Hi there Reader,
Welcome to this edition of Meaningful eMail with the most recent takeaway and updates linked here at the top, and then a full article for your consideration.
Grab what's helpful today, then save others for future reference. You never know when you or someone in your network could use a boost!
Thank you to all who voted for the title of my new program in the last email! See below for the winning title!
Recent Takeaways & Updates
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Top Takeaways: The Gifts Of Imperfection by Brene Brown
10 guideposts for engaging in life from a place of worthiness
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New Program! Mid-Career Confidence: How to reclaim your power after a shake-up
First session is 10/17
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Support For Helene Survivors
For those affected by Hurricane Helene, I'm offering pro bono coaching sessions and one scholarship seat to the October group program. If it's you, or someone you know, just get this email back to me in a reply or forward and I'll do what I can to get the right support for the person and situation.
Let's Explore
Be STRONG to bounce back better
(Just for you, my loyal readers, enjoy this sneak peek of one of the systems we'll be covering in the Mid-Career Confidence program)
Career setbacks are part of our working life - whether it’s as dramatic as a merger, as traumatic as a layoff or as wonky as an unexpected bad review.
So given how common they are it's amazing that we still find ourselves crumbling under the weight of these unexpected events. What would it take to be strong, to bounce back more quickly when the next one happens?
Studies have shown that our ability to positively adapt to challenging situations - to be resilient - is centered around several factors. Based on that research, my own experiences and now my clients', I've developed a STRONG framework we can follow to bounce back better.
S.T.R.O.N.G.
S: Support system
"Support" for our purposes here, is any person or activity you might lean on or use to process the situation.
Absolutely, our friends and family help us process and move through the situation, but also think about counselors, pastors, coaches.
Support also happens through activities. The research is deep and wide for just how powerful movement, meditation and breathwork can be to organize our thoughts, regulate our nervous system, even ward off depression. Try a variety of these methods and then continue to use the ones which bring short- and long-term benefits to you.
- People-based support: friends, family, counselors, coaches
- Activity-based support: journaling, breathwork, exercise, mediation, prayer
T: Thoughtful reactions & responses
Being aware of our own emotions and those of others is an excellent skill for managing adversity. Research into this area (known as emotional intelligence) has grown exponentially, so take advantage of books, articles, workshops & classes if you would like to strengthen your emotional intelligence. Here are a few ways to get started:
- During an emotionally charged situation, take deep breaths before responding. This slows down the conversation and allows our brain to process from the more analytical side rather than the fight-or-flight side.
- Make time and space to process emotions on a regular basis, but especially after a highly charged situation. Journaling, talking to someone, and solitude are some helpful ways to organize our thoughts and feelings.
R: Resourcefulness
In her book "Everything is Figureoutable" Marie Forleo shows us how important it is to tackle adversity as a problem to solve. This helps remove the victim mentality and empowers us to take action. And by doing so, builds our confidence.
- Look for ways to manage the situation like one of your work projects. Create milestones and goals then break them down into smaller tasks. Celebrate each completed task to start building up that confidence!
- Reframe the situation as an opportunity to learn about yourself, the organization, and even about leadership skills like resiliency (wink, wink). This helps create some emotional distance to start tacking the adversity as a challenge to overcome.
O: Optimism
This is not the type of blind optimism that says everything will be OK, then shoves the situation under a rug. A positive or growth mindset is all about seeing the situation for what it is, then finding ways to move through it. Here are some ways a growth mindset shows itself.
- Cultivating hope (seeing it as a process not as an emotion)
- Being flexible, curious, open-minded not narrow-minded
- Reframing failures as experiments or challenges; not as an end, but as a beginning
- Belief in a higher power & the greater good
N: Nurtured self-worth
Instead of their worth being based on titles and achievements, resilient people believe in their inherent worthiness. Let's lean into our character, values, and talents. And then couple that with a strong reason to move forward (our ‘why’), so we can stand strong indeed. They can take our titles from us, but not our worthiness.
To nurture a strong sense of self try these methods:
- Coaching: a good career, leadership or executive coach guides you to discover and then use your strengths, values & purpose; helping you be your best self
- Assessments: Go for the ones based on science and research, that are more strength oriented than personality oriented
- Find your why: when we are working for a cause that is bigger than ourselves and means something to us our determination and grit are hard to shake. This could be anything from supporting your family to ending childhood hunger, but find your why - your purpose - for this stage of your life.
G: Grit & grace
I see grace as another method for nurturing our self-worth. When we give ourselves grace, we're essentially being kind to ourselves. Eliminating, or at least reducing, our negative self-talk and replacing it with kindness is essential to our resiliency.
This grace allows us to persevere when things get tough. Grit can't happen when we're hard on ourselves. Yes, there is a difference between striving to be our best and beating ourselves up.
To foster grit and grace:
- Make a list of challenges you've overcome, the times you figured out a solution when it first seemed impossible
- Perfectionist tendencies? Embrace good enough (Spoiler alert: you are worthy - good enough - just as you are)
- The next time you catch negative thoughts swirling, ask if you would say that to a friend. As Brene Brown says in "The Gifts of Imperfection": our limit of self-love is a limit of how much we can love others
Grab one or two of these to put into practice this week and soon you'll be feeling STRONGer than ever!
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OK, loyal readers, this is a lot to pack into to an email, so let me know if you want to jump on a call to bring this down to size for you and your situation.
And if you'd like the support and comradery of a small group to explore this topic and others, I would love to have you in the Mid-Career Confidence cohort!
