BrandsTalk

How to overcome resistance to change so that we can create an extraordinary life w/Fiona Djapouras

December 06, 2022 Brigitte Bojkowszky Season 9 Episode 92
BrandsTalk
How to overcome resistance to change so that we can create an extraordinary life w/Fiona Djapouras
Show Notes Transcript

What an empowering and inspiring conversation with the lovely Fiona Djapouras, Executive Coach, Integrative Mindset Coach, about 💡how to deal better with change and make it stick.

We also address the following:

💡What does it mean to live our life on purpose? 

💡What does it mean to be true to ourselves? 

💡What makes us our best version?

💡How can we overcome the resistance to change?

Here are 5 steps to making change stick:

  1. Do the healing
  2. Understand your resistance
  3. Honor your word
  4. Transcend belief
  5. Fresh start

Watch us: 📹 https://youtu.be/Ho7qASH3Hnw 

Fiona is a qualified and experienced Executive Coach who works with women who are ready to create their own version of an extraordinary life. Having worked in corporate executive roles herself, Fiona understands the importance of being authentically yourself in all aspects of your life. Fiona helps you to reach your full potential personally and professionally. Fiona's approach is transformational as she works with you to uncover and clear the stories that have been holding you back and then builds a vision with you of the life you wish to live. Success is authentically living your life as the best version of you. 

Get in touch with Fiona Djapouras:

  • www.fionadjapouras.com 


Get in touch with Brigitte Bojkowszky:

Get in touch with Brigitte Bojkowszky:

👉 Download Your Entrepreneurial Branding Starter Checklist: https://courses.bridgetbrands.com/f/entrepreneurial-branding-starter-checklist

Brigitte:

My guest is Fiona Djapouras. Fiona is a qualified and experienced executive coach who works with women who are ready to create their own version of an extraordinary life. Having worked in corporate executive roles herself Fiona understands the importance of being authentically yourself in all aspects of your life. Fiona helps you to reach your full potential personally and professionally Fiona's approach is transformational as she works with you to uncover and clear the stories that have been holding you back and then builds a vision with you of the life you wish to live. I warmly welcome FionaDjapouras. Welcome to BrandsTalk.

Fiona:

Thank you, Bridget. Thank you so much for having me. I'm very honored today. I'm

Brigitte:

also honored having you on my show today. And before we start digging into the change in life and transformations that you help people with. Can you tell us your own personal story, your journey that brought you right there, where you are now? What's your story?

Fiona:

Thank you. Sure. I'd love to share. I've been working in the corporate world for many years and as my children got a little bit older, I started looking for. More, you're busy when they're young and you are trying to get just through all the things that you need to get through. And I got to a crossroads in a previous role at where I started to feel like. Is this what I was here for? What is my purpose? And am I living the way I wanna live? And I started doing some change management at uni. I did a CTC, natural therapies training through another trained training organization. And in that they were both, I realized they were both working. People people skills frameworks and learnings about how to be more content and more authentic. And I realized I hadn't been living to my true, authentic purpose. So I, that was in around 2017. And the reason I started my journey before that had started earlier, when I wanted to give my kids different tools in life about how to do things. So it came up as how do I give them tools about when things aren't going. When they need to dig deep when they need to just understand themselves a little bit better. And how do they get to a point where they know who they are at an earlier age than me? So I went through this process when I'm a lot of the change management and the, and my CTC specialty. You undertake a lot of the healing and the learning yourself. So you start with yourself. And so during that process, I realized I loved working with people. I loved working in that conversational space teaching facilitating transformation. So when I, but I also loved being in the corporate world. So when I realized that I would, I was looking for ways to bring them both together. So I do have an executive coach and I do a coaching programmers with people, but I'm also a project and change specialist that I work in the executive world. And I love bringing it all together because I think that when you are doing any type of change at work, whether you're a project manager or a change manager, Coaching people through is amazing giving people tools to help themselves, which is what you do in coaching. That's where you actually create transformational and permanent change. I didn't wanna just do things that ticked a box. I actually wanted to help uncover these things for people. So I now have been doing this now for four and a half years, five years. And I feel like every day. A brand new, beautiful, passionate day ahead that I bring all this together. And that life is this unfolding journey that will continue to show me how to bring even more enlightenment to other people and myself.

Brigitte:

Okay, that sounds awesome. And kudo to you because you are still at corporate and you started your own business at the same time. Yes. And sometimes, really? I think you wanna bring everything together, first of all, but isn't it also a challenge to bring everything under one umbrella and do everything at the same time. The week only has that many hours and. Like 24/7. So how do you go about that? Having this own business, but at the same time a corporate job?

Fiona:

Yeah. I'm I'm flexible. And surprisingly, the clients have turned out for my personal business when I've been able to do them. So we've got, we, it just felt like it was the right time for them. And I think when you. don't look at, I'm not too fixed on when it happens. I might see clients, I've got clients in the states that I might see.

5:

00 AM my time, which is their afternoon. And that works for me. I might see clients on a Saturday, so I make that time work because a lot of people also work full time and they're working. They see people on their weekends. That's never been an, a worry actually. It's always just worked out. And I do have a lot of balls in the air because I'm my mom and I've got my jobs and things like that, but I always find. somehow when you turn up with intention and just focused on your purpose, things just work out. And I actually have to be really willing to go with the flow as well. So if things don't get done, it's okay, what's the biggest thing about this? How do we make it happen? And something, I've got some little affirmations that I are at Peden, I dunno how I don't need to know how. Thank you for this, making this happen and suddenly paths open up where I didn't see a path before.

Brigitte:

Wonderful. All right. That is so exciting. I have so many questions. I don't even know where to start, so transformation, our professional, but also personal lives are very often not easy. There are fears involved and beliefs that are holding us back. And we also catch us while making these changes that we cannot stick to them. We cannot stay momentum and find ourselves back in the old way of doing things. So how can we overcome this resistance to change? Sometimes we give ourselves the permission and the goal to start it, but then we are hesitant and the fear kicks in again. And then we find ourselves back in our old self. Yes. Where we actually don't wanna be anymore. So how do we do.

Fiona:

I think it's really important to understand why we fear change as well. The brain is wired to keep you safe and keeping you safe means that you know what you are doing. You have certainty in the routine, even if the routine doesn't serve you. the certainty is comfortable. We like, we know that so neuroscience research shows us that UN uncertainty feels uncomfortable for us. So knowing that innately about us really helps. So when you're gonna do something new, oh my gosh, I might resist this., there's also people that are attached to the story that they tell themselves about things. And, that's the beautiful similarity about what you do in branding. You create a story for people to see, but we, whether we recognize it or not, we create a brand for ourselves. So the story could be, it never works out for me, no matter how much I try. It never works out. And how many people do, start. An experience with that story and where are they gonna end? They're only gonna end with it not working out. Cause that's all that they're putting out. The change happens when the stay of the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of changing. And that's Tony Robin said that. I'm not sure if other people have said it as well, but that statement sticks with me so much because we know that change can be painful and sometimes people just don't wanna lean into that. And so if you think of it that way, if you think of something that you haven't shifted and you looked at it and you said, is it uncomfortable? Is there a story that actually I'm saying to myself about why is the change of staying the way you are easier than the pain of moving? When you look at it that way, what think about what other sort of situations you have, let, just continue. You wanna lose weight, it requires hard work, dedication. So change in habit. If you are thinking of those things, why haven't you been able to do it to date? So I always like to explain to people why we fear change and then I help them to work through it. And I've got five tips that I use with people. Yeah, which I'd love to share

Brigitte:

if that would be okay. That would be awesome because we need these tools first, this frameworks that we can hold onto that we can utilize to feel in a safer place to make these changes. Yeah. To also understand how our mindset works to really? Yes. And now I really feel I'm uncomfortable, but that means I'm out of my comfort zone that keeps me safe, but it's a good thing to be, to step out of this comfort zone to bring about this change. So what are these five, five steps the five I'd love to see,

Fiona:

have to do. Yes. Yes. The first one I talk about is do the healing find some way to heal what you are going, what you've been through. And it healing is about creating. Cleaning up some of the trauma and the incidences that have happened in your life. We all go through trauma and my trauma is different to your trauma, which is different to what someone else's trauma. So there's no judging the trauma. It all feels painful. And they, those incidences create stories in your head, limiting beliefs, where you feel like I can't do this. I've I fail every test because every time I've tried to do a test and that might have been in year three, you might have had that incident. If we try and make changes and we haven't changed those stories, we are really trying. It's a tough battle. We've gotta change those stories. So do the healing, find someone in your life and there's lots of different modalities. I use CTC, which is a neurolinguistic linguistic programming base. There's psychologists, there's trauma therapists, there's counselors, there's acupuncture. There's many different ways. Trauma stores itself in the., you might have an amazing chiropractor that does some Accu Accu pressure work, whatever it takes, but do the healing and go and start doing the help yourself to understand what it is that's holding you back. My second tip is, understand your resistance. Why are you resisting this? Why is it something that. Is creating this block. When you think about your goal, where does it, where do you feel it and what are you feeling in your body? Are you feeling, oh, I wanna lose weight instantly. There's some pain somewhere, or there's some sort of trigger or a heaviness what's that resistance. Most people just cover it up, but leaning into it actually helps you to unveil. It gives you a better quality of life because actually you are learning and realizing. Your past experiences don't create your future. So when you lean into the resistance, it actually gives you a chance to understand what is holding you back. What are the stories you're telling yourself? So it might still be there and we are gonna have resistance, no matter how involved we are. We have these things keep coming up. We like onions. We delay continually. The third step is, honor your word. If you say you're going to do something, honor, what you say you do. We all, generally we are amazing at honoring our word to others. We say, we're gonna get something done by a deadline. We're up to midnight, getting it done. So it's in, it's ready. It's professional. We say we're gonna help someone move and we've got a thousand things to do at home, but we go, we are committed to that. We honor our word, but do we honor our word to our. If we set a goal and we say gym three days a week, if we say we're saving for this, if we say I'm going to actually plan this holiday, what are we doing to make sure that we achieve that honor our word to ourselves? It's so important. It's the biggest part of actually saying I'm important to me and what I say matters and what I say helps us when we ignore our word, we unconsciously create. You more, more limiting beliefs that we are not worthy, that we are not honorable enough. We feel bad about not honoring our word to ourselves. So honoring your word it's helpful to think, how would your life be different if you did this? What would it cost you? And also

Brigitte:

once we have done it we went this step further. We so proud of ourselves. So that radically increases our self worth. And we wanna, yes, we wanna do more. So it inspire, motivates us at the same time.

Fiona:

Yeah. That leads to me to my fourth tip, which is transcend belief. Look at a time when you've done something in your life. So it can be small, but once you realize you can do it, what about the time you managed to run that race or get that project done, even if it was a small project, you've done it. Find a moment that actually has been something you've delivered on. We've all got them. They might feel small, but actually you've done it once you. Expand that learning. And my fifth tip that I really love. This is about finding a fresh start. So there's a lot of science and research around when you wanna create a new change, what can you anchor it to? So if you want to, a lot of people do new year, day, new year's Eve, I'm doing this. This is my goal for the year and I'm starting off and I'm ready. But if you are actually going to. Created, it could be anything. It could be a birthday, it could be a milestone. It could be a, the first day of the season. It might just be the first of the month. Find something that means something to you. It might be preparing for a beautiful family moment if you wanted. Find something and set yourself a goal, attach it to something that has meaning, and that makes it a whole lot easier for you to actually embed that change, create that new habit that you need.

Brigitte:

Wonderful. That are the first. five steps. And thank you so much for that because it really guide us through the process. And once we have gone through that process, how can we basically bring everything into balance? Because it's gonna be a new place where we are and how can we best settle into that going forward? Like long term?

Fiona:

There's a. Few tips that I give my clients about this. So what we do is we create that vision that you wanna achieve. And when you create that vision that you wanna achieve, you actually just see that with single purpose clarity. This is where I'm going. This is it. Whether it's a new job. I have this amazing story from someone who had this vision of flying one of the newer planes and she had a target on her vision board of seeing herself in a cockpit flying. This plane into Australia and it was a while, but 11 years, or there was a time limit. She actually flew that plane into Australia as part of the inaugural flight. And that is the power of being really clear on your vision. This is what she wanted to do. And when you, so when you've got that habit, if you don't Simon Sinek away says, start with the why do you want it create that? then when you are going through all these moments of the change is hard. It requires honoring my word. I'm really having to change habits. You just keep referring back. So you have this really super clear vision., anchor it into habits. So if you wanna do something, say you've got a TV show. You love watching every day, but you have a, a plan and a goal to see a fit, a healthier self. Maybe you watch it only at the. You anchor it into a habit where it becomes part of that lifestyle. So it becomes this shift short term change is around just getting it ticking and flicking and getting it done, but not solving any of the mindset and the beliefs around what you wanna do. It just becomes part of your life. It's why is this so important to you? Yeah, that's interesting. And the other thing. Sorry. Sorry. The other thing I was gonna say, oh yeah go Bridget yeah. Sorry.

Brigitte:

Just remember what you wanna say, but that's interesting because a lot of people don't know how to cope with living in the here and now, but having at the same time of vision. So it's basically referring back all the time and anchoring your vision in everyday. With yes. How you wanna act or be like in the future, but at the same time, you are not there yet. So you have to do something to work towards. Yes, but also appreciate the here and now that you are doing your job, that you are agreed, brings you closer to your vision. I think that was really good. Thank you. Beautiful.

Fiona:

Thank you. That's a nice way to say it. What I was gonna say was to help you at those moments when you're navigating it, and it feels a bit hard. Brene brown has this beautiful concept about towards and away values. When you are thinking about decisions, we've got two. Emotions, there's two. They say there's Elizabeth Kubler. Ross says there's two primary emotions, love and fear. So when you're making a decision, what are you making that decision on? Is it based on love or fear? If you're scared of a presentation at work and you decide not to do it, but still your goal is to be a speaker. Where people pay to come and listen, or you're doing keynotes, in your mind that you actually have to do it. But in that moment you make a decision based on fear. And so your fear is that, what if it doesn't work out? What if I make a mistake? If you just said, I've actually done the work for this, I know I'm ready. I know the content I'm gonna make that decision based on love. It's like it's and I'm gonna go towards my goal. I think that's really fundamental. Are you going towards your goal or are you going. And you've noticed it a lot in kids. If you think about what kids do, they'll make decisions based on. I'm not gonna go to school today. Mom, I haven't done my assignment or whatever. I won't Ru I won't run in that race, especially as teenagers when they just wanna fit in. I won't run in that race because I might lose what if you win. But I might lose, but what if you don't, what if you win and what if you try really hard and what if you inspire someone else and, you can just feel the difference in the conversation. So I think that's how, when you're making you want. Create change that sticks. It's changing the way you think about things. It's creating those, like just thinking, am I going towards or away something? Am I doing a love or fear based decision? And I think for myself, I will often, even tonight coming on and talking with you, it's it exciting? And I love sharing what I know and where I've, what the experiences I have, but it's a bit scary. Do I know enough? And I, all I can do is share with what I know. So if I relax into that space, Then it's way more interesting and fun for me and for you, if I'm nervous and it's just a matter of going well, that's where I wanna go. And that's how you create these little micro moments where you make decisions, opportunities arise, and you go, okay, love of fear towards or away. And then, you know yourself, that's when you know yourself.

Brigitte:

Exactly. Exactly. And if I wanna go one step further and say, okay, now I, put myself into a positive mindset and I'm going towards something and I make my decisions based on love. There are still some days that I'm not feeling in my best version. So how do I get myself into this zone of genius and be able to live it? Most of the time, how do I do that?

Fiona:

You know what I would say, it's fine to have those days in those moments where things, cuz you've gotta process things. You might have a harder day or when we go through challenges, sometimes it's tough and that's okay. It's how you face. How long do you stay in that feeling? Recognizing it. And then what are your tools and techniques? So some people say, you know what? Absolutely in that moment. I re I go and ground myself in a park, or I go and do some exercise. I might go for a swim. I might do something. And that invigorates me. What invigorates you. And this is a matter of knowing what actually helps you in your life. And allow the thoughts to bubble up, hiding it and stuffing it away and going. You can't just think positive thoughts all the time. Actually, you've gotta have to. As you get more experienced, you will know to say, what's the trigger in this for me? Why am I feeling frustrated? Why am I feeling like I'm being bossed around and told to do at work? What is that experience telling me? Okay. It could be telling me a few things and that's when you lean in, this is when you actually, this is when you lean into that resistance that I talked about. You lean in, you go, actually, I'm really gonna have to understand that might be where you do more healing. That might be when you actually go, how do I best process things? Do I journal, do I verbally process, do I paint? Am I creative? And you allow yourself to go through the emotions. Yeah. But always knowing you don't stay for long come out of it at the other end.

Brigitte:

That's awesome. I love this advice and I think the audience, the listeners. Yeah, we just are ready to take action right now because that's so helpful. Beautiful. Every single step. It's beautiful. Thank you so much for that. Okay. Now I'm gonna come back to you and because you are in the sweet spot and you are in your best version. And that also means you are in your best version. You are a strong personal brand. So I would like to know from you, what is the singular thing that differentiates you that sets you apart from the competition? The singular thing that only you can provide in your sphere. So why. Now someone choose you or someone else, what's the benefit that you provide that others cannot provide?

Fiona:

I think the singular point would be the wealth of experience and the toolkit. Because I've been, I understand corporate life, I've got experience in that space, which is where a lot of people carry the outcomes from the experiences they've been through. But I also have a lot of experience, like a lot of different techniques and approaches that I use, which personalizes it. So it's actually, what's the right tool for this moment. And that's where that's where I find the most joy. In actually working with someone and saying, what do they need in this moment? Where is this? I work very intuitively. So I work with the person in the moment the situation and the space they're in. So what is this person needing right now? And I think that is the point of difference for me. It's really about, I'd really try to unearth it and then help change. Let's just make this something that you go forward. And I love what I see every day with my clients. It's the transformation that happens because we actually do the underlying work.

Brigitte:

You also say that authenticity is key. Do you have any helpful advice how we can even be, let's say really step into this being authentic towards the world and serve our clients in an authentic way. And thereby, I think when we are authentic, we are ourselves. But how do we, as a, as an individual as a personal brand, in the context of an organization, but also as an entrepreneur, can be authentic and be in this best place to serve others in the best possible way.

Fiona:

I think I spent a lot of years not feeling like I was authentic and I didn't talk about my coaching. I didn't talk about at my previous roles because I wasn't sure how it would be taken and because I've done the natural therapies and I have a very different view of the world to a lot of people. I do, I'm a Reiki master, I believe in emotional freedom technique and. It's not necessarily accepted by everyone. So it takes a bit of courage to be authentically you. But I think when you, if you do the work on yourself and you feel like you're aligned with where you should be in your purpose in the world, then it doesn't feel as challenging. You don't feel like you're always having to justify who you are. And there's this beautiful concept where you just love everyone enough to let them do their own thing. You cannot heal your friends. I can't heal people that don't wanna be healed. And so that authentically piece is actually sometimes it's right to say, maybe we are not the right fit for each other at the moment. But that's me being authentic to what I do and being the right person for that person, the right healer, the right coach. When I'm authentically me, people are interested in the energy you bring. I, one of my last jobs that I was finishing up, they said to me, as I was leaving, they said, oh my God. She said, I loved being around you. And I didn't know what it was. It was just your energy. There was something around you. If you are authentically you, if you are authentic, comfortable in yourself and you've got this piece of contentment you magnified out and other people look to you and go, I want a bit of a, what does that look like? I don't know what she's doing, but I really like that. And that's what I'm noticing. The more authentic I am for myself, I'm able to observe interactions. I'm able to observe what I do and what I wanna do because I look into my own triggers, but I'm also giving off this energy that people just wanna be around and it's really through just being content with myself. And it takes time, I think, be kind to yourself about it. It does take time. It takes doing work and we cont, like I said, we continually evolve. There's always new lessons for us to learn in life. And so not letting the ego overtake you about being the only person for everyone. It's that it's like the right there's enough for everyone in this world. If you've got a passion to do something, see how you. Make it work. What can you do? What little steps can you take? And when the more you do of that, the more authentic you feel about yourself. Look, I've got a fairly big job that it's busy, but the coaching so lifts me up. I love facilitating. I love talking to people and helping them see a different view. And I find that so nourishing and rewarding for myself that I wanna bring it into everything I do. So that to me is authentic. When I can talk about concept. Not feel threatened. Just feel like I'm explaining it. And you have, it's this love based decision. I do it because I want other people to see the opportunities that they can have. I want them to live their very best version of their own life. If they could do that would be amazing if I can help on their journey, that would be amazing. That's my authentic approach. When I'm not authentic to myself, I feel uncomfortable saying anything about it or not wanting to In case they ridicule me. If they ridicule them, that's on them. I gave them the opportunity. They're just not ready for me. It's just that change of mindset. Change of view. You reframe the situation. I hope that helps that last bit. Cuz it's a, it is a great question. It's really about people feeling just so centered that they are comfortable in who they are.

Brigitte:

Exactly. Yeah. Fiona. Are you willing to share any experience in your life that was a major learning for you, maybe a setback or a detour that was in high end sight, so important for your development for you growing, going forward. Is there anything that you would like to share with us? Something very significant

Fiona:

Yeah. Abso there's a, there was an experience at work that I found really challenging. And this would've been about six, seven years ago. And it was a project I was on and it was just really uncomfortable. It was I was feeling like it wasn't, I wasn't being my best self. It was there was a lot of friction and it encouraged me because it became the pain of staying. The way I was worse than the pain of changing. So it started my journey of looking at what else I wanted to do. What did I wanna be? I went and did my CTC therapy certification. I started change management at uni. I then I left, and in leaving, that was amazing. It was really hard, but it was the beginning of the rest of my life. But when I was at work in the beginning, the friction and the discomfort was really high. So I found it really hard and it was not just days. It was months, possibly a couple of years, really, when I look at it holistically and hindsight's amazing. But when I look back, I go, I was getting signs from early on that it was time for me to do something different and I got scared. I felt fearful. Who else could I work for? What else can I do? I don't. all these diverse skills actually I did, but I just didn't see it. So the starting say something there. And when I looked around at that moment, I realized I had a lot of opportunities and avenues that I could pursue was I brave enough to take them. Was I brave to say this is really important for me, I look at that moment as going, this was the gift from that experience. And what it means is I'm an even better coach because I've been through it as well. And that's what most people do. They're at that juncture point where they've got a career they've been in it for a long time. They wanna do something new. They wanna try, they know they've got experience, but they dunno know how to apply it. And that's when you go, okay, let's just see what we can do. Yeah. Yes. And they'll be surprised at what opportunities are there. They just don't see them

Brigitte:

exactly because we don't see them. And then we feel really uncomfortable under pressure. And then it's sometimes very good to have an outside perspective. Someone else who is helping us seeing your dream from either a person yes. You, or another perspective, or it just takes some time yeah. Yeah. So thank you for, yeah this example, and very often it's that what we are doing. We went through it ourselves.

Fiona:

yes, absolutely. Absolutely. I'm sure you've got a few examples yourself in that experience. Oh, yes.

Brigitte:

Yeah. So we are almost at the end of our show, Fiona and I would like to do some rapid fire terms with

Fiona:

you. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Are you

Brigitte:

ready to give me short and I'm ready? Yeah. Okay.

Fiona:

Change management. Okay. Change critical for all aspects of work, personally defined mindset, It's yours to govern women empowerment. I would love to see more of that. Go ahead. My passion is for women to remind themselves how powerful they are. Beautiful

Brigitte:

okay, cool. Fiona, where can listeners find you if they wanna get in touch

Fiona:

with you? Oh, perfect. I'm on Facebook and LinkedIn and Instagram. And I've got a website, Fionadjapouras.com. So I'd love to hear from anyone happy to have a conversation, a complimentary conversation, and just understand what they need and where they're at. And if I can support them in their.

Brigitte:

Beautiful. All right. So Fiona, thank you so much for being my guest today on BrandsTalk and it, thank a pleasure having you, to discuss about how to overcome this resistance to change so that we can create an extraordinary life. Thank you, Fiona. my

Fiona:

pleasure. Thank you very

Brigitte:

much. Thank you so much.