3 Lies Keeping You Stuck (And Exactly What to Say Back)

There is a voice in your head that has been talking you out of your own life for a long time. And what makes it so dangerous is not that it sounds harsh or cruel, it sounds like wisdom, responsibility and the realistic version of you.

But it is lying to you.

In this episode, I am giving you the exact words to say back.

WHAT YOU'LL HEAR IN THIS EPISODE:

We are taking on three lies, the ones that sound the most reasonable, the most self-aware, and the most responsible and squashing every single one of them. Then I am handing you two scripts for each: one for when the voice shows up in your own head, and one for when someone you love says it out loud.

Lie #1 "I've tried things before and nothing ever creates lasting change for someone like me."

This lie uses your own history as evidence against you. We are going to look at what that evidence actually proves — and it is not what the voice has been telling you.

Lie #2 "I don't even know who I am anymore. I wouldn't even know where to start."

This one sounds like honest self-awareness. It is the quietest lie and the most damaging. And the truth underneath it changes everything about when you are allowed to begin.

Lie #3  "My circumstances just won't allow it right now."

The most sophisticated lie of the three, because it is built entirely from real, true, legitimate facts about your life. Here is what it does with all of that real information — and why it has been costing you more than you realize.

Plus, before we get to the lies, we are talking about the guilt that sits underneath all three of them. Because for most ambitious mothers, these lies are not just intellectual beliefs. They are guilt management strategies. And that needs to be addressed first.

THE SIX SCRIPTS — GET THEM HERE:
All six word-for-word scripts from today's episode are on a free cheat sheet at yourutmost.com/56. One page. Yours to keep. Go grab them while you listen. 

YOUR ONE THING THIS WEEK:
Pick the lie that has had the most power over you. Not the most familiar, the one that has cost you the most. Go back to that script. Say it out loud. Wherever you are right now.

The lie has had the floor long enough.

READY TO GO DEEPER?
When you are ready to do this work with someone walking alongside you rather than doing it alone in your car, come spend an hour with me. 

Wednesday's at 11:00 AM Central, I host a free live session where we do the honest inventory together, get clarity on who you actually are beyond your roles, and leave with real momentum already in motion.

Reserve your seat: yourutmost.com/identityreset

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Transcript

Meet The Convincing Inner Voice

Misty Celli 0:00

There is a voice in your head that has been talking you out of your own life for a very long time. And what makes it so dangerous is not that it sounds harsh or cruel, but it sounds like wisdom. It sounds like the responsible, realistic version of you, the one who has learned from experience and is just trying to keep you from getting hurt again. But it's lying to you. And today I'm going to give you the exact words to say back. If you have ever felt like you're living for everyone else, don't know who you are anymore, and catch yourself thinking, is this all there is? You were in the right place. You were never meant to disappear into your roles, but somewhere between everyone's needs and everyone's expectations, you became invisible, disconnected, and living on autopilot. This podcast is where you learn the principles and strategic tools to reclaim who you are. Design a life that is fully and intentionally yours and show up every day as the utmost woman you have always been. Not just for everyone else, but finally fully for yourself. This is where you begin the process of returning to your utmost self, not by accident, not by obligation, but by design. Welcome to your Utmost

The Spark Then The Shut Down

Misty Celli 1:04

Life Podcast. I'm Misty, Identity and Self-Leadership Coach for Ambitious Mothers. There is a very specific moment most ambitious mothers know. It is the moment right after something stirs. After you heard something or read something or just sat in your car for a second too long, and something in you said, Yes, that is what I want. I want to feel like myself again. And then within hours, sometimes within minutes, a voice shows up. And it does not say you can't, because it's smarter than that. It says, remember last time it says you don't even know who you are right now. It says this isn't the right season. And here's what I want you to understand before we go any further. That voice is not wisdom. It is a liar, a very convincing, sophisticated, deeply personal liar. And today, you are going to learn exactly what to say back to it. I'm giving you three scripts today, word for word, because I am done watching women walk away from their own lives because they didn't have the language to fight back. Before we get into the scripts, I want to say something I need you to really hear. The fact that these lies have been working on you, that they've been keeping you stuck, circling and starting over, does not mean that you are weak, incapable, or a pushover. It means you are human and it means these lies are sophisticated. They did not come from nowhere. They were built from real experiences, disappointments, and real moments where you tried and it did not go the way you had hoped. That voice learned from your life and it genuinely believes it is helping you. I want to be honest with you. I know some of you have heard a version of you're not broken, the approach was wrong before. Maybe from me, maybe somewhere else. And something in you wants to believe it, but does not quite, because hearing it didn't change the pattern. There is a difference between a voice that is protecting you from real danger and a voice that is protecting you from the discomfort of growth. What I know about you is this: you are a woman who keeps showing up, who keeps listening and keeps searching for the thing that finally will work. That is not the behavior of a woman who is broken. That is the behavior of a woman who is not in danger. She is on the edge of something. And that voice is working overtime to keep her from stepping into it. So today, we're not stopping at a new way to look at things. I'm giving you the exact words to say back because the voice does not respond to insight. It responds to language, and that is what we are building today. Think about the last time you felt the spark, that moment where something in you said, yes, I want that. I want to feel like myself again. I want a week that feels like mine. I want to show up as the woman I know I could be, should be, and desire to be. And then think about what happened next. A very specific, very familiar voice showed up. And depending on the day, it said one of these three things. I've tried things before and none of it ever really sticks for me. I don't even know who I am, so I wouldn't even know where to start. My circumstances don't allow it right now. You know that voice, don't you? I know you do. I've heard it. Most of the amazing women I know have heard it. Just because that voice says it does not make it true. But here is what is true. Every one of those lies is costing you something. It's costing you the woman you want to be, the life you want to live, the utmost life that was always meant to be yours. That is why today we are going to take each lie one at a time, look at it clearly without the weight of past disappointments, deciding what's true and expose it for what exactly it is. And then I'm going to give you two scripts. The exact words to say to yourself when that voice shows up in your own head, and the words for when someone you love voices it out loud. These scripts are not about being combative, because we know that voice is spoken in love and protection. They are about you having the language to stand in what you know is true, clearly, calmly, and without apology.

Guilt As A Desire Killer

Misty Celli 5:09

Before we get into the first lie, there is something sitting underneath all three of them that I need to address. Guilt. Not the guilt of doing something wrong, but the guilt of wanting something for yourself. For most of the ambitious mothers I know, the lies we are talking about today are not just intellectual beliefs, but they are the guilt management strategies she uses. They are the words she uses to talk herself out of her own desires so that she doesn't have to feel the weight of wanting something that is entirely unapologetically hers. If I invest in myself, what does that say about how I'm showing up for my family? If I protect time from myself, am I being selfish? If I want more than this, does that mean I'm ungrateful for what I have? Truth is, a woman who has disappeared into her roles, running unempty, going through the motions, giving from a place of depletion is not fully present for anyone. Not her kids, her husband, her work, and certainly not for herself. The guilt has it backwards. It tells you that choosing yourself is taking something away from the people you love. But a woman who has gone quiet inside her own life does not suddenly become present and alive for the people she loves. She gets better at pretending. Wanting to return to yourself is not selfish or ungrateful or a betrayal of the people you love. It is the most responsible thing you can do for them. It is choosing them and you in love, not service. The version of you that everyone around you actually needs, the version that's present, alive, and who is fully in the room, she does not come from depletion. She comes from a woman who chose herself enough to still be there. What your family loses when you disappear is not your function. It's you. And no amount of showing up exhausted replaces that. So the guilt is not evidence that you are selfish. It is evidence that you care deeply. Caring deeply and returning to yourself, those are not in conflict. They are the same woman, finally whole. So set the guilt down for this episode. Not forever, just long enough to hear the truth clearly for you and for them because you are allowed to want this. Now, let's talk about the words that are keeping you from the utmost life that is always meant to be

Lie One Nothing Ever Sticks

Misty Celli 7:15

yours. The voice says, I've tried things before and nothing ever creates lasting change for someone like me. This is just who I am. I want to start by saying I understand completely why you believe it. You have tried things. You went all in on the planner, the program, the Sunday reset, the habit tracker, the course you bought and watched half of it before life got loud again. The motivation was there, and then it wasn't. You started strong and fell off. You made the promise to yourself and somewhere it got broken. And every single time that happened, you filed away quietly, without even realizing it, as evidence that you are someone who cannot maintain things, as evidence that something is fundamentally different about you and that lasting change is for other women. The evidence feels real because it came from your actual life. Let me ask you something. Every single woman who has ever transformed her life, the ones that you follow and admire, and the ones who seem like they just figured it out, do you think they got there on their first try? Do you think the first program worked, the first coach clicked, or the first system stuck? They didn't. Every single woman who has returned to herself tried things that didn't work first. Multiple things. That is not a sign of someone who cannot change. That is literally just how the process of finding the right fit works. Think about it this way: if a key does not open a lock, do you blame the key for being defective or do you consider that it might simply be the wrong key for that particular lock? Every system you have ever tried was built for the generic woman. The woman with a blank calendar and uncomplicated circumstances, the woman that is not you. And a key built for her was never going to open your door. So if trying things that didn't stick as evidence that you cannot change, every woman who has ever changed was exactly where you are right now with the exact same evidence stacked against her. The belief falls apart the moment you apply it to another than yourself. A woman who genuinely could not change or who was truly incapable of lasting transformation would have stopped. She would have accepted the half-life and settled in, but you have not. You're still here showing up. That is not the behavior a woman who cannot change. That is the behavior of a woman who has not yet found the right approach for her specific life, her specific season, and her specific identity. The problem was never you. It was always the fit. When you truly stop believing that lasting change is not available to you, something shifts in how you begin. You stop approaching every new start with one foot already out the door. You stop the quiet self-sabotage that comes from expecting it to fail, and you stop filing away every small win as a coincidence. You start building evidence for yourself instead of against yourself one decided week at a time. And when you hold on to this lie, even quietly, as a protective hedge, it costs you. Every time something works, you dismiss it. Every time you start to gain ground, something pulls back and you stay permanently in the beginning mode, never quite committing, never quite arriving, and wondering why nothing has ever stuck. The truth is you never fully let it. When the voice says, I've tried before and nothing ever works for me, say this back. I have tried, but failed attempts are not evidence of me not being good enough. They are insight into what won't work for me and guidance for finding the right approach, one built for me. The fit failed, and I'm done blaming myself for a misfit. What I need is the right approach built for my actual life, and that is exactly what I'm building now. When someone you love says, are you sure this time will be different? You've tried things before. Say to them, you're right. I have tried things before, and I used to think that meant something was wrong with me, but what I understand now is that those things weren't built for my life. They were built for someone else's. This is different because it starts with who I actually am, not who I'm supposed to be. I'm not asking you to believe that it will work, but I'm asking you to let me find out. The voice shows up and says, I

Lie Two I Don’t Know Me

Misty Celli 11:21

don't even know who I am anymore. I wouldn't even know where to start. This one is the quietest lie and honestly the most damaging because it does not sound like a lie at all. It sounds like honest self-awareness. It sounds like humility, and it sounds like the kind of thing a thoughtful woman says when she's being real with herself. I want to honor that because the feeling underneath it is real. The disorientation is real, and the sense of looking at your own life and not fully recognizing the woman living in it, that is real. The feeling isn't the enemy. The lie is the conclusion it leads to that because you don't know who you are right now, you can't start. That the not knowing doesn't have to be resolved before the beginning is allowed to happen. Think about learning to drive. You did not sit in the driveway studying the manual until you fully understood how the car worked before you got behind the wheel. You got in, you started moving slowly, and the road taught you things that the manual never could, because some things only reveal themselves in motion. Identity works the same way. You do not think your way back to yourself. You move your way back. You make one honest decision, you protect one block of time, you ask one true question and sit with the answer. And the next thing becomes clear because you moved toward it, not because you figured it out from a standstill. Let's think about this for a moment. Many of the most amazing moments in your life started without the knowing. You became a mom before you knew how to be a mom, or even how you would be as a mother. The same for being a wife. Now, let's be honest, many of us have said, I don't even know who I am as a mom and I wouldn't even know where to start. I am afraid I won't be a good mom or I'll screw it up. We say those things before we have a baby, but we do it. We move forward. We learn, we grew and became more of who we are with each day. This is no different. You still have that strength, courage, and the greatness that came from choosing to be a mom in spite of not knowing, which led to one of the greatest parts of your life. Knowing it comes from doing, not the other way around. And here's the thing I need you to hear about this lie. The fact that you feel lost, disoriented, disconnected, like something between all the roles you misplaced yourself, that is not evidence that you are gone. That is evidence that the you that you've been looking for, she has been quiet for a long time while everything else got loud. A woman who had truly disappeared would not feel the loss of herself. She would be numb, settled into mediocrity and unbothered. She would not be searching. You are not numb. You are bothered, restless, and searching. That restlessness is her, still present, signaling, waiting for you to answer. You do not need to know who you are before you start. Starting is how you find out. When you let go of the belief that you have to have yourself figured out before you can begin, something lights up inside you, and you stop waiting for a clarity that only comes through action. You give yourself permission to start from exactly where you are. Confused, disoriented, and uncertain it may be, but you let the path reveal itself as you walk it. You learn, you grow, you embrace who you are becoming, and you come alive back to yourself one step at a time. When you hold on to this lie though, letting the not knowing become the reason to stay still, you allow another year to pass in waiting, another season where the woman you long to be stays just out of reach. The disorientation and the distance you feel does not resolve itself through waiting, it deepens. And the longer she goes unanswered, the quieter she gets, the less alive and whole you feel. When that voice shows up and says, I don't even know who I am anymore, and I wouldn't even know where to start, say back. Not knowing who I am right now is exactly why now is the time to begin. Clarity comes from moving. I know enough to start. I know that I am more than these roles, and I know that something in me has been whispering for a long time, and I'm tired of not answering it. That is enough. Deciding and doing one small thing is where I start. When someone says, but where would you even start? You seem so lost right now. Say this. I have felt lost, and I thought that meant that I had to figure myself out before I could do anything about it. But here's what I know now. Clarity doesn't come before you start. It comes from starting. I do not need to have it figured out. I just need to take the next step, the next honest step, and that is exactly what I'm doing.

Lie Three My Life Won’t Allow

Misty Celli 16:02

The voice shows up and says, my circumstances, the kids, the schedule, the finances, they just don't allow it right now. This is the lie that sounds the most responsible, the most reasonable, and the most like something a mature, self-aware woman would say. And it is the most sophisticated lie of the three. Because it's not based on feeling or someone else's version of life. It's your real life facts. Your circumstances are real, the schedule is full, and your finances have real allocations. The kids have real needs, and none of that is made up. But here's what the lie does with all of that real, true, legitimate information. It builds a box. It says all of these real things mean that right now is not the right time, maybe later. Maybe when the kids are older, perhaps when the schedule opens up or when everything finally settles down. I want to ask you something very directly. When exactly has everything settled down or has there ever been a right time? Think back over the last five years. Was there ever a season that was genuinely uncomplicated? A stretch where the schedule was light, the finances were flowing, the kids had no needs, and nothing was pressing. I haven't met a human where that season has come, let alone a mother. So let's be honest, it's probably not coming. Life does not pause and wait for you to be ready. Life keeps moving. And the woman who chooses to wait for the right circumstances will be waiting until she dies. The truth is the circumstances are not the obstacle. The belief that you are worth rearranging them for, that is the obstacle. Because here's what I know. Time reorganizes around self-worth. When you truly believe that you matter as much as everything and everyone else on your list, something remarkable happens. Slots of time appear that you did not realize existed. Decisions get made that previously felt unmakable. 15 minutes gets protected that previously got swallowed, not because the circumstances changed, but because you decided that you were worth protecting inside of them. Every woman who has ever returned to herself did it inside a full life. Not after it cleared, but inside it, with their same schedule, obligations, and the same real life constraints. And she did it by making one decision. A decision that she was no longer going to wait for permission from her circumstances to live her own life. When you stop making your circumstances the gatekeeper of your return, you stop outsourcing the decision to your calendar. You stop waiting for external permission to do internal work. You discover, maybe for the first time, that you are someone worth rearranging things for. However, when you hold on to this lie, you keep letting your circumstances determine whether you are allowed to begin. And five years from now, you are standing in the same place, more tired, more invisible, further from the utmost life that was always meant to be yours. The kids still need something. The schedule still has one more thing. The finances still have one more concern. And the right time that was never going to announce itself still has not shown up. When the voice says, My circumstances just won't allow it right now, say this back. My circumstances are real, but waiting for them to be perfect is allowing life's craziness to control me. Time has never reorganized itself for me automatically. It reorganizes around what I decide is worth protecting, and I am deciding right now that I am worth protecting, not someday. Inside this season, exactly as it is. When someone says, Is now really the right time with everything you have going on? Say this. I used to think the same thing, that I needed to wait for a quieter season, but what I have realized is that every season has its circumstances to deal with. This will never change. But being my utmost self inside my full, complicated, demanding life is the woman I want to be, and I am no longer wanting to wait to embrace her. I want to be her now, in this season, and everyone to come. I'm not waiting anymore because the right time is not coming. This is the time I have and I'm choosing to

Name The Lie That Costs Most

Misty Celli 20:06

use it. I want to leave you with a question, and I want you to actually sit with it rather than just move on to the next thing in your day. Which of these three lives has had the most power over you? Not which one sounds most familiar, but which one has cost you the most? Which one has kept you circling the longest? Which one do you hear most loudly when something in you tries to move? Name it, write it down if you can, and then go back to that script, the one for yourself, and say it out loud. Not because words are magic, but because you need to hear yourself say something different. The lie has had the floor for a very long time. It's time for the truth to have its turn. You have two choices right now. You can close this episode and let the voice have the floor again. Let it file today away as another thing that did not change anything. Or you can decide that today is the day that the lie stops running unopposed. Not with a dramatic gesture, not with a complete overhaul of your life, but with just one script spoken out loud in your car, your kitchen, wherever you are right now. The utmost woman does not wait until the lies are gone before she moves. She moves and the lies lose their grip one decision

Download The Scripts And Practice

Misty Celli 21:17

at a time. Here's what I want you to do right when this episode ends. Go to yourutmost.com forward slash 56 and download the script cheat sheet. Pick one script, just one, the one that speaks to the lie with the most power over you right now. Write it down, save it in your phone, put it somewhere you will actually see it this week. And when the voice shows up, and it will, you have something to say back. That is your one thing this week. One script spoken out loud, wherever you are right now. Because I want you to imagine, even just three months from now, what it feels like to be a woman who has stopped letting these lies run unopposed. Not a woman who never hears the voice. The voice may still come, but a woman who hears it and has something to say back, who recognizes the lie mid-sentence and does not let it finish the thought unchallenged. She wakes up on a Monday morning and the voice starts its familiar work. You're going to start over again. Nothing ever sticks for you. And she says firmly and clearly, and from a place that is entirely hers, that is not evidence about who I am. That is a misfit I am no longer accepting. And she moves. She is not extraordinary. She is not fearless. She is just a woman who stopped letting lies have the last word in her own mind. And the life that she has been designing one decided week at a time is starting to look like her. That is not a fantasy. That is what happens when the truth finally gets the floor. And when you are ready to go deeper, when you're ready to do this work with someone walking alongside you rather than doing it alone in your car, come spend an hour with me. I host a free live workshop where we do the honest inventory together, get clarity on who you actually are beyond your roles, and leave with real momentum already in motion. Because you were never meant to disappear into your roles, and you don't have to keep doing this alone. Find your next session in the show notes. The lies have had the floor long enough. You are more than everyone's everything. You are someone.