I Can Do Hard Things. So Why Can’t I Do This?

Julie Holly: I can do hard things, so why can't I do this? Being able to do demanding things doesn't mean every kind of difficulty asks the same thing of you. Something you care about may bring up fears of being misunderstood, judged, or losing connection. Understanding what's happening without condemning yourself for it can open up room to choose how you move forward.

Julie Holly: Welcome back, or welcome to The Recalibration, where high-capacity humans realign who they are so they can move from pressure and performance into peace, presence, and clarity without losing their edge. Praise God for ambition.

Julie Holly: I'm Julie Holly, researcher, coach, and founder of the Identity Level Recalibration Pathway. Today, we are talking about being deeply capable, yet struggling to move towards something that matters.

Julie Holly: And the truth is, this is so near and dear to my heart because everything that I do, all of these podcast episodes, the articles I write over on LinkedIn and over on Substack, and everything I create for you in service of you requires so much from me in the best ways possible.

Julie Holly: It is really uncomfortable, and I don't know that you know that because you probably hear my voice on this side, and you're like, "Wow, Julie, she sounds happy. She sounds confident. She sounds contemplative. She sounds..." Fill in however you think that I sound. And yet I want you to know that it is oh, so uncomfortable.

Julie Holly: As I was thinking about this particular episode, I was wrestling with this very question myself. This is a question that I notice that, many people in my sphere wrestle with, but they don't actually name it. So it flies under the radar, and we feel the dissonance, but we don't actually have the question for it.

Julie Holly: And so I'm inviting us to step into that actual question. I wanna walk the five stages of the recalibration with you in real time, and the questions that I'm going to ask you and how I'm going to invite you into that recalibration experience I think is so on fire, and I think that you're going to really appreciate the questions and then the space also that I'm going to provide for you to just sit with those questions. A lot of times when I'm listening to podcasts, I notice that as a voracious content consumer, all things, I mean

Julie Holly: I'm always engaged in a book. Currently, I'm gonna be sharing a little bit on Substack about, some takeaways from Rick Rubin's The Creative Act. I'm halfway through that. I'm always listening to podcasts. It's funny because I sent one of my clients a couple of podcast episodes that were very relevant to the things that he was working and processing through at that time on the business side and the personal development side, because our business lives, our entrepreneurship lives, and our personal lives, those intersect.

Julie Holly: Those are dovetailed together. And so I had sent him some podcast episodes, and with that, he's like, "How do you consume so much content?" So I am an avid, voracious content consumer. I love it. It's so much fun. And I have a feeling that one of the reasons you enjoy my podcast is because there's a similarity between us, that you also enjoy reading and consuming articles and other podcasts and such. And what I have found in my content consumption is that it's easy for me to say, "Oh, that's a really good idea.

Julie Holly: I should think about that further." But instead of pausing to think about that further, I just jump right into the next podcast episode, the next article, the next, in Rick Rubin's book, the next thought or the next chapter, depending on the book I'm reading. And so as we are going through the recalibration pathway today, I want to give you space and time to be able to think And process through the pathway.

Julie Holly: The questions are designed around this concept of, "I can do hard things, so why can't I do this?", One of my dear friends recently commented that she's like, "Julie, I know you talk fast, but wow, girl, you talk fast." And so I notice that.

Julie Holly: I'm, I'm recognizing that even in this moment. And so I'm gonna invite you to join me in just taking a breath. This is what I actually do when I'm with my coaching clients, because I am so excited and actually ecstatic every time I am in person with a client or if I'm with a client virtually, I'm always so excited to see them. And I talk fast when I'm excited about something. I also talk fast when I'm a little anxious, nervous, afraid. I talk fast. And so I think the bottom line is, I talk fast. And so a practice that I have learned is just a simple breath. And I have a feeling that wherever you are, you might be moving in a fast way as well.

Julie Holly: And you might not be moving verbally in a fast way because you're listening to me, but your energy might feel fast. Maybe you're driving in your car, and you're just feeling the, like, flow all through your body, and you're getting your teens and littles and everyone where they need to go. And so I just wanna invite you to step into this breath with me.

Julie Holly: This is gonna be our moment to just simply reorient ourselves for this listening experience so that we can be super present with the content. So even if you're driving, you are totally fine. If you are sitting or if you're on a treadmill, wherever you are, you can just simply find a way to anchor yourself.

Julie Holly: Now, if you're driving, please don't slam your feet down on the gas pedal or anything like that. Just simply find yourself anchored, and we're gonna take a deep breath in through our nose. And we're gonna feel our chest and our lungs expanding all the way down our abdomen And we're gonna hold that breath, and we're gonna take a little bit more and then hold it for just a moment And then when we push it out, we just wanna pretend like it's air, air releasing from a valve or from a balloon slowly.

Julie Holly: It might sound like this. Sss.

Julie Holly: Already I feel my body just, like, sinking into a very much more relaxed state. You may have experienced that also. Just take another breath in through your nose

Julie Holly: Holding it, expanding it, and letting it leak out.

Julie Holly: When we do this, we can feel our body relax. We move from that activated sympathetic state into a parasympathetic, just more relaxed state. It literally is a way I am able to reorient myself in any single moment. So many episodes ago, 'cause there are so many episodes, I shared, um, how it's about this time last year I was preparing to speak at an event, and I was, walking into the event and happened to find myself talking with a gentleman that was going into the event. He didn't know I was one of the speakers or anything like that, and he had had a morning. It had been quite a morning, and before we went into the conference center, I invited him. I said, "This may sound really odd, but will you do something with me?" And we took that single breath.

Julie Holly: He took a couple of those breaths and I just asked him, I said, "How are you feeling now?" And he's like, "I feel so much more relaxed." This is one of those absolute unfair advantages. I'm not forcing myself to slow down with my speech. I'm not changing anything on the editing space. ... It's just amazing what, when we can just regulate our nervous system, what happens to our presence and how we show up to the world around us.

Julie Holly: So wherever you are, I hope that you enjoyed that breath. I hope that you are enjoying a more relaxed, state of being. There is so much more we could do with the breathwork, but I really wanna dive into this content because I'm excited about you discovering what is preventing you from doing that next thing that is really important to you, that you really want to do, that thing that you feel drawn to doing.

Julie Holly: And then every time you take a step toward it or you want to take a step toward it, you feel that internal resistance, or you feel something just ... You, you're frozen, and you're not making the advancement. You're not moving forward in the way you know you can because you've done it in so many other areas of your life.

Julie Holly: One of the things that I notice for myself is I have created so much content. I've built systems, and all of that can feel so much easier than putting my actual voice out in the world. This is episode eight since I've come back from the podcast, and it's been really interesting. I have felt incredibly awkward.

Julie Holly: I have been finding my voice again, my literal physical voice, and also w- who am I and what is ... I know I'm creating identity level recalibration work, right? That's not changing. But how am I communicating this with you? And things felt super-duper awkward. You also may have noticed that I, I've persisted

Julie Holly: I'm like, "Gosh darn it. I am going to show up. I'm going to continue to create this content through the awkwardness, through the discomfort."

Julie Holly: One of the elements that I've noticed as I've come back to creating the content for you is just how I second-guess myself, and that might be relatable for you. I find myself questioning my intelligence, questioning my credentials. Who am I to be talking about identity with you? Sometimes I feel really uncomfortable sharing my ideas and what I'm studying.

Julie Holly: In fact, even this morning, as I was, um, reading my Bible and wrestling with some of the content in 2 Timothy, um, in a really proactive, very beautiful way, and then reading in Rick Rubin's The Creative Act, my mind was pinging around and I thought, "Oh my gosh, all of this would be so great to share."

Julie Holly: And then boom, I hit it. I felt the resistance. I felt like, "I don't know, how are people gonna respond?, You know, should I, should I share these things or not?" and oftentimes beneath all of that is For me is this need that I need to have things figured out. It needs to be buttoned down. I need to have, kinda like have your six in check.

Julie Holly: You know? Like, okay, can you see behind you, over your shoulder, and you know that if someone were to question you, it's going to be okay

Julie Holly: As I was peeling that back further, okay, well, why is that so important to me? And I recognized how that fear, and I imagine that you have a similar fear. It's not unique to me. It is a very common human fear, and that is That fear of being misunderstood, and then that's where a lot of us stop.

Julie Holly: But we're not talking about, "Oh, I'm misunderstood." We're also talking about what happens when we're misunderstood. So a lot of times we stop at, "Oh, I just don't wanna be misunderstood." Well, why don't we wanna be misunderstood? When I peel back that layer, I don't wanna be misunderstood because I don't wanna lose connection.

Julie Holly: I don't wanna lose proximity to community. And so it may be easier to answer that question, I can do hard things, why can't I do this? Okay, well Maybe I'm struggling to share my real-time thoughts and processing because I'm afraid of being misunderstood and kicked out of the flock, kicked out of the community.

Julie Holly: What would people say? And our culture reinforces this idea. We reinforce the idea that you need to have your thought figured out. Don't process what you are thinking and what you are experiencing in real time. Another way of saying this that you've probably heard is tell the stories from the scars, not from the wound.

Julie Holly: And so the idea is, hey, you know what? You need to process through things. Don't really get into what's going on, what you're really thinking and experiencing until you have it enough figured out that it's going to make more sense. I agree with this in many regards, and yet for me, it was creating a very strong limitation in my life

Julie Holly: Allowing myself to explore all of that without the shame, the judgment, the condemnation, that right there is what opened up my ability to be able to see what's under this? Wait, what's, what's under that? What's under here?

Julie Holly: And so When we allow ourselves to explore without the shame, the judgment, the condemnation, the criticism, and for me, oh my gosh, self-judgment is such a thing. I'm noticing it increasingly more as a more severe thing in my life. And so being able to explore without that opens up a entirely new understanding of ourselves and our world.

Julie Holly: And that's where we can recalibrate at the identity level.

Julie Holly: One of the elements that makes this concept, so resonant with me is that so many people in my sphere, and myself included, we can do physically demanding things I've shared about this on different social platforms and such, where we can do the cold plunge, we can do the ultramarathon.

Julie Holly: Ironmans are particularly, like, the in vogue right now. Running a marathon and then another marathon, like back-to-back type marathons, that's also a thing. And so I just think about, um, there's so much more under the hood on that, but today we're focusing on the concept of, I can do the hard things, so why can't I do this?

Julie Holly: We do these physical hard things. I wrote down some notes. You can see I was like, dun-dun, writing out more this morning before I actually hit record. I was thinking about the cold plunges. I was thinking about the morning routines, and the rituals, and how we can be so dogmatic with ourselves and say, "I'm gonna show up.

Julie Holly: I'm gonna wake up at 4:00 or 5:00," whatever it is, "and I'm going to do..." And, and we can discipline ourselves, and we can stay in that flow so well. We can wear... You've heard me talk about Oura Rings. Oh my gosh. We can wear our Oura Rings and track everything and know that we've got deep sleep. We have our, our real age.

Julie Holly: We have, we can have all that data, and we kinda jockey for that kind of data. Um, another thing that's trending that's kind of on the hard, you know, I can do the hard things, like strength training. Like, oh my gosh, I can go and, and I can lift, or I can do CrossFit, or, I am, I have this level of mobility and ability, and so we focus on those things.

Julie Holly: Those are all mostly external things. Those are in the physical realm, right? Where this is tangible. This is measurable. This is physical. I can do all these hard things. I went up and I, I tackled the peak. And all of this, I promise you, there is no shame or judgment in this. I, I recognize this because this was the pattern of behavior in my life, and it was mirrored back to me by my sphere, and I felt the dissonance. I'm like, "What is that?" And I just started looking under the hood in my own life.

Julie Holly: I mean, I've posted the pictures of me on, you know, the top of the 14er and me... Like, yeah, I like to do these things, and there's nothing wrong. Hear me on this. There is nothing wrong with any of these activities. This is not, like, throwing shade on any of those activities whatsoever. Um, I'm gonna throw another one in there that's going to feel different, and I've spoken about it recently, um, on the episode on, um, faith, spirituality, religiosity.

Julie Holly: You know, it's like what's going on in our spiritual lives, so that can become another metric. We can show up. We can read our Bibles. We can meditate and actually have this, like, restful, contemplative state of being

Julie Holly: But what's interesting with all of these things that I have mentioned is that they keep us in the driver's seat. They keep us in control. This is something that most of us are really good at. We're really good at being captain of our ship, in control. We could even be in collaboration, that's fine, but we know the levers to pull, we know the buttons to push, and we know how to move things forward, maybe even how to hit the pause button on, you know, so that we can be in a more meditative, relaxed state.

Julie Holly: And with those things, we can tolerate all of the demands, and we can put out all of that effort

Julie Holly: without ever allowing ourselves to be exposed to uncertainty

Julie Holly: You can train for the marathon, you can train for the Ironman, all of these things have a way of being measured, a way of being tracked, a way of monitoring and adjusting, a way of staying in control. There is no uncertainty about it

Julie Holly: And what's interesting is that we can put ourselves in that uncertain, unpredictable situation in any of those things, because it's simply saying, "Hey what is driving this behavior? What is under the hood?

Julie Holly: I can relate very much because as I launched the podcast, If you go back to the very beginning of this podcast, the title was Ask Me How I Know: Multifamily Stories of Struggles to Success. What a mouthful, right? Then it transitioned into The Conscious Investor, and then for a very, very brief, like, less than a month blip, it was The Julie Holly Show, and then it was Identity Level Recalibration, and then it finally found its resting spot with The Recalibration.

Julie Holly: And all of that is consistent. All of that had the exact same golden thread throughout all of it. And a lot of times our circumstances, so it could be the ultra race, it could be the Ironman, or the strength training, the competition you're going to be in, all of those things can be for us if we are willing to allow ourselves to ask the deeper questions.

Julie Holly: And so you'll see in this podcast, like, that arc being woven in consistently, and it was, from the very get-go, the message was very clear. Like, hey, I want to help people live into the fullness of who God created them to be. Like, I am so sold out on that concept right there.

Julie Holly: But I, I didn't know how to do that, and I had to learn myself how to be that. And so watching my own iterations over the last many years to see, here's the thesis supporting people in stepping into the fullness of who God created them to be. And allowing ourselves to iterate, to grow, and to progress without the shame, the judgment, the condemnation. I know I'm being so redundant, but this is such an important concept because a lotta times we look at ourselves and we judge ourselves.

Julie Holly: We say, "Oh, you changed, and so you are no longer the same." I have to say this, and I wish you could smell this. If microphones could smell, I'm giving you a smell. Um, I actually went and bought this fragrance. Uh, it's called Paradox by Prada, and I highly encourage you, to watch that commercial. It's so funny that I'm encouraging you to do that., But it talks about identity, and at the end it says, " Never the same. Always me." And that's really what we're talking about right here, is that, that we can do hard things, And sometimes we face resistance because part of us, the me that is constant, is being shaped. It's being refined. It's being forged Never the same. This podcast has changed so many times over the last several years, but I'm always me. I'm always showing up With the same heart and the same intention

Julie Holly: let's go ahead and make this really personal for you. I wanna invite you to bring one situation into this conversation that we're having together. This could be something that you care about so deeply, but are stuck in research mode. 'Cause research mode is so much more comfortable than taking that next step. And you're staying in that prep mode because you have become very efficient and feel comfortable with the preparation process.

Julie Holly: And maybe there's just something that you are wanting to bring about, and you're just simply not moving towards it

Julie Holly: okay, whatever came to your mind, don't second guess that. It might feel small and insignificant to you. You might think like, "Ugh, like that's so embarrassing." Well, guess what? It's just you with yourself right now, and if you're embarrassed by that, just ask yourself, "Do I need to be embarrassed?

Julie Holly: Can I, can I hold space for myself and for what this is?"

Julie Holly: Okay, with that situation in mind, let's go ahead and step into the five stages of the recalibration pathway. Quick overview. Remember, we start with recognition, we move to release, reclamation, reinforcement, and then renewed momentum. Let's start with recognition.

Julie Holly: Recognition is simply noticing what is. Things are what they are. This is my phone. This is a water bottle. I'm holding these up if you're listening. You know, this is my mouse. Like, these things are what they are. It just is. My hair is what it is. My wrinkles are what they are, right? Like, all of these things, they just are.

Julie Holly: So we don't wanna assign meaning to them or value to them. We're just simply noticing without shame, judgment, criticism, condemnation. We're just noticing what is

Julie Holly: At the beginning of the episode before we took our breath, I was talking super fast, and I was telling you about my awkwardness. I was telling you about the beliefs that I had and the fear that was beneath it. That was me exploring what is

Julie Holly: so here is the first question for you. When you imagine doing the thing that you're holding in your mind, what comes up? What is And just a reminder, I am going to give you some space between these questions because you and I are content consumers. We'll just jump to the next, and it may be challenging for us to go back and give ourselves time to just sit and process. So I'm baking in just a small amount of processing time for you so that you can have the experience now, and when we're finished, you can walk away with a renewed perspective.

Julie Holly: After we recognize what is, we move into release. That's discerning what no longer needs to be carried in the same way. Seeing what no longer belongs.

Julie Holly: This is where we set down what no longer needs to come forward with us

Julie Holly: you may recall I chose to sit down. I don't have to have everything figured out before I share my experiences. I can share my thinking and my processing with you in real time, and I can still be safe

Julie Holly: so the question for you, and remember I'm going to give you just a little bit of processing time after this question, What are you requiring of yourself before you allow yourself to begin

Julie Holly: Now we move into reclamation. This is a beautiful spot. I love reclamation. I love all of it. I, I genuinely love all of it. It's been so revolutionary in my life and in the lives of my coaching clients. And by the way, before I tell you about reclamation, I want you to know that on the website, julieholley.com, scroll to the very bottom and, you can go through Get Curious any time you want.

Julie Holly: I love Get Curious. I personally use it. I'm also creating an app-ish type thing. I haven't decided what direction, but I'm playing around because taking three minutes to simply ask some questions of myself has been really extraordinarily helpful. I'm experimenting with my clients right now, creating them some very highly personalized, experiences that they can just swipe through on their phones.

Julie Holly: It's so much fun. So I'm gonna get the feedback from them, um, to see how that experience is for them, and I'd love for you to check out Get Curious at the bottom of my website, julieholley.com. Let me know what the experience is like, because it's walking you through the pathway and allowing yourself to just take a few minutes to catch your breath, to pause and reorient yourself. Okay. Reclamation is recovering, claiming or bringing forward what belongs. So with release, we're setting something down and we're letting it just stay where it is. With reclamation, we may be continuing to carry something along with us. We might find something and we say, "Oh, I want to bring this forward with me in this point in my life."

Julie Holly: One of the things that I've brought forward since the very beginning of this podcast is my conviction, my voice, my desire, my care for you. So for you, in your situation that you brought to mind, what matters to you here that you still want to bring forward

Julie Holly: I'm enjoying these little breaks because I can just take a breath, be present. If you're watching on YouTube, I'm like staring. I'm just content, just grounded and content being here in this moment with you, and it's enjoyable. I'm so glad that you're here. Okay, let's move on to reinforcement, and then we'll wrap up with renewed momentum.

Julie Holly: Reinforcement is practicing and gathering lived experience in your ordinary life

Julie Holly: One ordinary day at a time

Julie Holly: for me, I had to allow myself to sit with the discomfort. Coming back to the podcast, I had to allow myself to say, It's okay that you feel awkward.

Julie Holly: Where is this coming from? Is this aligned with who God created me to be? And then I could choose. And every time I chose.

Julie Holly: Reinforcement is really practicing recognition, release, and reclamation. Just practicing them, recognize what is, and then choose. Is this gonna stay here, or is this moving forward with me?

Julie Holly: As we practice that, We're reinforcing our lives. As we do that,

Julie Holly: We're collecting experiences

Julie Holly: And that leads us into renewed momentum

Julie Holly: Renewed momentum is moving forward from a place that is more integrated with who we are now. we're moving from what actually matters As I've gained renewed momentum in different areas of my life, and I think we can all agree, I haven't gained renewed momentum with the podcast yet. But in other areas of my life, I notice that when I move into renewed momentum, my overthinking is dramatically reduced.

Julie Holly: My hypervigilance is dramatically turned down, And that means I have more capacity . For my calling and my career. So I'm curious for you, I know I didn't have a, a question for you with reinforcement, but I do have a question for you with renewed momentum. what might you have more of yourself available for?

Julie Holly: The recalibration pathway isn't about having everything figured out and having to be hypervigilant and having to burden ourselves with one more thing to learn and integrate and implement into our lives. It's really about unburdening ourselves. It's about recognizing what is so that we can set some things down that have become burdens in our lives, even if we don't recognize it.

Julie Holly: And then we can reclaim. We can either move forward with the things that are important to us, that are important for our identity, or we can find things, that we need to pick up and take with us.

Julie Holly: So friend, as you go about your week, here's one thing I wanna encourage you to carry forward with you. You can do the hard thing, And it's okay if you still need room to figure out why this particular thing is hard And in that process,

Julie Holly: you can begin By being honest with yourself and not condemning what you find

Julie Holly: My final question, which will also be in the show notes for you, is this

Julie Holly: If I could be honest with myself without shame, judgment, criticism, condemnation, what would I acknowledge?

Julie Holly: I'm doing a live training on November 3rd. It's a Tuesday morning. It's going to be at 10:00 AM Pacific Time

Julie Holly: I wanna encourage you to be there live. These type of trainings generally aren't big trainings. I'm there, you're there, we're recalibrating in real time. And this particular training I am so excited for because we are literally going to walk through how to make room for what matters November is right around the corner.

Julie Holly: It's next week. We're gonna have Halloween this weekend, then we're gonna have Thanksgiving coming up, and then we'll have Christmas, and then we'll have the New Years.

Julie Holly: And there's just gonna be a lot going on. And so if you're already feeling, "Whoa, I'm already maxed out at capacity, and I'm entering into this busy season, and I have goals for my career and for my calling, and I have real deadlines that I have to meet and real meetings that I have to show up to," you may be feeling so maxed out and overwhelmed.

Julie Holly: So the purpose of this training is to support you in just, dialing that back, regaining some capacity, ' I am confident that There are things running around in your nervous system that when we can surface them and release them, you are going to regain so much more capacity.

Julie Holly: And that means that you can be present. You can be present during these special times. You can be present with your work without having background thoughts about all the other things that you should be doing we know how that goes. And that's the gift I want to give you.

Julie Holly: That is my, my commitment to help people step into the fullness of who God created them to be. You, who you are created to be. We don't have to go around the holidays with the stereotypical cultural narrative of, you know, "This is such a cra- crazy, busy season," and, you know, "I'm just busy." We don't have to live like that.

Julie Holly: If all of this is resonating, if that training day and time, doesn't work for you, please go find time on my calendar. Anyone who has been on one of those conversations knows that it is not a sales call. It is genuinely a conversation to support you. The purpose of those calls is to serve and support you.

Julie Holly: So please do yourself a favor, put some time on my calendar.

Julie Holly: If you haven't already, would you hit subscribe or follow or whatever it is? That just lets me know that this content is important to you, and it also lets the algorithm know that people resonate with this content, and that this content is important and needs to be put out into the world. I appreciate you. I appreciate your support. Remember, this is a daily journey, and you're exactly where you need to be today