“I’m Fine”, the biggest red flag?
Especially when you believe it yourself.
“I’m fine.” We all say it .
Its disposable. It’s a throwaway, its innate in most of us, yet it’s a programmed prompt we have used for years maybe. It seems harmless. Innocuous.
It’s the phrase we say when we want everything to stop. Stop the questions. Stop the noise. Stop the possibility of being seen too clearly.
“I’m fine” is the ultimate emotional full stop .It doesn’t mean you’re okay. It means you’re coping. Performing. Managing just enough not to fall apart in public. And the hardest part? Sometimes, you don’t even know you’re doing it.
The Hidden Cost of “Fine”
I’ve used it. I’ve lived it.I’ve coached people who swear they’re fine, until they’re not. It shows up in your inbox tone. In your “just tired.” In the way you don’t ask for help because you don’t want to look like the problem. Fine is where survival lives and it’s recognising you can’t build a life in survival mode. It’s not sustainable. It drains you quietly. Then loudly. And one day you realise you’ve been surviving for so long that thriving sounds unrealistic. We see this in coaching all the time. The people who say they’re fine? They’re often the ones furthest away from feeling alive.
Fine is the wall
Behind it? Usually something real. Not dramatic. Not always trauma. Sometimes just, never being asked. Not knowing how to answer honestly. Or being praised for coping so well that breaking feels like failure. So we stay fine. Here’s the truth:
Fine is not a feeling. It’s a signal.
Where It connects to our work
We get asked a lot what kind of coaching do you do, well people coaching. We coach people who are stuck. The reality is this could be in thier life, their business, their leadership, their thinking. It’s a stuck thing.
It’s how we work it through stuck → solve → simplify → thrive.
You’re stuck, but it looks like capability.
You solve it by pausing long enough to ask what’s really happening.
You simplify it by being honest about what you need, not what looks good.
You thrive when you stop hiding behind fine and start showing up with something real.
This isn’t about falling apart. It’s about choosing to stop surviving and starting to live.
Spotting fine in the wild!
How I’m fin shows up in a few different forms, check if its showing up in yours?
You smile and say “It’s all good” before someone finishes asking.
You shut down compliments, connection, or offers of help.
You get annoyed when others don’t notice you’re struggling, even though you’ve worked hard not to show it.
You describe every week as “busy” and every emotion as “fine
None of this is right or wrong, it’s what you do right now. It’s what you have programmed your brain to react t. It that simple. We call it Human Ai, your prompts you give yourself just ike a ChatGpt bot, the prompt creates the output. What you put in you get out.
It’s natural enough, it’s what we’ve always done. It’s copied from our environment , people we are around It’s high-functioning stuckness. And it’s why thriving often starts with something quiet. A sentence. A pause. A truth.
What to do instead, rewrite your Human Ai prompts
No need to over explain or have a dramatic breakdown. You just need to start noticing. Ask yourself:
“Where am I saying ‘fine’ when I mean something else?”
“What would I say if I knew it was safe to say anything?”
That’s the beginning. That’s the real work.
Final thinking
“I’m fine” isn’t bad. It’s not wrong. It just might be a sign you’ve been surviving too long. And surviving isn’t the same as living. It’s certainly not thriving. Ask better questions. Get underneath “fine.” And give yourself permission to want more than just coping.
PS.
If this feels familiar, if “fine” has become your safety blanket, you might already be in survival mode. That’s why we created the Survive and Thrive Toolkit. It’s not a course. It’s not a programme. It’s a starting point.
Real prompts, real tools, to help you notice what’s under the surface, and start living again. Get the Survive to Thrive Starter Kit Simple. Real. Human. Just like all of us.
More reads to support you
#humaAi #surviveandthrive #coaching #action #choice #redflag #imfine
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