Why we are so good at talking ourselves out of what we want
Updated: 3 days ago
When Fear Sounds Like Reason
by Jana Denker
Have you ever noticed how persuasive you can become when you’re arguing against something you actually want?
You’d love to start your own business. But... the economy is uncertain, your job is secure, and perhaps you should wait another year.
Or you want to ask for more money. But... your employer has other priorities right now. Besides, you don’t want to appear demanding.
In your relationship, something should finally change. But... your partner is under pressure, and you can already imagine how the conversation might go.
Before long, you’ve built a perfectly reasonable case for leaving things exactly as they are. And sometimes, what sounds like reason is actually fear trying to protect
We can be remarkably good at negotiating against ourselves.
We tend to think that wanting something should make us move towards it.
But desire and fear often arrive together. The more something matters to us, the more we may feel we have to lose.
Starting a business means risking failure. Asking for more money means risking rejection. Being honest about what you want in a relationship means allowing another person to respond in ways you cannot control.
Our nervous systems don’t really like that kind of uncertainty. They don't respond only to actual danger, but also to anticipated threats, including situations that feel emotionally risky. And when something feels threatening, staying with what is familiar can bring immediate relief.
So we postpone. We reconsider. And find another good reason to wait.
The reasoning may be sound. But it may not be the whole story.
Sometimes we’re not deciding what we want. We’re deciding what feels safest.
The conversations we never have
This becomes particularly interesting when we look at communication.
Because many of the things we want require a conversation.
We may need to ask for an opportunity, express a desire that feels vulnerable or tell someone that an arrangement no longer works for us.
And often, the negotiation begins long before we speak to the other person.
We imagine their objections and start answering them. We anticipate their disappointment and quietly adjust what we were going to ask for.
By the time the conversation happens, we’ve already reduced our request to something that feels easier to say. Or perhaps the conversation never happens at all.
This is what negotiating against yourself can look like: reducing what you want before you’ve even given another person the chance to respond.
I find this especially fascinating in highly articulate women.
After 18 years working professionally with language and high-stakes communication, I’ve seen how powerful our ability to argue can be. What fascinates me as a somatic coach is how easily that same ability can turn against our own desires.
You can be excellent at making an argument, understanding different perspectives and anticipating how others will respond. These are valuable abilities.
But they can also make you exceptionally persuasive when you’re arguing against yourself.
Being able to make a convincing case doesn’t necessarily mean you’re making the case for what you want.
What happens underneath the reasoning?
You might have thought carefully about asking for a higher fee. You know the value of your work. The number makes sense. But imagine actually saying it to a prospective client.
Perhaps your stomach tightens. You feel an urge to explain the price before they’ve even responded. You suddenly remember that you could offer a discount.
Your mind may interpret this discomfort as evidence that you’re asking for too much.
But discomfort isn’t necessarily evidence that your decision is wrong.
It may be a protective response to the possibility of disapproval or rejection.
And that’s an important distinction.
Because if we treat every uncomfortable sensation as a reason to reconsider, we can spend years waiting to feel completely ready.
What becomes possible when fear no longer makes the decision?
Imagine recognising that familiar urge to retreat without automatically following it.
You can feel the discomfort of asking for more without immediately reducing your request.
You can enter a conversation knowing the other person may disagree, and still remain connected to what matters to you.
And perhaps most importantly, you begin to trust yourself to navigate what happens next.
That’s a very different kind of freedom from waiting until you feel completely confident.
In somatic coaching, we explore what happens underneath the reasoning in the body. The beliefs we have come to live by. The protective responses that once served us but may now be limiting what we allow ourselves to pursue.
Rather than trying to defeat fear with better arguments, we build the capacity to stay connected to ourselves while moving towards what matters.
You may still decide to wait. Or you may discover that your original idea needs adjusting.
Or you may realise that you’ve been waiting for a feeling of certainty that was never going to arrive.
And perhaps you can have the conversation anyway.
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This is one of the things I find most rewarding about coaching: seeing women discover that they have more room to choose than they previously believed.
Because your intelligence and persuasive abilities deserve to work in your favour, too.
And imagine what might become possible if they did.
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Ready to stop negotiating against yourself?
My three-month 1:1 mentorship helps you expand what you believe is possible and develop the capacity to act on it.
You may also like: what are you allowing yourself to ask for.
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