176: Actions You Can Take When You Don’t Feel Aligned at Work

//How do we harness our passion on behalf of our purpose instead of being overwhelmed by it in a way that undermines our mission? As we begin a new podcast series, Andrea looks at the importance of having a vision for oneself, making careful preparation, and determining to initiate action in order to live in alignment with our calling. 

Mentioned in this episode:

• Voice of Influence Programs for Teams, Leaders, and Organizations
• UNFROZEN book

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Transcript

Hey, there!  It’s Andrea, and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast.  Here we are, we’re rolling in 2021.  I am so excited to be here.  I’m sure you are as well.

Over the last three weeks, we talked about what it is like to really value who we are, what we bring to the table, to value that in other people as well – and especially in terms of how we function, how we do things, and how we get to the goals that we set for ourselves.

Today, we’re going to talk about alignment and feeling aligned with who we are and what we bring to the world.

Next week, I interview JeNae Johnson, who has really stepped into a fuller version of her voice in this past year.   So, I’m excited to share that interview with you.   She has a lot of neat stories to tell, and it’s exciting.  It’s exciting when you see somebody and it’s inspiring when you see somebody really step into that voice that I think we all really kind of want for ourselves.  Whether that be on a big sort of national scale or even just to be able to say what we want and contribute what we want to contribute in our own homes, in our own communities, and in our work.   So, I’m excited to share that with you.

But I think that one of the things that we all kind of struggle with is this idea of feeling aligned with our passion, our purpose, our gifts – what we bring to the table – and our voice or the contribution that we make to the world.  I think it’s really hard to step away from the status quo.  Inertia seems to be a problem for most of us.  We don’t usually want to change until the pain of not changing is greater – and much greater, often – than the pain of actually making a change.

Most of us don’t love change.  We want to feel secure.  Our brains really struggle to conceive of new possibilities, which makes it kind of hard to achieve those new possibilities because people reach for what they can see.  It’s hard to just reach out in the dark, and not know where you’re going, and try to decide if you’re going to actually take a step.

So, with that inertia, then it makes it hard for things to really fall into place.  Sometimes it feels like we’re just struggling to put things together, to get them to work.  When I was in junior high, I loved a song by Michael W. Smith, “Place in This World.”   “Oh, I want to find my place in this world, my place in this world.”  I would croon that to myself in the middle of the night.  Oh, I wanted to find my place in this world, but don’t we all, really?

And I think that sometimes when people come to the point where they really want to feel more aligned and to get into that place where they’re feeling like they’re ready to go, I’ve heard some people talk about it as though they don’t feel like they have what it takes.  They feel powerless.  They feel a lack of confidence.

And I think there’s a lot of coaches out there who kind of hang their hat on that confidence piece and assume that anybody who’s frustrated with their level of success is simply not confident enough to achieve it for themselves.  I would beg to differ.  That is not what my problem was.  My problem was not a lack of confidence – it was a lack of proof.

So, I wanted to be able to do things in the world.  I wanted to see actual progress with the work that I was doing, and it felt like I wasn’t having a lot of success.  It felt like it was coming very slowly, and I didn’t like that.  I didn’t like that at all.  I didn’t want it to go slow.  I like to go fast.  I like to move quickly.  If I make a decision to do something, I’m ready to go.

So, when it comes to, you know, doing what I do – which is building a business, and a thought leadership, and assets in your business that are based on your thought leadership – these things take a lot of time.  It takes a lot of time to figure out the message.  It takes a lot of time to figure out your unique perspective, how you’re going to bring that to the table, how you’re going to package it, what you’re going to do with it, and how you’re going to get it into people’s hands; all those things.   So, it just takes a long time.

And so, for me, lately, I have been feeling really emotional.  This past, I don’t know, couple of weeks or so, I have felt like tears were sort of just on underneath the surface.  And it wasn’t that I had anything specific, like a big loss or a big fear.  Though there are certainly things that I’m concerned about in my life, those things hadn’t shifted a lot.  So, I was trying to figure out, “Why do I feel like I would just want to cry all the time?’’  And I was reminded that I kind of wrote a book about feeling overwhelmed, that my book Unfrozen… it describes how I felt.

Let me read to you from the back of the book.  “I used to believe that I was too much for others.  Too deep, too intense, and too sensitive.  I didn’t know how to authentically express my deep thoughts and intense feelings without overwhelming people.  So, I attempted to become what I believed God and others wanted me to be, good, strong, and competent.  My efforts to contain and control myself expression left me feeling frustrated and inauthentic.  I knew I was made for more than a life of holding back, but how could I be me without ruining my relationships?’’

So, I knew that there were these things about me, this deep intensity that I carry and deep thoughts.  When I solve a problem, I solve it very thoroughly.  And when I communicate, I communicate pretty thoroughly as well.  And I was having a hard time feeling like there was a place for that.  What’s the point?  And though I’ve shared about this before, what I really wanted to share with you today was that the past couple of weeks, what I remembered about myself is that I’m pretty sensitive and that it’s not just bad things that make me want to cry sometimes.

Sometimes, I need the emotional release of tears to help me process the overwhelm of joy or the overwhelm of what feels like a really big deal – something feels like a really big deal.  And lately, things have been really moving along in Voice of Influence.  We’ve made a lot of progress in a lot of different areas.  We’re enjoying new clients and looking at the clients that we’ve had for a few years who are getting promoted, and moving on to new positions and bigger companies, or making a bigger dent in the world in their area of expertise.  And all of that was really just hitting me all at once.

We’re in a place of momentum, and that’s exciting, especially after a year where we felt like, “What’s going to happen with businesses like this?  We don’t know.”  But we’re coming around to a point where it’s clear that things are going well, and that what we provide is something that people and businesses actually appreciate, and want, and want to keep working with us.

So, the overwhelm of all that emotion had built up, and it was just sort of brimming at the surface, and made it clear to me that I needed a good cry, number one.  But what it really made me realize was that the reason why I feel so overwhelmed is not necessarily about success.  It’s more about feeling so in alignment with who I really am.  Because the intensity, the sensitivity, the thoroughness – these are things that maybe on a day-to-day basis are not that important to people, that might be too much for other people.

But for Voice of Influence and the work that we do with clients and all of the work that we do to get in front of clients in the first place, business development – these things require intensity, sensitivity, and thoroughness.  And I’m actually using all of those things.  They’re actually needed in the work that I’m doing right now.  What an amazing thing to feel that, to feel aligned with who we are.

So, you want to feel aligned with who you are.  If you’re not truly feeling that… and to be quite honest, we’re all going to feel out of alignment at times, and we need to bring ourselves back in, get re-centered.  But if you’re wanting something like that, if you’re wanting to feel more aligned with your calling, your gifts, your contribution that you’re making to the world, then I have a couple of things that I want to suggest that you do to start out with.

So, number one, have a vision for yourself.  What do you want?  Who are you?  What are your gifts?  What could you do?  We all need to know this is that our competence, as Finka Jerkovic said in an episode a while back, “Our confidence should not be based on our competence.”  It should not be based on knowing what we’re doing.  Instead, it should be based on the belief that we have what it takes.  I have the resourcefulness, I have the creativity, I have the work ethic, and I can do what I have to do to figure this out.

We all need that.  We all need to believe in that for ourselves.  “Who am I?”  “What do I want?”  “Do I believe I have what it takes?”  “What’s my proof?”  “If I believe that I have what it takes, how do I know that?  How do I know that I’m resourceful?  How do I know that I can figure things out?”

Well, look back.  Who were you as you were a kid, when you were growing up?  Maybe even just recently, what are some of the things that you’ve done in your life that have proven that you have what it takes to do what you want to do, to get to where you want to go?

But then the other question that you want to ask yourself when you’re thinking about your vision for yourself is, “What am I willing to sacrifice to get there?”  This is always a question that we should be thinking about because it’s about our priorities.  It’s about taking it seriously and saying, “No, I really am willing to sacrifice something to get to where I need to go,” because everything requires give and take.   So, have a vision for yourself.

Then number two, be prepared.  Follow your instincts, your desires.  “What do I want to know more about?  Do I need more education in that?”  “What do I want to experience?”  “If I have a specific vision for myself, like a goal for a job that I want or a business that I’m trying to create, what do I need to do with who I am in order to get there?”  Take action.

Every book begins with a rough draft.  Everything that I feel like I do, I’ve had to get used to this idea of having rough drafts.  I do rough draft after rough draft.  Even the podcast, I consider to be a rough draft because I’ve put drafts into it.  I’ve worked on things that I want to say for it, but then I come to the podcast, I speak, I do what I need to do.  It still feels like a rough draft, but maybe someday I’ll take all of the podcast episodes, and I’ll be able to turn them into a book.

You know, there are lots of things that we do along our path that feel like they’re not completely figured out.  They’re not completely done.  They’re not completely perfect.  We’re having to put ourselves out there in a way that feels a bit like a rough draft, but that seems to me like it’s all of life.  It’s very seldom that we end up with a finished product that we feel like we’re done with, and we can set on the shelf, and we don’t ever have to adjust again.

So, get comfortable with that idea of rough drafts and taking action.  Build on your previous successes and invest in whatever it is that you need to do to take the next step.  And then after you have really gained a vision for yourself and you’ve prepared yourself, then be ready to go when it’s time, when it’s “go” time.

JeNaeh, next week, will share with you her story about how she felt not in alignment, but then all of a sudden everything became clear.   She had a very clear purpose, a very clear cause.  She put herself behind that and just started running with it.  And it’s made a difference.  It’s making a difference now, and she feels in alignment.

You may feel like you’re not in alignment as you’d like to be, but know that that period of time where you’re not exactly where you want to be can be part of getting you ready for go time.  You don’t just decide to run a marathon, and then walk out the door and run a marathon.  Instead, you plan ahead, and you train for six to nine months ahead of time before you go.  You run a little bit, and then you rest, and then you run a little bit, and you rest, and you run a little bit more, and you rest.  And you build on these successes.  You train, you build that endurance.

Keep sharing your rough drafts with the world, whether that be on a small or large scale.  And as you take those steps, things start to come together.  Things start to come together.  And then in a couple of weeks from today, we’ll be talking more about that moment when things do come together.  So, I’m looking forward to sharing with you JeNae’s interview next week, and we’ll see you soon.

Your voice matters, and you can make it matter more!

 

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