What’s Sabotaging Your Dreams—and How to Stop It

Tiffany Sauder [00:00:00]:

Dreaming feels risky because not wanting it feels safer. If I never have dreams and I don't get them, then no problem. I don't have to feel the disappointment of that because I'm executing the day to day. I'm stuck in my task. I'm just delivering on all the things that I've already said yes to. But what happens when we have these dreams that are like, welling inside of us and we're like, where do I start? Where do I go?

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Tiffany Sauder [00:00:27]:

I'm a small town kid, born with a big city spirit. I choose to play a lot of awesome roles in life. Mom, wife, entrepreneur, CEO, board member, investor and mentor. Seventeen years ago, I founded a marketing consultancy. And ever since, my husband JR and I have been building our careers and our family on the exact same timeline. Yep, that means four kids, three businesses, two careers, all building towards one life we love. When I discovered I could purposefully embrace all of these ands in my life, it unlocked my world. And I want that for you too.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:01:02]:

I'm Tiffany Sauder and this is Scared Confident.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:01:09]:

Welcome back to Scared Confident, where we dig into the real raw challenges of pursuing a Life of And. I'm Tiffany Sauder and today we're tackling a question that stops so many of us in our tracks. What is getting in your way of. Of the thing you want for so many women? It's not a lack of ambition or a lack of ability that holds us back. It's the weight of obstacles that feel absolutely insurmountable. Maybe you don't believe you deserve the life you dream of. Maybe you think it's impossible to have more when you're already stretched so thin. Or maybe you're afraid that even daring to dream will make you dissatisfied with what you already have and what's in front of you.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:01:52]:

The truth is, these obstacles, whether they're external or internal, are not as immovable as they seem. And in this episode, we're going to dive into the mindset shifts look a few practical strategies and some creative problem solving together that you're. That you need, that we need to push back against what's holding us back. We'll talk about how to start dreaming again, how to rebuild belief in a better future, and most importantly, how to take those first steps towards the life you actually want. If you've ever felt stuck, overwhelmed or unsure, if a different future is even possible for you, then this episode is one you need to listen in on. Let's get started. We're talking today about a topic that has been so massively Top of mind for me this year, 2025. And I think it's because if you've been paying attention to my social media at all, I've kind of been in the season of transition, going from this identity and this role of being very connected to this agency that I founded 20 years ago, very connected to just the networks and the paces and the calendar and what my life looked like.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:03:00]:

When that was a huge part of my role, it became a big part of who I was and what occupied my time and what I thought about and who I spent time with and all these kinds of things. And then when you start whispering in your heart that maybe you're being called in a new direction or maybe you, you need to go start something new, or maybe there's going to be a big pivot in your life, there's this pause that comes that is wildly uncomfortable because you're just in the in between. You are not yet this thing you're moving towards, and you have not yet completely said goodbye to the thing that you're coming from. And there's this in between of saying, do I jump? Do I stay? Do I leap? Do I go fast? Do I go slow, Do I test, Do I like, what do I do? And in these seasons of change, and in between, at least for me, in the season has just been this wrestling of what do I believe is possible, what do I believe is true? Because all of my actions are going to come from the thing that I believe is going to happen, the thing I believe I'm being called to create in the world. And so I want to talk. I've got like this pile of notes in front of me because I just don't want to screw it up as I'm just talking off of my top of my head. And so I tried to get a little bit organized, but I think there's this thing where we first have to start with what it is that we believe. And I'm going to go through some common belief obstacles.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:04:21]:

And these are like, things that over the course of my adult life, let's just call it the last 20, 25 years, I'm 44. So, like, let's say my adult life, the things, belief obstacles that have stood in the way for me of making change, believing change was possible, they sound things like, I don't believe I deserve it. There are some dreams that I have in my head that I am still not totally sure that I deserve those things in my life, these things that I imagine, these experiences I want to create for myself. It's like, I still am a little chicken to admit to myself that I believe I deserve them because we will not accidentally get things that we don't actually think we deserve. Number two belief obstacle. Second one I put down here is I don't believe it's possible. That can be a belief thing. It's like, how could I? I'm already too busy.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:05:11]:

I've got too many kids, my husband has a big job. Where would I find the money? How am I going to find the time? Just this belief of like, it's not possible that can stand in our way. I have too much going on. It's kind of probably a first cousin to the one I just talked about. It's like we literally don't even try to solve for the thing that we want because we start with, there's too much going on. Like, there's too much crap. There's just no way I'm. I'm driving all the time.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:05:34]:

There's no way. What am I going to do? Do this for my car? Yeah, maybe, maybe you're going to do it from your car. Because if you believe you can do it from your car, you figure out how to do it from your car. You know what I mean? Another one I have here is like, I'm just too tired to figure it out. This has like wild victim mentality, kind of bleeding through it. Again, these are all things that I've said. I'm not judging you. I'm saying these are things that have come either from my mouth or from my subconscious or from my conscience, honestly, where it's like, I'm too tired, I've got too much going on.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:06:02]:

I don't believe I deserve it. I don't believe it's possible. And sometimes it just feels too risky to dream of something more. And I really struggled with this for a season where I was like, if I even hope for it to be different, then is that gonna create such a discomfort for me in my current reality that it becomes intendable and I start to like hate it and get unsatisfied and get frustrated and then I can't even exist in my day. Like, dreaming feels risky because not wanting it feels safer. If I never have dreams and I don't get them, then no problem. I don't have to feel the disappointment of that because I'm executing the day to day. I'm stuck in my task.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:06:45]:

I'm just delivering on all the things that I've already said yes to. But what happens when we have these dreams that are like Welling inside of us. And we're like, where do I start? Where do I go? And I'm saying we first have to start with our brains. We have to start with practicing the belief that these things are possible. Because when you believe it is, then you start to solve for how and stop wrestling with your own brain through this. Like, for me, it feels like my brain is in, like, a dryer. Like. Like, literally a clothes dryer.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:07:18]:

Like, it just goes around and around and around and around and around, around. The same idea over and over. There's no progress being made because it just becomes a circular cell reference of like, oh, my word. You know, it would be so cool. There's no way I could even try. Like, oh, my word, I don't deserve that. Like, I happy with what I have. Like, you know, it be so cool.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:07:35]:

Like, I. I should not even try. There's no way I could do that. I don't have time. I should just be happy with what I have. You know, it would be cool. And it's like it just becomes this around and around and around, around. Deep breath, Tiffany.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:07:45]:

Does any of that sound familiar to you? Where it's like, my subconscious is daring to dream, but my conscious self is saying, I'm sorry, honey, you're too busy. I'm sorry, honey, it's too complicated. I'm sorry, honey, you're too tired. You can't do those things. You can't have those things, so don't even wish for them. That's crap. Does not have to be like that. We're gonna talk about some strategies to overcome it, but I first wanna sit in the problem because this was a real thing for me.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:08:11]:

It has been a real thing for me in my past. And right now, it's so present for me as I'm walking away from this world. Not totally. I'm still involved, but it's not my every waking minute. I had established some level of credibility in the world of leading that agency. I had established some level of, like, professional ability in the world of consulting and doing brand work and thinking like that and going into rooms and asking questions. Like, I was good at that. I was good at that.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:08:41]:

And now I'm launching into a world where I'm not as good at this. Like, I am still figuring this out. I'm learning how to be a podcaster. I'm learning how to teach through virtual learning experiences. I'm learning how to be an amazing keynote speaker. I'm learning all of this stuff. And if I don't first believe That I can master this world in the same way that I learned the one that I came from. Then I will never actually practically put the things in place to learn it if I don't believe I can.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:09:13]:

And so what is your thing? I'm using my sort of moment in transition right now, and I think in the next podcast, couple of podcast episodes, I'm going to do a deep dive on this whole transition. What I learned, leadership change, like, all that kind of stuff. We'll dig deep into that in different episodes. That's not what this one's about. This is about how do you start with creating this, like, insane belief that what you want is even possible because all of your behavior is going to flow from that. So my notes. We're going back to my notes for a second here. Here's a couple things that can sabotage our belief.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:09:46]:

One is the comfort of complaining. Okay, ladies, the comfort of complaining. This can be a space where we feed this fire massive dry logs that's like, they just, like, burn them up as fast as possible because we're like, you know what I'm pissed about? It's like, you know what I'm pissed about? You know, my husband did, you know, my kids suck. Like. Like where we just exchange nagging and complaining as a currency for relationship. That is a crappy, crappy way to spend two hours together over coffee. Okay? I hate this version of friendships and I hate this version of women, because we are better than this. This comfort of complaining can make to say, if I'm staying in my cycle of frustration and you're staying in your cycle of frustration, and we can feel validated that we're both staying stuck in the cycle of frustration.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:10:41]:

Nothing changes, nothing you want is going to come more into view by sitting in what it is that you're frustrated about. Sitting in these complaining relationships, where this currency of you know, what sucks in my life? What sucks in your life? Oh, it sucks in her life. That currency of complaining becomes a very toxic, toxic way to feed our belief because we are sitting in what sucks. Instead of saying, all right, I'm going to focus on what sucks. I'm going to figure out what I can do about it, and I'm going to believe different is the most possible thing. Instead of staying stuck in the suck, saying stuck in the suck, I don't know, feels like a book title. We get more comfortable now. I'm like, if you were going to go to dinner or, I don't know, hang out with your girlfriends, and somebody's going to say, you know what I actually like? I'm super on top of my game right now.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:11:33]:

I feel great in my body. I feel super challenged at work. My husband and I are really connected. We're staying committed to our minimums in our relationship. And I really feel like I have the time I need with my kids. If somebody sat at the table and said that too often in a group of friends or women together, everybody would stop and just look at that woman. Like, who do you think you are? Because there's more comfort when we're all complaining about all those things together. About how your body looks, about your relationship with your husband, about your kids, about how your house, blah, blah, blah.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:12:05]:

Like, no, let's be better than this. Please, please, please, please. I already talked about the second one here. There's some obstacles that can sabotage belief. Is this fear of dreaming bigger? I'm not going to spend a ton of time on this because I kind of talked about the intro, but we're afraid that dreaming of something more is going to make us dissatisfied with what we already have. And staying stuck feels safer than risking the failure or disappointment of wanting something else and not being able to get it. I get that there's inherent risk in laying in bed and dreaming of what could be or making a vision board and saying, like, what if life looked like, felt like this? Like, how do we stay in this sense of contentment and love for the present that we've built and yet have hope in the dreaming and ambition towards the future of saying, this is what I'm building towards. I want it to look different and I still can be grateful and content in the day.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:13:03]:

And again, for me, it's just about saying, Tiffany, to my head, Life of And. These are not binary, contradictory ideas. Being content, content in your day does not have to come at the expense of dreaming. And dreaming does not have to come at the expense of contentment in the day. These are not polarizing. These are not like two forces that are opposing one another. These can work together. And when I just, like, tell myself this, that, like, your fear of saying dream is going to create discontentment is not true.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:13:36]:

Tiffany. These are not polarizing concepts. You can sit in both of these with equal intensity and equal intention. They don't have to fight one another. So maybe I'm the only one I don't know in this medium. I don't get to talk to you. You just get to listen to me. But I am asking you in your car or as you're washing dishes or whatever you're doing.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:13:55]:

Taking a walk, hopefully on a lovely spring day. Is this something that you feel too, where the idea of even dreaming of exactly what you want feels risky? I don't know. Maybe I'm the only one in it. Okay, we're gonna move into some, like, simple strategies of how to actually overcome these self sabotaging beliefs. And how do we get out of these, like cycles of I don't have time, I'm too tired, life's passing me by. Five mindset shifts. Okay, number one. And I just kind of actually went through this, so my brain was leading me here already.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:14:24]:

You can appreciate what you have. And what more I just said this. Number one, gratitude and ambition can coexist. Life of And. So that's the number one thing that we're going to claim. How do we overcome this resistance that comes from having the courage to believe? Number one is believing that our gratitude and our ambition can coexist. Believe it. Say it out loud. We're going to talk about neuroplasticity here in a minute, which sounds like a 20 word.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:14:52]:

It is a 20 word. And I had to literally Google everything that I now know about this topic. This is not the thing I naturally know about, but it's pretty interesting. So we'll talk about that in a minute. Number two is complaining is comfortable, but solving is empowering. So we're going through mindset shifts that move us to a place of belief. Complaining is comfortable, but solving is empowering. Who cares about complaining? It literally is nothing but a message to us to say, if I hate this, it pisses me off or I don't like it, I'm going to bring that into view and I'm going to not look at it, but I'm going to say, what can I do about it? And we're going to go to our Life of And toolbox and we're going to figure out how do we make it explicit? How do we define a minimum? How do we get an agreement in place? Again, this podcast is not about teaching those tools.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:15:36]:

But that's what we're going to do when we don't like things, when things piss us off, or if we want something, we are bringing that into view and saying, how am I empowered to solve for it? We are not just going to compare, carry that complaint in our pocket and show it to everybody who, like, has a minute. Another one of my observations is that we complain to people who cannot fix things. Like we complain to our friends about our moms, we complain to our hairdresser about our husbands, we complain to our friends about our kids. It's like, why? It's super weird. Like, those people are literally so not invested, they don't care if you fix those things or not. So complaints. We're not going to carry them in our pocket. We're going to bring them into view and we're going to say, is this worth me solving? And if it's not, then discard it and just let it be annoying.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:16:22]:

Who cares? Okay, so we just to recap, number two is complaining is comfortable, but solving is empowering. Number three is progress does not require perfection. So stop waiting on the perfect time or the plan. Start small and build momentum. Literally yesterday morning, my husband's leading through just a bunch of growth at the company he's at right now. And we were just kind of chatting through the day and some things going on, and he said there is literally no way around the fact that growth is inefficient. It is a certainty that growth is inefficient. And when you know that and accept that, you can say, oh, yes, this is inefficient.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:16:59]:

Even right now. Example, it took us how long, Sam? 22 minutes maybe, to set up this silly podcast situation that I'm recording from right now. I'm no longer recording where I was before. We're in a new spot. It's kind of in transition. The tech is all over the place. If you guys could see the 18, 000 cores at my feet, you would be like, she's gonna trip. Probably.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:17:19]:

Well, it's like, inefficient. We're in growth mode. We're trying to figure out the next level of things, and it is taking so long for some of the silliest things. And that is my silly example from my silly life. But you've got things too, where you're like, oh, my word, it feels like I'm pushing a rock uphill to make this small increment of progress. Yes, growth is inefficient. So when you are looking to create belief in your brain about these things and you look at it and say, it's inefficient, I must be wrong. I'm screwing this up.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:17:47]:

If I'm screwing it up and I'm wrong, then I must not be destined do this. No, growth is inefficient. It's part of the program. It's literally, what do they say? It's a feature, not a flaw. It's a feature of the program that you're on. When you choose a life of growth, there is inefficiency in it. And so tell your brain there's inefficiency in growth. And that way when you meet those moments of resistance, you don't start to flip out on yourself and say, oh my word, I was never intended to do this.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:18:16]:

This is super hard and I'm going to run back to safety as fast as I possibly can. Don't do that. Okay, Number four. Dreaming is not risky, staying stuck is. I mean, that one can just kind of stand on its own. Dreaming is not risky, staying stuck is. Oh my word. There's so much risk in spending 40 years doing the exact same things, being in the exact same place, doing all the exact same things just because you were too afraid to start something is.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:18:40]:

And there's all kinds of podcasts on things like, you know, what do you want to regret trying or never never tried. But dreaming is not risky, staying stuck is. And then the last one is your future self deserves your effort. Like, this is all I say. I don't want to live a life of have to. I want to build a life. I want to like, I am using those very intentionally. Living a life of have to is very much kind of like a flat footed posture against my life versus building a life of want to.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:19:09]:

There's an action, a moving forward, a building forward in that posture of life. So when you have that attitude, you can't help but put yourself in new situations. When you put yourself in new situations, you can't help but have some failure cycles because growth is, as we just talked about, completely inefficient. And that is a function of the program, not a flaw. So this is turning into your, like anthem for growth here as we're getting to this podcast. Okay, I want to talk about neuroplasticity. This is the part where you're like, can I listen to this part of the episode at 4x speed? Maybe, maybe it will be boring, maybe it will be helpful. You get to decide.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:19:45]:

But this was helpful for me. As I was thinking through. Why is it when I tell myself, like, I was just talking about where it's like being content and being growth minded can exist together. Those are not conflicting concepts. Why is it when I say that to myself over and over and over and over, I actually start to believe it. Maybe you already know about this, but I'm going to spend like, I'm gonna watch my timer like 75 seconds on this and then we're gonna move quickly. But neurosplasticity is literally the brain's ability to reorganize itself. By forming new neural connections, it allows us to reshape our thought patterns and behaviors through intentional practice.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:20:22]:

I'm reading these words because I don't have them memorized. So it says how every time you repeat a thought or a behavior, you strengthen the neural pathways associated with it. These pathways are like trails in a forest. The more you walk the trail, the easier it becomes to follow. When you stop using the old pathway, like a limiting belief, it starts to weaken. Just like on an unused trail starts to grow over with weeds. Isn't that a fascinating analogy? So when you go to a new trail in a forest and there's all kinds of crap on it and you can hardly see the road, when you've taken that path a hundred times and your feet have like matted it all down, it becomes easier and easier and easier. Every time you go on that trail, it becomes a little easier to pass it.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:21:04]:

Our brains work in the exact same way. So we can abandon old thoughts by saying, hey, I'm not going to feed that thought anymore. I'm going to move it over to this new path. I think that's incredibly powerful. We talk about living like an empowered, growth oriented life. To me I'm like, it starts with our brains. When we practice believing it, we actually start believing it. Our bodies start to cognitively recognize it faster and our behaviors and our disciplines flow more quickly from that practiced belief.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:21:36]:

I think that's wild. I think that's totally wild. Neuroplasticity allows you to consciously create and strengthen new empowering pathways. So maybe you already knew this. I thought this was fascinating. It's like literally science supports this crazy talk that I'm going through. Okay, we are going to go through a couple of quick tips on how to do this very practically in your day. And then you're going to rock and roll with your growth oriented life and great growth oriented day.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:22:03]:

So, okay, one is just writing your belief daily. Like literally writing it on a post it note. I will sometimes have like a little post it note or card in my car that I can see all the time. Put it right beside where you get ready. Put it by your computer, like practice running it through your head that this is true. When I'm doing sales pitches right now, I'll say I am practicing believing that I am uniquely equipped to teach and share the message of my life and story. I am practicing believing that I am uniquely equipped to share and teach my lived story. Like, I am practicing believing.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:22:37]:

Like, I will literally say I am practicing believing this about myself because I Will be a better teacher and sharer and speaker of my story. When I am practicing believing that I'm uniquely qualified to do that, Just literally say, I'm practicing believing this about myself. So write your belief daily. Speak it out loud to strangers, to friends, to family, to whoever is standing near. I actually think this is a really powerful conversation to have with your hairdresser. What are you practicing believing in your life right now? Visualizing yourself living out the belief to make it feel real. Like, where will you drive? What will you wear? What will your days look like? Who will go with you? What do you need? What you like? Literally, I through all of those things about, like, what do I want this envision, like, to feel like we're actually functionally working on our house right now, thinking about maybe doing some remodeling and so thinking about how do I want to interact with my kids in this new season of my professional life? How do I want to interact with, like, community? Like, how do I bring them into my home to, like, have coffee? How do I entertain here? How, like, literally Picturing the next 5, 10, 15, 20 years of our life in our space and how we will serve and love and be together has been a way of vividly bringing this into view for me. And then the last one is interrupting those negative loops by replacing them with your new belief.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:23:56]:

So write it down, say it out loud, visualize it, and stop the crap that's running through our heads. So, okay, you guys, we got through all the things. Any change that we want in our lives is. We are building life at hand. It is going to create. You have to make friends with change, which means you have to make friends with the friction that comes when you want change in your life. And if you're going to make friends with that friction, you have to start with this place inside of you that says, I believe. I can see it.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:24:28]:

I know I can taste it. I deserve this. I will live in this vision future. And I don't know how long it's going to take me, but I am going to get there. So to all of you wondering how it first starts with believing as we wrap up today's episode of Scared Confident, I want to leave you with this. The obstacles that feel like immovable barriers between you and the future aren't as permanent as they seem. Your belief in a different future starts with a small, intentional step. Practice believing it's possible, even if it feels far away right now.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:25:02]:

Take inventory of your time and energy and start making trades that align with your priorities and Most importantly, stop waiting for permission. Start today, right now, right where you are. Remember, you don't have to solve everything at once. Progress happens one small step, one small mindset shift, and one small decision at a time. I believe in your ability to create the life you want, and I hope this episode gave you the tools and inspiration to take that first step. If this episode resonated with you, please share it with someone who might need to hear it too. And don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Thank you for joining me today and until next time, keep dreaming, keep believing, and keep showing up for yourself and your life.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:25:46]:

Of and thank you for joining me.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:25:49]:

On another episode of Scared Confident. Until next time, keep telling fear, you will not decide what happens in my life. I will.

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