Megan looked defeated. Her eyes were cast downward and the space between her eyebrows conveyed a combination of deep pondering and confusion.
“There’s just not enough time,” she said.
“Not enough time for what?” I inquired.
“All of it.”
I heard the slight crack in her voice and could see the wetness in her eyes. Megan, by all standards, was a rock star. She had always identified as a go-getter and had spent most of her career feeling like she was really good at her job. In her role at a fast growing tech start-up , she had been promoted about a year ago and now had people reporting to her. But, she also still had responsibility to complete the actual individual contributor-type work within her department.
“No matter how much I get done, I feel like I’m behind,” she continued.
“How are things going with your team?” I asked.
She exhaled quickly in exasperation as she rolled her eyes. “I don’t know,” she said shaking her head.
“I don’t know” is a phrase people often use when what they really mean is: “I don’t want to think about that right now.”
“I don’t know” is a phrase people often use when what they really mean is: “I don’t want to think about that right now.” – The Human Element ® Click To TweetI sat, quietly, waiting for her to say more.
“It just takes even more time if I ask them to do things because they don’t do it right, because I ask them to re-do it, and by the time I see it for the third time, I don’t even want to bother correcting them again, so I just tell them it’s fine and I do it myself. And then the next time we start the process all over again.” Her voice was picking up pace and volume as she shifted from feeling defeated into anger. “Or they just don’t do it at all. They say they will, and then the deadline comes, and they haven’t made any progress at all. Last weekend I worked nearly 15 hours just to try to keep up with all the things that were piling up during the week because I’m so tired of feeling like I’m babysitting them. And then the things I want to take care of at home aren’t getting done, and it just feels like there’s no end in sight.”
I knew exactly what Megan was feeling because I had been there. I had fallen into the exact same pattern of drowning in work and feeling stuck in that pattern because of all the things I “couldn’t” do. I “couldn’t” say no to the work I was being asked to do, because I had earned my promotion based on my ability to GSD (that’s get sh** done). I “couldn’t” get my team to follow through on things, even though I was convinced I was doing all the things right. And I “couldn’t” be too hard on my team, because I believed it was super important that I keep a good relationship with them (more on this in my blog from last month).
So, I kept falling back on what I had always done, which was to just get things done myself. But when I was responsible for a team, the workload overwhelmed me more than it ever had when I was just an individual contributor.
It was also feeling harder and harder to show up as the leader I wanted to be because I had building resentment – AND – I was just exhausted.
I found myself regularly convincing myself that I didn’t have to change because the situation would resolve itself. The lie I was unknowingly telling myself usually started with, “It will only be like this until…”
The lie we unknowingly tell ourselves:"It will only be like this until…" Click To TweetI genuinely believed I would only feel this underwater “until this product launch was over” or “until I get to hire that extra position on my team” or “until we got through the end of the year.”
So here I was, coaching Megan. Knowing how she felt and understanding exactly the shift she’d need to make to get out of this pattern.
“It is only going to be like this until you decide that you’re going to make it different.” I said.
“But I don’t know how!” she exclaimed.
“Do you think you could learn how?”
“Well, yeah, I’m sure I could.”
“You don’t have to. You can keep doing what you’re doing if you want to.”
This time the wetness in her eyes was even more pronounced. “No,” she said. “I really, really don’t want to keep doing what I’m doing.”
I nodded, fully understanding that she had hit the tipping point where she was ready to do the kind of deeper inner work that would unleash so many freedoms she had never known.
Over the next few months, Megan made steady progress, finding all the ways she was going to say “no” to the way she had always done things. She learned how to set boundaries. She learned how to build trust with her team. She learned how to uncover hidden resistance that was getting in the way of true alignment with her peers. And, probably most importantly, she got to know her internal saboteur….the internal immunity to change that got in the way of every past attempt to make a real change.
At the core of it, every change that Megan wanted in her life was rooted in her willingness to grow her own self-awareness. The self-awareness to see how she was creating her own reality. The self-awareness to see how she was letting fear hold her back. The self-awareness to see how many different choices she actually had in front of her at any given moment.
It can take courage to grow your self-awareness. The best things in life are always on the other side of fear. If you’re ready to step into your own courage and grow your self-awareness, you definitely want to register for my free training on Thursday, January 6th at 2 pm Eastern: The 5 Mistakes that Make Work Overwhelming.
Start your year off right – kick-off 2022 with a healthy mindset, so you know you can accomplish anything you choose to!
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