109. Your Nervous System Is Keeping You Stuck: The Truth About Comfort Zones in Business

Here's a confession: I was not born a naturally brave person when it comes to change. My body's reaction was tight chest, nausea, the urge to stay exactly where I was, even if it kind of sucked. And that physical "no" reaction is what I want to talk about today, because there's a paradox I see constantly in business: we stay in situations that make us miserable because they're familiar.

In this episode, I'm breaking down the comfort zone paradox, why your nervous system would rather keep you stressed but predictable than move you toward something better, and what actually happens when you stop clinging to what's comfortable.

Because if your business looks successful on paper but feels brittle inside, you're not imagining it.

Are you stuck in your own comfort zone paradox? I'm offering a limited number of free 45-minute business audit calls to help you identify what needs to shift.

Thank you for being a part of the Soulpreneur Scaling Stories community!

📅 BOOK A FREE BUSINESS AUDIT
I'll identify the biggest bottleneck in your business structure and show you what a sustainable, proactive model looks like for YOUR strengths in this free 45-minute Business Audit.

🎁 FREE RESOURCES
Interactive calculators, monthly live trainings, and a vault of strategies to help you build a peacefully profitable business.

✨ WORK WITH ME
Expansion: Build a sustainable, scalable business that feels spacious, aligned, and effortless to run.

🔗 LET'S CONNECT
Instagram | Threads | LinkedIn | YouTube | Website

🎧 Podcast produced and edited with love by @FerAssists 🩵

Transcript

[00:00:00] Andrea Elibero: Andrea here, your host and passionate business coach and scaling strategist for soulful service providers and coaches. Welcome to another episode of Solepreneur Scaling Stories. Have you ever wanted to look behind the curtain of your fellow entrepreneur's business to see what actually went into scaling it?

[00:00:22] Andrea Elibero: Well, you are in for a treat 'cause that's exactly what we are doing here. In each episode, we will be uncovering the truth of the lessons and the stories behind what it truly takes for sold entrepreneurs to scale their businesses intentionally. I'm hoping that their stories will help you to unlock the true potential of your business so you can create your own soulful, abundant, and aligned laptop lifestyle through intentional scaling.

[00:00:46] Andrea Elibero: So whether you're just starting out on your scaling journey or you're a seasoned entrepreneur seeking inspiration, this episode has something incredible in store for you. Are you ready to rise, grow, and create a business that fully supports your dream life? Well, let's dive in. [00:01:00] Before we begin, make sure to hit that subscribe buttons.

[00:01:03] Andrea Elibero: You never miss an empowering episode filled with real stories and soulful insights.

[00:01:10] Andrea Elibero: We are getting a little spicy on the podcast today because I'm going to start us off with a little confession. And this confession is that I was not born a naturally brave and confident person, especially when it comes to change. I was not necessarily.

[00:01:32] Andrea Elibero: The person who would step outside of my comfort zone in certain areas. In other areas, yes. But in a lot of ways it wasn't inspiring to me to do so. Right. My body was not like, oh yes, I want to, you know, have this growth situation. It was more like along the lines of the tight chest, the nausea, the urge to stay exactly where I was, even if it kind of sucked a little bit.

[00:01:59] Andrea Elibero: And [00:02:00] that reaction, this kind of physical no reaction is the thing that I want to talk about today because there is this paradox that I see so often in business. I've lived through it myself as well, and that is that we tend to stay in situations that make us miserable. Because they are familiar, and again, this is not just a business situation, it's a life situation, but it affects businesses all of the time.

[00:02:29] Andrea Elibero: So. We do this, you know, not in business especially, is what obviously I'm going to focus on. Not because the situation might feel really aligned, not because it feels really sustainable, not because we even understand what's going on. It really boils down to the fact that the unknown feels scarier. Then the current situation, which maybe is not so great, but we know how to survive it.

[00:02:54] Andrea Elibero: And if you have ever thought like, okay, I don't really like what's going on now. Maybe when it comes to clients, [00:03:00] maybe when it comes to how your business set, uh, is set up, maybe when it comes to just things in general, but you're like, okay, I don't like this, but it's familiar, it's comfortable, like, I know how to deal with this.

[00:03:09] Andrea Elibero: Then stick around because this is the episode for you. So we're talking about comfort zones today, and it's really funny because a lot of times when we think about comfort zones, it almost comes in this like higg, I can't say that right, but that like, you know, the Norwegian thing with all the blankets and the candles and your house is all cozy and there's books and you're reading like it's cozy, you know, it's all fluffy blankets and there's ease.

[00:03:37] Andrea Elibero: But most comfort zones that I see, especially in online businesses, are really anything but comfortable. They're chaotic, they're exhausting. They're full of low grade. Guilt and a lot of constant background stress, but the saving grace is that they are predictable. You know how to operate there, [00:04:00] you know how to make money there.

[00:04:02] Andrea Elibero: You know what fires to put out even if you're putting out fires all day, every day. And this familiarity really does create this illusion of stability even when your nervous system is fried, even when you're snapping at the people you love. Even when you hear that slack sound and you get heart palpitations, or when it's time to open up your laptop, or you see an email notification from that client who drives you crazy, right?

[00:04:35] Andrea Elibero: You know what I'm talking about. I know you do. From the outside, we might even look successful, right? There's clients, there's income, there's momentum, but really inside it feels brittle. Like this whole house of cards could come crushing down at any instant. And I see this a lot, especially with done-for-you service providers who are few years into business happened to me on [00:05:00] paper.

[00:05:00] Andrea Elibero: It looks great, right? You have multiple clients, maybe even a small team. You have money coming in, and yet they are consistently in their business all day, every day doesn't shut off. They're in there mentally, emotionally, physically at dinner. You know, they're thinking about work at appointments. They're half present on days off, quote unquote.

[00:05:22] Andrea Elibero: They're still checking Slack or email or a song, or a clickup or whatever. One of my clients really described it perfectly. She has been in business for several years, had maybe five or six clients, and she looked like she was thriving from the outside when she talked about her business. But what she told me was that she felt so spread thin.

[00:05:43] Andrea Elibero: She wasn't giving her best work to anyone. She felt constantly guilty mentally. She was somewhere else during the most important moments with her family. You know, she felt like she wasn't giving them. As much as she wanted to, which was one of the main reasons she [00:06:00] was in business to begin with, and that's really common, and it doesn't come from nowhere, right?

[00:06:06] Andrea Elibero: There's a hint of guilt that creeps in. It's this guilt of I'm not doing my best work, this guilt of, you know, things are slipping. I should be more organized. I should be handling this better by now. And the thing about this is that it's really difficult realizing that you've built a business to get away from this feeling only to recreate it in a different form through your business.

[00:06:31] Andrea Elibero: And that's a really confronting moment for a lot of business owners. Not just service providers, but everybody, right? When there's just, it's not just about the systems or the pricing or the boundaries anymore. Now it's more personal. Now it's about identity. And this change can really feel physically terrifying.

[00:06:49] Andrea Elibero: And I want to normalize that. So I wanna normalize the f the idea that. or the fact that if the idea of changing your business model or changing how you run your business [00:07:00] or just changing kind of key elements that you know are not working deep down, but if changing them or the thought of changing them really makes you feel sick to your stomach, it's not wrong, right?

[00:07:09] Andrea Elibero: That's not a wrong feeling. It's literally your nervous system doing exactly what it was designed to do. Because what happens with your nervous system is that it prioritizes known outcomes over better ones. Why? Because the better outcomes are unknown. They're unfamiliar, and basically your nervous system thinks you're gonna die.

[00:07:31] Andrea Elibero: So it would rather that you stay in a situation that's stressful but predictable than move towards something that might be better, but is unfamiliar. And this happens, especially when you have responsibilities, especially if you've been the quote unquote, reliable one, especially if people depend on your income.

[00:07:51] Andrea Elibero: Another one of my clients put it this way, she had said to me, you know, I was never one to step out of my comfort zone because it's terrifying. I [00:08:00] have people that depend on me. I need steady income. I can't just make big changes. And yet she was already making herself miserable, staying exactly where she was.

[00:08:10] Andrea Elibero: And so this created a conflict for her. Right. So now when you're in this state, your brain says things like, it's not the right time. Once things calm down, I just need to get through this season. But that is exactly where the paradox lies, because often when this happens, we're already in a season of instability.

[00:08:31] Andrea Elibero: The hours are long, the pressure's constant, the margin's non-existent. That's just, that's a, a race, that's an endurance 'cause at. Some point, this is where burnout is going to happen and things are going to fall apart eventually, right? Because endurance is not the same thing as sustainability. You can't run the type of business forever, and then it's here where the deeper mindset work comes in, because you know the change itself.

[00:08:59] Andrea Elibero: We're not just afraid of [00:09:00] that, right? We're also loyal to old definitions of work, definitions that we didn't consciously choose. Things like it's things that have been passed down to us generationally or in society. Things like work should be hard. You should be busy if you're doing things right. If you're not exhausted, you're probably slacking, or like more effort equals more worth.

[00:09:24] Andrea Elibero: Even when you get out of the corporate rat race, it's not like those beliefs just magically disappear, right? They just put on cuter outfits. They show up as glorified hustle on Instagram as income screenshots without context, as people disappearing for months, and then reappearing and telling people, oh, I was really burnt out in that time afterwards and now I've rebranded.

[00:09:49] Andrea Elibero: Right? And then when you're around long enough and you've seen this long enough, then you start to realize, or at least I did that just because something makes money doesn't mean it's one right for you or two [00:10:00] sustainable. Just because something is normalized doesn't mean it's healthy. It doesn't mean it's the right thing for you.

[00:10:07] Andrea Elibero: What a lot of people actually want and desire, you know, it's not less ambition. It's a business that doesn't consume their entire nervous system and life. They obviously want to enjoy life while building something meaningful, and that requires unlearning just as much as it requires optimizing. So how do we get unstuck from this?

[00:10:29] Andrea Elibero: How do we get out of this hamster wheel? Now, this is not glamorous. It's not like a mindset switch that you flip once and you're like, okay, I'm done. Now I've figured it out. It's this thing that is repetitive. You have to often remind yourself of it. It's emotional and it can be exhausting to move through, but it is worth it, I promise you.

[00:10:49] Andrea Elibero: So what does it look like? It looks like slowing down when your instinct is to speed up. It looks like pausing when your body says do more, [00:11:00] it looks like letting yourself feel the anxiety instead of just ignoring it, pushing it back, and you know, continuing on or immediately trying to fix something. One of my clients told me that she started giving herself a daily reminder that nothing in my business is an emergency.

[00:11:19] Andrea Elibero: Nothing I'm doing is life or death. And I will tell you, as a formal nurse, this is true, and I am grateful for that experience for as in nursing, for a number of things. But one of them is that I know what a true emergency is, and I promise you that nothing that happens in the online space is a true emergency at all.

[00:11:39] Andrea Elibero: So just take a breath. Right. And then so when she was telling me this, she also told me that at first her body didn't believe it. Right, of course. But she kept saying it and she kept on doing things like taking walks when her anxiety would build up, she kept choosing to slow down even when it felt counterintuitive.

[00:11:59] Andrea Elibero: And [00:12:00] over time then she started feeling that relief. So this looks like for you, reminding yourself sometimes daily if you need to. That urgency is a habit. It's not a fact. And yes, there can be tears, there can be grief for that version of you that powered through for so long. There can be frustration that this is not a one and done process, but there's also a relief.

[00:12:22] Andrea Elibero: Because once you stop forcing yourself to fit into this model that isn't right for you, then space starts opening up and it's magical because in that space you find clarity, you find intuition, you find inspiration, and it's really cool to see that and to be a part of that journey for my clients. So what happens on the other side, right?

[00:12:45] Andrea Elibero: So when you stop clinging to what is familiar and what's comfortable. Then things get quieter, things get less chaotic and more intentional. Now, nothing is perfect. You're not like in some like [00:13:00] post yoga high, but it's more grounded, right? They stop trying to micromanage every hour and stop, start paying attention to where their energy actually goes.

[00:13:10] Andrea Elibero: And then things, days are built more intentionally. Things are not forced. Right? And my favorite part here is that. Now ideas start to land. Like creativity comes back, right? Because now you're not pushing, pushing, pushing. Now you have room. Now you can hear yourself think, which is really cool. And so this client had been stuck on her business positioning for a long time, right before we started working together.

[00:13:39] Andrea Elibero: She knew that something was a little bit off, but she couldn't name it. And once we actually cleared space on her calendar, worked through her mindset pieces, the answer just appeared. It came to her, and this happened so much. I know you've had. Instances yourself where you've been on vacation or you've been in the shower, and that's when your ideas come to you.

[00:13:59] Andrea Elibero: And that's not [00:14:00] by accident, that's by design. So in her case, she got a new business name that felt so aligned and for the first time after years of felt like, or feeling like she was forcing it, the clarity showed up. She found this new business. Trajectory that she was so excited about, and she felt like she finally had room to breathe, and that's when her business started to feel like hers again.

[00:14:26] Andrea Elibero: And that's what will happen to you also. So not this business that you're just managing, that's eating you up, but something that you're choosing, something that you're actually guiding and it's amazing. So what this looks like, you know, so in my one-on-one coaching and expansion, this is the main. Thing that we do in the first part of working together.

[00:14:47] Andrea Elibero: So yes, we build your offer suite, your core offer, your trust building offer. We create the systems, the structure, the marketing system, the messaging, like amazing things. But we also work through those mindset patterns and nervous system [00:15:00] responses that keep you operating in fear instead of intention.

[00:15:05] Andrea Elibero: Because you can have the most strategic, profitable offer in the world, but if your body doesn't feel safe enough for you to actually market it, launch it, or claim it, then nothing changes. So we work on both layers, the strategy and the inner work that makes us sustainable. And that is how you build something that doesn't just look good on paper, but actually feels good to run and obviously is going to make you money, but in a more useful way than what you have been doing.

[00:15:30] Andrea Elibero: So if you are staying in a situation that really makes you unhappy and you're staying there because it's familiar and you don't know what else to do, I invite you to hear. This next sentence with clarity that is not safety, that is fear, and it is not sustainable in your business, anybody's business, you can actually look back at.

[00:15:54] Andrea Elibero: Some of these inter, you can pick almost any interview from a service provider done for you. Service [00:16:00] provider who has switched and I've, I dunno, it's been like a handful, more than a handful of times when I've heard this story of I had this successful business, I was making money and then I burnt it to the ground because it wasn't sustainable for me.

[00:16:14] Andrea Elibero: And this is a common trajectory that I see because real stability comes from building something that can support you long term, not just financially, but yes, financially, emotionally, and energetically. And that kind of stability does not come from a. Staying in this hamster rail that you are on now, it comes from designing a business that works with your nervous system and not against it.

[00:16:37] Andrea Elibero: So if you're listening to this and realizing that you might be in your own version of this comfort Zone paradox, where you know something needs to change, but you don't know what or where to start, I am so excited that I am offering a limited number of free business audits each month. And so these are 45 minutes.

[00:16:57] Andrea Elibero: Calls where we're looking at what's happening in [00:17:00] your business right now and identifying. What we can do to optimize is some really immediate things that can be done to bring you some relief. So then you start to operate from a place of intention. And this is not a like hard pitch sales call. It's a genuine audit of your business structure, and you're gonna walk away with clarity on what needs to shift.

[00:17:20] Andrea Elibero: So there's gonna be a link for that in the show notes, and if during that conversation it makes sense to explore working together in any capacity, we can chat about that. But again, you. Hear this, please, as a closing statement. You don't need to push harder. You need space support and permission to choose a different path that's more aligned with you, and that is a hundred percent available to you.

[00:17:45] Andrea Elibero: So with that, that is what I have for you today and I will see you guys in the next episode. 

[00:17:52] Andrea Elibero: Thank you so much for joining us today. I [00:18:00] really hope you found inspiration and insights from today's episode. You know, scaling your business intentionally and from the inside out is a transformational process, but I'm here to support you every step of the way. Head on over to dancing leaf solutions.com/resources for free tools to help you do just that.

[00:18:17] Andrea Elibero: And thank you again for being a part of the Solepreneur Scaling Stories community. Your presence and dedication to growth inspiring me every day.