The Hidden Traps of Complacency: Breaking Free from Your Comfort Prison

We explore the hidden ways many successful people sabotage their own growth by unconsciously playing it safe and keeping themselves small through fear-based patterns operating below the surface.

• The trap of complacency procrastination - staying "busy" but avoiding the bold moves that create real progress
• Why staying busy doesn't equal making meaningful progress toward your dreams
• How we downplay our true desires to fit in, avoid judgment, or protect others' feelings 
• The fallacy of "realistic" goals and how they limit your expansion
• Why waiting for permission, certainty or external validation keeps you stuck
• How surrounding yourself with the right mentors and community catalyzes transformation
• The accelerating pace of manifestation in the current energetic landscape

Ready to break free from these patterns? Reach out about private coaching or the Magnetic Leader Accelerator program, which includes three deep-dive sessions during its beta period. Text me with specific questions that I can answer in future episodes.

Chapters

• 0:00 Playing It Safe: The Hidden Saboteur
• 9:45 The Trap of Complacency Procrastination
• 15:55 Your Dreams Aren't Random—They're Possible
• 19:35 Busy vs. Making Real Progress
• 24:10 Stop Downplaying What You Want
• 28:29 Stop Waiting For Permission

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

you're successful, you've achieved a lot, but what if I told you you might still be playing it safe without even realizing it and hindering your expansion forward? We're going to get into a really interesting episode in a second, talking about those sneaky sabotaging patterns that can operate below the surface. If you're serious about making 2025 your best year yet, stick around Tap into your inner power.

Speaker 2: 0:41

You got this. Now go get it, living up to your full potential. Your energy is magnetic. Big dreams Believe in it. Wisdom, we seeking it, everything that you looking for, brought to you by Lisa Jeffs, the magnetic leader. It's time to soar, tap into your power of an entrepreneur. Level up. Step it up Because, I believe, find your purpose.

Speaker 1: 1:19

Time. Welcome to the Magnetic Leader Podcast. Hello, leaders, I am your host, lisa Jeffs. I am your coach, your intuitive guide and the person that's going to help you to ditch the overthinking. Your intuitive guide and the person that's going to help you to ditch the overthinking. Trust yourself fully, align with your purpose, align with your life's greatest vision, lead with unshakable confidence and make this year the best one yet. All right, leaders, we're going to get into helping you to realize how you may be playing it safe, hindering your own growth, not from anything that you are doing wrong, but rather human patterns of keeping you safe, keeping you small and operating from a fear program instead of your authentic power state.

Speaker 1: 2:13

And this one is near and dear to my heart because, if you know me and you know a little bit about my story, self-sabotage has been one of the shadow aspects of my life that I've been blessed and I say that with a little bit of a humor because it's not that fun but been blessed to go through myself and really dissect and understand.

Speaker 1: 2:42

But because of my journey and understand, but because of my journey overcoming really debilitating sabotaging patterns, it's given me the depth and understanding to then help my clients do the same, and I have to say that I do it at a level that is well beyond anything else that I've seen out there, well beyond anything else that I've seen out there, reason being because I've been to the depths myself and I understand exactly why it happens and what we need to do to get out of it.

Speaker 1: 3:14

Now, we're not going to be talking about real deep and debilitating sabotaging patterns in this episode, but we're going to be talking about the ways that a lot of us keep ourselves playing a little bit safe, a little bit small, and it's those things that are sometimes the most insidious, because they're hard to spot and they kind of have us living a little bit of a complacency life. If you've ever heard of complacency procrastination, this is not where we are just, you know, sitting on the couch and eating bonbons. By the way, that's a reference from an 80s show, and if you know it, drop me a message. I would love to know if you are in the same age bracket as I am. But we're not just sitting and eating bonbons and ignoring everything around us and it's all burning to the ground because we're not taking action. We're procrastinating on everything. Complacency procrastination is more of where you're just kind of going through the day-to-day.

Speaker 1: 4:27

You're not very happy, you're not super excited, you might not be super bummed or anything but, you're just kind of like you know, it's all right, it's okay, it's good enough, right, good enough is a trap. It'll have you doing stuff that isn't lighting your soul on fire, but you keep doing it. Because why it's good enough? It's not what you really want, what your soul is here for, what your purpose is tied to, but you're not in a crisis, it's nothing horrible and people can stay and tolerate that type of life for a very, very long time. And you know what? That is one of the greatest shams. It's one of the greatest shams people get trapped into. It's that old story of you know it's a good job and you get a pension and you know at some point you're going to be able to retire and maybe you can even go on some vacations and enjoy your life when you're, you know, 70 years old. All of this narrative that's been around for about how many years? I'm not sure, maybe 70, 80 years, as soon as that old story of the pension keeping up with the Joneses doing a good day's work, being grateful for that, coming home and just kind of plugging along. This is a lot of the story of a lot of our parents or our grandparents, depending on how old you are.

Speaker 1: 6:26

I was lucky to grow up in a household where my father was truly doing the work he was passionate about. He owned his own construction company. He did commercial construction. So sometimes when I'm driving with my mom she'll point out these incredible buildings that my father has built. He's no longer with us, but his legacy stands up and my mother did the work that she loved to do. So I didn't grow up in a household where we learned to truly just kind of suck it up and be grateful what you get. But I also remember getting a lot of messages of kind of figuring out what you want to do, but it wasn't truly a message of go big, like truly dive into your heart and understand what your values are. Understand, connect to that purpose, understand that if you have certain dreams, that they're not random, that they're not you just daydreaming, that they're there for a purpose, they're there because it's possible, right? I didn't really have that fire that was lit under under me and when I ended up graduating high school and that was the year my father passed away I just went into that downward spiral and I won't get too much into that story. You can find my story in different podcasts. But that's when I not only went small and complacent, procrastination, but that's when I went into a deep hole and started working in the adult entertainment industry back in the 90s, far different than it is now, and it wasn't a place where we were looking at our values and looking at our purpose and really digging into what do we want.

Speaker 1: 8:42

So I want you to understand in this episode that if you have dreams, if you have a purpose, if you have any kind of desire that you're not living right now, that's for a reason. It is not random, it is quite available for you and you simply need to align yourself energetically to that reality, to that identity. And no, this isn't just like flu-flu, woobly-woobly, mystical talk. This is how transformation happens. We must align our thoughts, our behaviors, our intention and our expectation with what we are wanting. And if we're not, chances are we are operating from a program that is keeping us playing the small game, the safe game. So here's some traps that we can fall into.

Speaker 1: 9:41

Just because you're doing a lot does not mean you're making real progress. How many times have you thought to yourself wow, I'm tired. What the heck have I been doing all day, all week, all month? And it doesn't even seem like I'm making real progress. Maybe you're checking off tasks, you're staying busy and you feel accomplished, but deep down you know that you're avoiding the big needle movers that will actually shift everything. I am very aware when I get into productive mode because it feels safe. But the high level success or results that I want, they don't come from checking boxes, they come from making those bold, courageous, strategic moves. This is exactly why in the Magnetic Leader Accelerator, the group program that's in its beta run, that I run right now, we do something called the Power Hour, and the Power Hour is where we get very clear what are those needle mover actions, what actually needs to happen to make changes, and we commit to doing it within that hour or making the plans to do it if we can't doing it within that hour, or making the plans to do it if we can't do it, if something needs to happen in person, and we take those actions and we move forward. One of the members of the Magnetic Leader Accelerated the other day made a very important cold call, cold sales call, and he felt fantastic after he did it. It feels really, really good doing the needle movers. It can be scary, like right before you do it, but once you do it, there is this moment of just such relief.

Speaker 1: 12:03

One of the hardest things is staying in resistance. It's staying in fear. It's honestly like you're just kind of chilling out in a bucket of quicksand. You're just kind of staying there. It's heavy, it does not feel good, even if there's a part of you that feels so. Where are you staying? Really, really busy doing a whole bunch of stuff? I see this all the time. This happens with all different entrepreneurs, business leaders, creatives at all different levels new ones, emerging ones, seasoned ones, very successful ones, very successful ones. It can happen at any stage and it's a way of keeping us at that safety line.

Speaker 1: 13:02

The safety line is the line where we feel safe at. We hover around our own safety line and the good thing about the safety line is we don't tend to dip too further down, right. We kind of stay at a level, but we also don't. It's hard to move beyond that. That's why most people don't grow beyond where they're at. They kind of stay.

Speaker 1: 13:22

And if you really started examining families, family structures, you'll see that they're all kind of hovering around that same income bracket. They're hovering around the same health bracket right. How many families have you gone into? And they're, all you know, either extremely healthy or they're kind of at that middle range, or they're kind of at that middle range, or they may be not so healthy whatsoever, and everyone's kind of in that same frequency. It's because we operate, we learn these patterns, we operate within these systems. You can even look at right, a lot of people on the same street. You're going to find them. Similar jobs, similar status. So you got to be aware of patterns that will keep you in these loops. Okay, and not to. This is the second one we want to get into.

Speaker 1: 14:33

Don't downplay what you really want. This is another way that people hold themselves back in these structures, in these family systems, in these neighborhood systems, in friendship circles, downplaying what they truly want because they don't want other people to either feel bad because they're not going after what they want. They don't want to be outcasted, they don't want to be the odd man out. A lot of these programs are subconscious. The person is not aware that they're happening. They are operating below the surface. So you downgrade what you want. I've also seen people downgrade what they want because they don't want to be looked at as crazy. They don't want to deal with their parents or their friends or whoever telling them that they are nuts. Come back down to reality. Come back down to reality. What do you think? You're a superstar or something?

Speaker 1: 15:32

All these words that can, these insidious, limiting beliefs people can speak over you, put a spell over you, have you doubting what is possible. It's really, really important that you surround yourself with the type of people who inspire you, who want you to go after what you truly desire. I can't tell you how much I appreciate my mentors in my life, that I've invested in, that. I've paid them incredible money, but they've given me back so much more. You know, a lot of people are scared to invest in themselves, invest money in good men. I would not be anywhere where I am right now without the people that have supported me, have mirrored back my power and my abilities, that have spoken words over me, that have just filled me with so much belief in myself and confidence and helped me to release all the garbage and small thinking and limiting beliefs that I picked up along the way as a child, as an adolescent.

Speaker 1: 16:51

Always trust your intuition on this one. Trust the feeling, go with your heart, go with your gut, even if it is a stretch financially and it should be a stretch, because if it's not a stretch, you're not going to stretch, if it's easy peasy, you're not going to go the distance. So, anyways, I digress, I kind of went off on a tangent there. Back to don't downplay what you really want. One of the things we do in the Magnetic Leader Accelerator is we create a vision that is so emotionally resonant with you and what you want, what is aligned to your values, what is true to you and your path, not Joe Blow down the street or your parents path, or this person's path, or what your friends are doing or your co-workers. What you want. Because if it is not aligned to you, if it is not aligned to your values and what you truly desire, there is no way. Shape form, if you're going to continue it, it will not be sustainable. It has to be connected to something deep within you If you want to go big and bold and do something that is really meaningful and important with your life.

Speaker 1: 18:09

You know there's a story on LinkedIn where a lot of people are. You know there's a message that's like you know real successes is doing this and being. You know picking my kids up from school and all this stuff and I agree like family to me is a top value and I was really blessed to be able to pick up my daughter and be with my daughter a lot of after school and some of the times I would be driving home from when I worked at the school board and I would pick her up from daycare, and those are the meaningful things no doubt about. I also want to push myself in a excited, not in a driven I have to do this or it's tied to my worthiness, but really push myself and see what are all the possibilities that I can create in this life in a very fun and expansive way. I want to help a lot of people. I want to have a lot of fun. I want to do a lot of things. I want to make a lot of money. I also want to give back a lot of money. I want to do lots and lots of stuff, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's about what you desire.

Speaker 1: 19:29

I believe that we are creators. We are creators in this life. We are here to expand. We are here to expand consciousness. We don't inspire anyone by playing it safe or being okay with just mediocre if that's not what we truly want. Mediocre if that's not what we truly want. If you just want that, that's fine. It has to be true to you. That's the bottom line I'm getting at here is you got to be honest with yourself and if you want big impact, you want financial freedom, you want that next level life, you have to own it and you have to say it out loud and you can't shrink down, especially not to yourself. Stop telling yourself things like you just want to be comfortable or you don't need that much. I don't need that much. You know there's a lot of people that don't have less than me. I don't need that much. Well, how know there's a lot of people that have less than me, I don't need that much. Well, how are you going to help the people that have less than you when you don't have that much? That's not going to work very well.

Speaker 1: 20:39

One of my mentors she was a really powerful woman. She was an older woman. I really respected her. She made a ton of money and she just gave back so much as well. And one thing that stuck in my head when she was talking to us we were in a little group and she said. You know you just got to get over yourself. Get over yourself, get over making money, get over it. If you're here for a purpose, you're mission driven, you're-centered, you live in integrity, you're here for the people, you need to make a lot of money. You cannot hold yourself back, period. And there's a lot of mission-driven, purpose-driven people that I talk to and they still got a lot of limiting money beliefs.

Speaker 1: 21:32

Your reality will match your limitations If you do not believe you are worthy, deserving or it's even possible to get to a certain point. That's your first step. That's what you got to work on. I want you to say your biggest. I want you to say your biggest, boldest desires out loud. Stop filtering them to sound more reasonable or realistic. I hate that word realistic. What is realistic? Listen when we start really boiling down and getting real with this universe, with this world. What is realistic? Someone's realistic is very different from someone else. Everything is subjective, Literally. We got to get over this word. You know who says things like oh, you got to think a little bit more realistically. People that are drowning in their own limitations. No one happy, living a fantastic life has the pillars of health, wealth, happiness, love, romance, whatever. I said more than four pillars. There's lots of pillars are telling you to be more realistic. It's a sham. It's an illusion. Stick it's a sham. It's an illusion. It's a safety net. It's a box. You have to own your vision fully. No more. If it happens, it happens, decide it's yours, declare it, commit. That's it. Stop downplaying what you really want. And the last one you may be playing it safe. You may be playing small If you're waiting for permission, even if you think you're not, even if you think you're not, even if you're a badass that says I don't wait for permission, I do what I want.

Speaker 1: 23:30

But if you're subconsciously waiting for a signal, you're subconsciously waiting for a signal, validation or an external sign before you're making you know your next big move, then you are waiting for permission, right? You think you need more clarity. You need more confirmation. You need more certainty. You need more proof that it will work, certainty, you need more proof that it will work. That is fear disguised as logic. You, at your highest self, do not wait for permission, right, you need to create your own permission, create your own certainty. It all comes from inside and mirrors externally. It starts from your inside and you will see it externally. You have to be certain first. You can't keep waiting for external certainty. It's not going to come and you're going to be waiting and waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and waiting and waiting, and then you're going to be 90 years old and you're going to be sitting on your porch and thinking what the F did I just do with my life? That, by the way, is one of my biggest fears. That drives me forward. It's thinking into the future as my 90-year-old self on my porch, rocking in the rocking chair, but still super fit and healthy, but thinking back on my life and thinking, well, what did I do?

Speaker 1: 25:06

I am driven by that fear of regret. I don't want to live in fear of regret that motivates me so much. Fear of regret that motivates me so much because it can happen. Right Time goes by, people can regret. Now I do believe at a more conscious level that we don't need to fear that life is infinite. We have many lifetimes. We're not really wasting our time. We learn from everything. But, on the flip side, us in this body, this is not going to go on forever and it truly is about being present, not getting lost in stories, not getting lost in fears and owning the journey that you're here for Lightening up, having fun, giving yourself permission, releasing the limitations, finding people that can inspire you, that you're motivated by.

Speaker 1: 26:12

You know I get a lot of calls. I get a lot of people that reach out for private coaching. They love private coaching, they love working with me one-on-one and I love my one-on-one clients. I have one-on-one clients from even when I started 11 years ago that still reach out and tell me how amazing their experience was and fill me in on what they're doing. In fact, I have tons of clients that I still connect with and it's such an amazing, deep, deep experience working with these clients one-on-one. The benefit of being in a group, however, is you get that support from even more people in the group. So I think you should experience both one-on-one and group and, funny enough, the group program, the Magnetic Leader Accelerator, includes three deep dive sessions, but it won't be there forever because as soon as the program goes out of the beta run and launches in its final, there will be no one-on-one sessions included.

Speaker 1: 27:24

If this resonates with you and you'd like to speak to me about private coaching or the program, please reach out. Let's have a conversation. Let's get you moving and grooving. There is no time like the present to release these little below the surface, subconscious ways we keep ourselves from what we truly want and desire, and I can't tell you how exciting it is to see these people in the program or in my one-on-one programs, aligning their vision.

Speaker 1: 28:01

This year is like no other year. The energy is moving faster than ever. People are having results so much quicker, like lightning speed, quicker than it was four or five years ago and even faster than last year. And I thought last year was fast. Don't wait on the sidelines, let's go, let's get it. And if you're not ready for that and you'd like to send me a text message and let me know a very specific question that you have, please do. You can find that in the podcast website and I can answer your question on a podcast if it makes sense for the other listeners. I love you leaders. I appreciate you If you're still listening. You're awesome. I've had a lot of new listeners on the podcast and I'm really excited to be creating more content for you. Drop me a line.

Speaker 2: 29:11

Give me a rating if you enjoyed it and, as always, let's stay connected. Bye.