if I can figure you out, if I know that you’re a good person and you’re a tough person and you’re a critical person and you’re a friendly person, I know how to be around you to maximize my chances for reward and minimize my chances of you punishing me in some way or the other.

It sounds logical, but what we end up doing is limiting ourselves and others and certainly limiting the way we act in situations. Now the meaning that I was giving to my situation all those years ago is that it’s a professional situation, and a professional situation means I don’t express my personal needs, or so I thought at the time. And by the way, my role was to be the good girl.

I’m the person that looks after other people’s needs. I’m considerate. I don’t inconvenience others. I don’t disrupt things. And the more my group said, “No, actually, I don’t have a personal need at this point,” the more it confirmed my belief that I was the one who’d be the disruptor, who’d be in trouble if I said anything about what I needed.

Manipulation and Fear

I did everything I could to avoid the group disapproving of me, because if they disapproved of me, I wouldn’t get what I wanted in the future. I wouldn’t get my needs met in the future if the group didn’t like me. So I was willing to completely give up on my needs now, because of the meaning I was giving and this other need that was driving me, which led me to a really third realization, very powerful as well, to see this, that we manipulate ourselves and others to avoid what we fear.

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I did everything I could think of to get my group to take a break. It didn’t work. I also manipulated myself into painfully sitting there, holding it for an hour, and I thought this would help me avoid being rejected by the group, being punished, being an outcast, being talked about as, “Oh, she’s not professional. Look at her. She always needs to dash the loo.”

But it didn’t get me what I wanted. So why do we do this? Why are we willing to go about things in a roundabout way than simply to go directly for what we want? Why do we hold ourselves back? Why do we try to change other people’s behavior?

The Root of Fear

Well, the answer I found is in this one word, fear. Every time we think that something is at stake and something is at risk and we won’t get what we want, our fear is triggered. Our fear is designed to watch out for what’s wrong or what could go wrong or what looks different and suspicious here, and its job is to keep us safe.

But of course, when our fear comes up, the classic flight or fight response is triggered. Again, completely natural that in one part of our brain this happens, but what it ends up doing is impacting our self-expression in one of two ways. Either we end up under-exerting our authority, we make ourselves less, we become small.

It’s not our role to do this. It’s not our position to do this. I often catch myself doing this, even today, especially in professional situations, especially when I’m in front of a person that I consider to be the authority. Oh, and if it’s a male authority, wow, this really plays out.

My shoulders will hunch, I’ll become really small, I won’t say what I mean. Sometimes if you listen carefully, my style of speaking will change and my voice will go up a few notches. It just happens because the fear is triggered.

Overcompensating

I hold back, but watch me at home. Oh, it’s a whole other story. My husband will be happy to tell you more. When I’m afraid that I won’t get something, when I won’t get my way, oh, I become bigger. It’s my way or the highway.

It’s my voice that has to come out the loudest because, of course, I know the right way to clean the dishes and you don’t, so you better listen to me because I’m smarter in every department and, ooh, cooler too. Yeah, he’d be happy to have a chat with you afterwards and tell you his side of the story. But how often do we do this? How often do we also feel we have to show ourselves to be bigger, to be smarter, to be invulnerable, to be really powerful?

How often do we feel we have to show our authority or else, or else, something will go wrong? Someone else will come and get us? The truth is, neither of these approaches actually get us what we want. In either instance, I’m cut off either from expressing what I would love and creating what I want in my life or even from the connection that I would love with the people around me.

The Role of the Mind

But the truth is, every time we want something, every time we have a desire, our mind will quickly come in to make sense of things for us and it will tell us, “What can I expect? How do I have to be to make this happen? How do others have to be to make this happen? How do I need them to be?”

“What do I need to change?” And if we’re not careful, this will very quickly take us in the zone of fear, which will tell us the way we’re supposed to be and close us off from everything around us, because the role of fear is to keep us safe, is to keep us in the comfort bubble that we’ve lived in all our lives. The role of fear is not to help us go get what we love, but luckily, that love does exist.

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It is that higher side of a hierarchy of wants, because every time we want something, there’s also an emotion that says, “Ah, I would love this.” And love says to us, “This is what gives me joy. This is the end outcome I would love in my life. This is what I truly desire beyond achievement or gratification or control.”

The Power of Courage

And love takes us into a really powerful realm of courage, and courage is a lot simpler than we think, because courage is not the absence of fear. It’s simply the presence of a love that is stronger. Think about a parent. They fight off a tiger to protect their child.

Would they be terrified? Probably, yes, but they do it anyway. Courage says to us, “What is the vision you hold so dear that you would do anything to make it happen, never mind the fear that exists alongside it anyway?” I’m standing on this stage with you, and all my fears came up again.

I’ve been on stage before. I’ve addressed hundreds of audiences in my time, but because this means so much to me, my voices of fear had a field day. They came out and said to me, “Who are you to do this? You’re not good enough. You won’t be perfect.”

“You won’t make a difference. You won’t do this justice. Heck, you won’t even look the part.” If I’d listened to my voices of fear more than once in the lead-up to this event, I would have seriously considered backing out.

Listening to the Voice of Courage

As late as last night, they were talking to me, but in those same moments, when the fear was talking to me, courage would come and say gently, “What would you love?” And I’d say, “To share this message.” Then share this message. Isn’t it great?

It’s not about you anyway, to share this message. You don’t have to be perfect. Just turn up, be you, and share the message, and have fun doing it. So here I am, a humble messenger, with my fears and flaws, standing on this beautiful red carpet, sharing my love of this message with you.

I just want to leave you with a few thoughts that courage speaks to us in simple words every day that we understand. Courage can ask us to say yes to something we love. Courage can ask us to say no to something that doesn’t serve us.

Courage tells us to ask when we need help or support, but not demand to ask. Courage tells us to give. When all else fails, just share what you have to give and let the rest take care of itself.

Conclusion

The big moments come to us in the little everyday moments. So all you really have to ask yourself is, “What would you love? What makes your heart sing? How is fear holding you back? How are you letting fear hold you back?”

“How can you choose to be a little more courageous today, in this moment, and in the next?” Because life really does happen in the wee everyday moments. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my adult experience and all my recent wisdom, it’s simply to speak before you leap. Thank you very much.