How to Stay With Yourself When Things Get Hard

If you’ve ever been halfway up a goal and found yourself climbing back down to “pick a better trail,” this one’s for you. 

We’re revisiting the mountain story that so many of you loved in my Brave Little Things Newsletter- and adding the deeper layer I didn’t include the first time.

In plain language, we’re talking about why we start/stop/start/stop…and how to actually stay.

You’ll hear about:

• The stop–go loop: why second-guessing feels smart in the moment but quietly erodes self-trust.
• The “right path” myth: there isn’t a perfect trail, there’s the one you make right. (My coach’s line I live by.)
• Identity > strategy: you’re not just hiking to a goal; you’re hiking with yourself. The summit is built inside you by all the moments you don’t abandon yourself.
• A simple “stay” protocol to try this week:
  • Pick your "trail" and set a no-switch window (e.g., 30 days).
  • Name what will likely get hard and decide how you’ll respond before you’re in it.
  • Keep a tiny evidence log of staying (one sentence a day).

Reflection prompts to take with you:

• Where am I climbing back down out of habit?
• What’s my no-switch window for the next two weeks?
• Who am I becoming by staying on this trail?

If you’re ready to go deeper and actually rewire this pattern so staying becomes your default, this is the work we do in my six-month VIP coaching container. 

Book A consult here: 

https://www.tamarcoaching.com/consult

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:13

Hello you guys. Welcome back. What is up? What is going on, my friends? I hope you guys had a beautiful week last week. Beautiful week going into this new week. I hope you guys are doing really good. And we are back with a whole new episode. How to stay with yourself when things get hard. Wow, what a big, big topic. And you know, we're this is gonna be like the beginning of a lot of conversations around self-trust and really, you know, having our backs, our own back in like really radical, incredible ways, and decision making, and all the goodies, all the things that really hold like the power to everything we have in our lives. So this is gonna be kind of a kickoff to a lot of those conversations moving forward. All right, so today I want to bring back an old story, an old metaphor that one that I started in a newsletter, in my newsletter, which is also by the way called Brave Little Things. And if you're not there, I think you're really gonna want to be there because the content that's happening over in my newsletter is different than what's happening over here. I try to kind of mix it up in all the different places on Instagram, on here, on there, so that I can really bring in a lot of different kinds of ideas and really offer lots of different thoughts so that you can really get what you're needing in that moment. So if you're not, if you're loving this and you're into this and you're like, this is exciting, and I like these thoughts and these ideas and these new ways of thinking and looking, you're really gonna want to be a part of that also. I will go ahead and share that with you guys and how to, you know, it's right on my website. You can jump right onto it and grab my newsletter and be a part of it. And you always could like, if you're like, you know what, this, I don't really want into this or not feeling it, or whatever it is, seriously, no hard feelings at all. I love that this my newsletter is a place for people who only want to be there, which is really different than when you're on Instagram and things like that. It's really people who want to show up because all they have to do is unsubscribe and that is it. So you should be part of it. Anyways, that's not what I just want to talk about. I want to say that what I'm gonna be sharing today. I started this conversation on the a newsletter a while ago, a couple months ago, maybe. And I have to say it's one of those things that has really lived its own little life. It's a kind of taken a life on its own. I still to this day get messages about it. People emailing me or just sending me a WhatsApp or messaging me, you know, on my website, whatever it is, they just kind of drop a line and say, you know, that mountain that mountain metaphor like stuck with me so deeply. You know, or like I think about that story every time I start to doubt myself. Like, thank you so much for that email that you sent a while back. It just keeps on popping up for people. So, you know, I felt like that was enough to for me to say, I think that more people needed to hear about it and to be able to use this for their own lives, their own business, their own coaching, their own self-coaching. So the you know, for those who have been a part of coaching, and maybe this this also can come up in therapy, or just if you're sitting in front of a mentor that you love, a wise person, whatever it is, you know, whether it's a single session or a whole six-month package journey that you're going on with somebody, um, or just even a conversation, there's oftentimes just one sentence or one metaphor that just sticks. Right? It rearranged something inside of you and you keep coming back to it, keeps on like changing something inside of you that you want to kind of move around. And this story, this metaphor seems to have done that for a lot of people. So I want you guys to have it also. And also share, I'm also sharing something new I've come to see in it. So, like if you start to hear the story and you're like, oh yeah, I read this in the news newsletter, I don't have to hear this podcast. You don't have to, because you don't have to do nothing. These rule, your own rules. But also I will offer that I am offering a new nuanced piece of it as well that has helped deepen the story for me and has kind of moved me through new goals, new growth and in my own life and things like that. So I'd say stick around no matter what, no matter where you're at, in my content experience. So, anyways, this is a little bit of a, you know, you can sit back, relax, depending on if you're if you're driving, do not sit back and relax. But just take a moment with me, because we're gonna go for a little hike. I don't know about you guys, I don't know if you're hikers like I am, but me and my family, we love to hike. And I want you to picture this with me for just a second. You're standing at the base of a mountain. It's one of those crisp, clear mornings. You've got your pack, your water bottle, maybe some snacks like cashews or kind of green apples, cliff bars, all your kind of favorite things, and you already see the summit in the distance. And it's glowing in that like impossible way where the light just hits right, and you just are like, whoa, this is all so freaking beautiful. Try if you can to picture even a particular mountain that you might have hiked. And if you're not a hiker, maybe a mountain that you've seen in a picture. In my mind, I'm thinking about a particular mountain that we hiked when we were in northern Italy in the Dolomites a few years back. I think it was like the maybe five years ago at this point. I think I just launched my business, and my business had paid for this amazing trip for my whole family to go. It was a very exciting moment. And I'm picturing myself there. So picture yourself in like a in one particular mountain if you can. And you know, that summit, that summit that you're looking at, that's your goal. That's your goal. It could be your dream business, or your book that you want to write, your whatever that thing is, that yoga studio you want to create, that nonprofit that you want to start, that baby that you want to have, whatever that thing is, that's what you're working towards. Okay, and I know this is like in the beginning of this, you're gonna be like, okay, I know this kind of metaphor, it's so typical like the mountain, the summit is your goal and you have to reach it. But just stick with me because it gets layered and maybe something that you haven't heard yet. So you're here at the summit. No, you're here not at the summit, you're at the trailhead, you're ready, you've done the mindset work, you've you've visualized it all, you're feeling strong. Maybe you've also even like worked out for this moment, got yourself fit and shape, you're already to freaking master and conquer this mountain. And you step up to the trailhead and you see that there are five different trails leading to the top. You know how that is, right? There's like oftentimes in mountains there's different paths, one that's a little bit more advanced, one that's a little bit easier, one that loops. You know, so you're standing there and you see all five trailheads. You take a breath right here. You look around and you choose one. The one right in front of you. You're like, yeah, that one looks good. This one feels like the right one. Feeling good about it. And you start walking, and it does feel good. And you're proud of yourself for deciding and like just going for it right away, not taking too much time, just kind of feeling this like intuition. And you're hiking and you're going and you're just like breathing in the fresh air, you're enjoying, maybe you're solo, so maybe you're enjoying some solo time, maybe you're with your family, and it's like a family hike, and that's super fun. However, you want to picture yourself, and then you're you know about 15 minutes in to this beautiful hike, and you hit a river, and you're so confused because in all the research that you did on this for this mountain, you didn't see a river, and you didn't plan for a river. You didn't know there'd be a river, and you certainly did not pack watershoes for this river for this hike. And you're standing there staring at it, a little annoyed, and just like wondering, what should I do? And before you know it, you've convinced yourself that this isn't the right trail for me then, that I don't want to deal with the water and what if I fall in and then I'm wet and I don't want to do that. So you turn back and you hike all the way back down because you want to get to the you want to be able to see all the trailheads, make sure you're on the right trail. So you hike all the way back down and you you know pick another trail. So not the one in front of you, because that's what you just did, but you turn to the left of you, and you're like, okay, I think maybe this will be a great trail. It seems like it's not beginners, but it's not too advanced. I think this is a good one, and you start to hike that one. And this one, as you're hiking, is lined with beautiful wildflowers, like these purpley, yellowy, red kind of flowers all over the place, and they're your favorite, and you're thinking, ah, this must be the one. This is such a beautiful hike. I am so into this. And you are hiking and you are walking, maybe there's a loose flower that has kind of fallen off, and you stick it behind your ear, and maybe you're singing. However, you want to do your hike, you do it, girl. And you're just enjoying until you hit a steep, rocky stretch. And you look ahead and you see that this is a very long, steep, rocky stretch. You're gonna have to scramble rocks for a really long time. And again, here you are. You sigh and you're like, I did not read about this. ChatGPT did not tell me that this was gonna be a long, steep, rocky stretch. I am like, was not up for that. And it is annoying. And you're like, I'm just gonna turn back, and I'm sure the other trails, the other three choice of trails, one of them will be like simple, easy, like how ChatGPT promised me. So you go back down, you choose another trail, and you start hiking again. And this goes on. This goes on until you've like really gone through all five trails. You know, first one's like, you know, there's no, it's too exposed. The sun is like there's no trees blocking the sun, it's super sunny, really hot. The other trail, you know, a bunch of school kids had come. They're on the trail now, it's super noisy, they're loud, they're blasting their music. At least that's what happens here in Israel. Um, maybe not where you live, which is lucky you. All the things. So you're constantly in this like stop go, stop, go, stop, go. By the time the sun starts setting, you've hiked a ton. You've done so much hiking. You've been up and down, up and down. You've done more hiking than the advanced trail who went to the summit, but you haven't actually gone anywhere at all. And it's now getting dark, and so you can't even start from the beginning. So you just tell yourself, it's fine, I'll try again tomorrow, come back, I'll just choose one and I'll do it. But deep down, you know that that's not gonna happen. You know that that's not gonna happen. Right? This metaphor, as we know, right, the idea of hiking to the summit of a mountain is used a lot in goal setting. So I'm sure you've heard the idea a lot. But what I want to point out about this metaphor is what it's really showing you in real time why we often don't hit our goals and create the thing, whatever the thing is, whatever your goal is. And I want you to have a goal in mind when you're listening to this. I should have actually said in the beginning, but you can start now, that's fine too. That have whatever goal you you want that you're really kind of, you know, wanting to manifest inside of your business or something inside of your life, because right there, that is what not ha because the the metaphor, what this is really about is not having your own back. Right? This is what it looks like in real time of what not having your back. So think about, you know, when you're, you know, doing this kind of stop, go, stop, go, when it comes to something in your life. You can picture yourself going up the trail and then, no, I don't want this, and coming back down the trail. Up the trail, oh wait a second, I knew it was gonna be that. I don't want that. I'm like, I'm uh I wasn't up for that. You come back down, right? The stop, go, stop, go. And this is really kind of representing this moment where we like oftentimes when it comes to going all the way, we oftentimes don't have our own back. And I'm gonna talk more about that. Because most of us don't realize we are doing this in real life. We make a decision to start something new, to try something scary, to commit to something, and then the moment it gets uncomfortable, our brain looks for proof that we chose something wrong. Right? We start Googling, chat GBTing, asking for advice, polling friends, thinking maybe there's a better way, maybe there's an easier route. But it's not the rocks or the rivers or the steep climbs that stop us, you guys. Even though that's what it feels like. It feels like these obstacles of life.

unknown: 13:23

Right?

SPEAKER_00: 13:23

Like, well, I didn't have like the experience or the expertise in this, it didn't make sense. Or it was gonna be too much driving to go back and forth, and so I just realized it's it's not for me. Or it didn't excite me enough.

unknown: 13:37

Right?

SPEAKER_00: 13:37

There are all those different kinds of things that we can kind of make ourselves like be in something and then stop. And I would say the rule of thumb is like, you know, if I've had a client who is, you know, w starting something, and then a couple weeks in they're like, you know what? I think it's not this, I think it's something else. I think I need to be doing this instead. I think I need to be niching down in this area or whatever it is, and I want to switch gears, I'm down for that as long as they have a track record of finishing things. If they are somebody who finishes things and they see it in their, you know, they see that they do this, they see this in their history, then switching gears every once in a while makes sense. But oftentimes what happens is we're doing it all the time. And it's the stop, go, stop, go, stop, go. All right, it's constant stop and switching. The belief that there's a right trail and that we'll know it's right because it feels good all the way up. That's a belief that oftentimes people have. My coach, my business coach, has a saying, there isn't a right offer, but just an offer you make right. Right? There isn't a right offer, right? So many of us, business owners, I know you can can totally connect to this. Like you're just constantly like, what should my offer be? You know, how much should I price it and you know, and how much should I this and what should include and all those kinds of things, and we spend so much time agonizing over those details when reality is that there isn't a right offer, but just an offer you make right. It's not the offer, it's you. You are the variable. You're the one who gets who, you know, the work is really you falling in love with the offer, you wanting it to, you know, you believing that this is like the best thing that has happened since sliced bread. You're the one, right? Not the offer itself. You are the only variable here. So what if the point isn't to find the easiest trail or the right trail? It's to learn how to stay with yourself while you climb. That's freaking hard work. And here's the part I didn't include in this original email that I had sent out a few months ago. It might have been a year ago to come to think of it. It was a while ago. This is it. The piece that's come to me again and again since writing it. This is it. You're not just hiking to something, but you're hiking with yourself. You're hiking on your own path. There's a concept that I introduce in my coaching with my clients, which is really helping my clients get out of student mode, get out of like asking other people's opinion, somebody else knows more than I do, I can't fail, you know, anything that you can think of as like when you were a third grade, fourth grade student, all those kinds of things that totally take our power away. And I introduce I introduce them to a few different hats or roles that we wear instead. One of them is called the monk. And the monk is there, he's showing up as if the work itself is sacred. It's like a it's a long life, lifelong devotion to something bigger than they are. Right? That's when we're walking into our work, our bus our that we do in our businesses, it's not like the end goal. It's not the end result that we're, you know, just desperately needing. We're understanding that the work itself is sacred, every step we take. And this is a concept. This is a concept that kind of this is the piece I brought I I came out deeper with, you know, after sitting with this story, this metaphor for a while, that besides it being a thing of like that it's kind of like we're not trusting ourselves, but this is an opportunity to be hiking with ourselves. All right. So every decision, every detour, every tough stretch on that trail, it's showing you how you treat yourself when things aren't smooth, which is gonna be a lot of the time. And if you know, like if imagine if you actually knew that things were not gonna go like all the time great, and oftentimes really not great. Things were not gonna work out, you were gonna be disappointed, you were gonna fail on certain kinds of things, all this stuff, but you would figure it out. Would you care? Would you mind? Would you hold yourself back from trying new things and putting out a new piece of content and you know, being bold enough to speak to that one person at the networking event who you've been wanting to talk to but felt weird about it? Like, no. Because you'd be like, I'd figure this out. If that conversation went bad, I'd figure it out. Right? That's the kind of the concept. So, you know, we want to ask ourselves, like, do you keep going or do you start doubting and apologizing and trying to get it perfect? I know for a lot of my clients, including myself, that that is what happens very often. And if we could think of the summit as not the goal, but the sacred journey is the goal. The sacred journey in who we're becoming as we're walking and and obstacles are coming and things are coming our way that we don't want. We don't want to get wet from the river, and we don't want to spend the next hour, you know, going over scrampling rocks. We were just kind of wanting to walk through wildflowers, my God, geez, man. But okay, I'm gonna stick with this because this is a trail I chose, and let's see what happens. Wow, like what could freaking happen? Because every time you didn't abandon yourself halfway up, what could happen? Who could you be? I mean, pretty amazing stuff. Right. We love the idea of the right decision because it gives us an escape. If we can't if we like if we can just if we can just find the right one and and if we don't, right, then we don't have to try anymore. We don't have to put effort into it. We don't have we won't have to risk the awkward middle or the stretch or the failure, all the weird, uh, gross stuff. Ah, I don't want to be part of that stuff.

unknown: 19:36

Right?

SPEAKER_00: 19:36

If we're kind of like, listen, there's only one right way, and I don't think this is it, so I'm not gonna do this. Let's do something else. And you're spending all your time jumping, jumping, jumping, jumping, jumping, then you get to miss, you know, all that awkward, messy, weird stuff. But all the awkward, messy, weird stuff, that's the good stuff. That's the good, good stuff that most people will not experience because they won't let themselves experience. Only really someone who is willing to really face their extraordinariness. Because I really believe that every single person is absolutely extraordinary. And there are just some people that are willing to actually stand face to face with it. And the only way to do that is to be sticking with that trail. Right? And the thing is that you can't even see the right trail until you become the version of yourself who can walk it. This happens all the time with my clients, all the time. This definitely happened to me as well for very long, right? They want to make decisions or get out of a decision or get clarity, but while standing on the sidelines. They want to, they literally want to be like on the sidelines and making these decisions. Well, I think this, and my kids do this all the time as well, right? This is like a human trait. They don't want to like get in, you know, get into the mud. They want to like stand on the sidelines and be like, I don't think that's right, and I'm not sure if that's gonna work. And you know, it ha I see that it's not going to. And it's always like, no, you really have no idea. Like you are wasting your time by trying to make a decision with zero information because you're on the sidelines watching it. Right? But they have because you have no information, because they haven't put themselves out there, because they're not in what you know, Brene Brown calls the arena. They're not in the center, being live in it. So sometimes a thing that looks wrong in the beginning is the exact path that makes you who you need to be, very often, right? How I look at it is the climb is the curriculum. We're all given a curriculum of life, right? Here on Earth School. We're here to learn all different kinds of things, and everybody has a different curriculum. And your trail, the trail that you chose, for whatever reason you chose it, that's your curriculum. And it might come with rocks and rivers and mud and oh, the trail got cut off, a huge tree fell, you know, from a big storm. And sometimes it might be just like crazy wildflowers nonstop going all over the place, just like, you know, like soft grass, just like all over. It's gonna be lots of different kinds of things. And that's your curriculum. That's what you get to have. And everybody has a different curriculum, just like everybody has a different trail. So we want to start asking, like, who am I becoming by staying on this trail? Who would I be if I didn't stay on this trail? We want to start getting curious about those kind of questions, not from a place of judgment, from a place of real curiosity of like, what could happen if I stayed on this trail? What could I happen if I stay on this trail and it actually didn't work out? And I came back down and I was like, that what that did not feel like the right trail. But I also stayed on it, so what can I learn here? Or I stayed on it and whoa, I am so glad I stayed on it. Like, who are all the different versions of me that I get to be? It's a great and amazing thing to get curious about. And maybe if we zoom out even more, okay, the mountain itself is something that's very much alive and has lots of lessons to give us. Maybe it's like co-creating with you the mountain. Okay, I know. Stay with me for a second. I know I'm really going out there. I'm really being here, woo, crazy lady. But stay with me for just a second, because let's see what let's see what happens. Right? Maybe the mountain is like co-creating these these lessons, these this growth with you. Right? My belief is that every obstacle is not in your way, but a part of your relationship with life. You know, for example, I'm pretty sure that I shared, maybe I didn't. I share, I share a lot of things, so I'm not sure. But on Rosh Hashanah, I was driving my car. I think I did share this, but I'll say it quickly. We're driving to Jerusalem to visit my parents and my family. My husband's out of town, I was with my four kids. We are driving into Jerusalem, crazy traffic, crazy hills, and my brakes totally go out on me. Like, would my car would not stop. It was the scariest moment ever. And I'm not the car lady. My husband is the car guy, and I have the number for somebody to change a tire, but I do not have a number to tow my car and all those kinds of things. Anyways, I was in a really crazy situation where I was like minutes away from the holiday, four kids on the side of the road, no idea what to do, all this stuff. But I can tell you now, and I even could tell you then, to be honest, when I was in it, I was like learning so much about myself. It was like I was actually grateful that it happened. I said that actually out loud, and my parents were like, okay, I think you're pushing it a little bit too much. I'm like, no, I really do, because what happened was I also saw how automatically I was giving myself so much self-love in that experience. Like, look at you handling this, even though it's so crazy, right? Look at you doing your best to communicate in Hebrew exactly what you needed and how you needed the car towed and all that kind of stuff. And even though it felt really hard, you did it. And look at you freaking out, then staying, then getting calm again. And all like I was just like giving myself automatic self-love, like it was just such a moment for me because year like, you know, five years ago, six years ago, that was the opposite. I would know I would have no place to pull some self-love for myself there. And I completely just did it because it was like part of who I am now. So it's a beautiful thing. So I do believe that the obstacles really are not in our way, that they are part of this. They're very much a part of this, right? The river is like saying, slow down, breathe, think differently, think slowly. The rocks could be saying, like, use your strength, not just your speed. We don't need just speed in this world, but also strength.

unknown: 25:51

Right?

SPEAKER_00: 25:51

When you're going in the incline, going up that mountain, up to the summit, and saying, like, look at you and your capacity, look how much you can handle. That is freaking amazing. The whole climb becomes this like conversation between you and what's trying to grow inside of you. And when you start seeing it that way, that's when everything changes. And you stop thinking you're failing, and you start realizing, man, this is the ingredients I need to live at my highest level. This is it. So this is the metaphor I shared in that newsletter a year ago or so, that people really it stuck to them, and it sticks to me too, which is like a why I'm sharing it, because it really is an amazing image and visual when you are like doing something and you see yourself kind of like going up the trail, going back down, going up, back down, and then the end of the day, the end of the week, the end of the month, the end of the year, you're like, crap. I didn't do the thing. I didn't do I'm exhausted. I'm like totally out of commission, but I didn't do the thing also. So I'm not sure if this is working for me. So if you've been in that stop go cycle, stop go, stop go, stop go. And also the starting, the doubting, the switching, the starting again, maybe it's not about choosing differently. Maybe it's about finally staying there long enough to kind of trust yourself through that hard part. That's what really builds this radical self-trust inside of us. That's what changes the way you lead, you parent, you create, you live. And PS, by the way, I have to say, this is exactly what we do inside my six-month coaching container. That's what I do with my clients, my one-on-one, my VIP package, I call it. We don't just talk about this, we study it, we practice it until it becomes how our brain works. We're literally rewiring brains here. We're creating new habits, new ways of being that we don't even have to think about. Like I was telling you, how I just didn't have to think like tomorrow, be nice to yourself, like, you know, it's not gonna help if you're being mean. No, I just automatically was because I become this woman after these all these years, after all this coaching. So, you know, you what happens is you stop bailing on yourself halfway up the mountain. You start seeing what happens when you actually reach the summit. When you start to really be able to be like, okay, I didn't know that there's gonna be a river, but let's see this. Let's see what we can do here. Let's see, maybe we can create some kind of bridge of sorts with the material that's here on the forest floor. Or maybe it's okay that I get wet, and you know, and when I hike back down, I have got fresh, you know, shoes and socks in my car, so it's fine, right? We can create all different kinds of solutions for these quote unquote obstacles. If you guys are listening here, or you're on my newsletter, or you're following me on Instagram, I hope you're already feeling pieces of this shift. I think that you are, at least for the messages that I'm getting from some folks. But if you're ready to go deeper and to rewrite this part of you so that the self-trust becomes your default. It's just who you are. That's the work we'll do together. And either way, I hope this story stays with you for a long time, like it has for myself and so many people who've reached out and told me that it has. Because the next time you're halfway up a trail and questioning everything and wondering if you should come back down and doubting yourself, and I don't know, and is this right? I'm not sure. I just want you to remember that you're not lost, that you are strong enough to stick to this particular trail, go all the way up to the summit, and then decide if you like it or don't like it, or if you wanna, if you, if you, if you're like if you made the quote unquote right decision or not right decision, but stick to it all the way to the end. And I'm gonna go ahead and as always and leave my information of how to book yourself a one on one coaching consult with me. This is a free hour call with me so we can discuss all the things that you want to discuss and what's happening inside of your business and your life that you would like to help create a higher version of for yourself and start. To really know that you can trust yourself, that you have your own back no matter what. And that is the most profound, powerful thing that you possibly could do. So you can always click on that link that I'm going to put in the show notes and book it, and we get to have some one-on-one FaceTime together, which is always so fun. Anyway, guys, that is it for the day for the week. I will see you next week. I love you all so much. Have a beautiful, beautiful day.