Navigating Your Career
Episode 16
Having Your Own Back
What does having your own back even mean?
It’s much more than giving yourself a high five to celebrate a win or avoiding negative self-talk.
You know the saying – your ride or die? The person you will stick by no matter what?
It’s make you that person.
You would do anything for yourself, you trust yourself, when you make mistakes, you don’t beat yourself up.
This is important because you won’t be able to accomplish your big goals and live your life to the fullest if you don’t have your own back.
When you don’t have your own back it looks like:
= immediately blaming yourself when things go wrong
= Assuming you’re not a good fit for the job
= When you lose your train of thought in a presentation, you tell yourself you’re an idiot
= Sacrificing what you want or need because you convince yourself you don’t actually need it
= Putting yourself last and maybe even believing that is what you’re supposed to do, that is what makes you a good leader, good mom, good partner
It’s common and totally normal to disregard your feelings, to try to will them away.
To blame yourself when things go wrong.
Your brain will always offer these thoughts to you.
You see, your brain thinks in probability, not possibility.
It is using every failure, pain point, or negative experience against you.
To protect you, prevent you from feeling negative feelings.
But the goal is for you to experience all of the feelings.
You can’t experience joy without pain.
If you’re not experiencing pain, doing things that make you uncomfortable you stay in a neutral zone.
So when you make a mistake, your brain will offer to you that it is your fault and you should feel embarrassed or ashamed.
What if you chose something different?
What if instead of that go-to thought your brain is going to offer you, you decided instead that you’re just being human.
If you acknowledge that it is just default thinking trying to keep you safe and prevent you from doing new things.
See, if you associate new things or putting yourself out there being vulnerable with fear of embarrassment or shame, you’ll stay where you are. You won’t take risks. You don’t have your own back.
If you decide instead to expect you’ll think or feel a certain way and take the action anyway, you’ll be more likely to go after what you really want.
Self rejection
I see this happen with coaching too. Someone will share how much pain they are in. Pain of feeling underutilized, of not knowing what their future is, feeling crazy because of the culture they are in, feeling used and undervalued.
They end up questioning their own capabilities, they are stressed at home, not fully present with their families, and just start to get numb or destructive with behaviors like overeating, overdrinking, over binging on tv, to find joy and avoid feeling bad.
We will talk and they will see I can help them. They want coaching. They may even know someone who has coached with me and it gives them even more assurance they can reach their goals and feel differently.
But, their default thinking creeps in.
Tells them that they need to talk to their partner first and delegate the decision to them.
Which let me say this is a sneaky way of not having your own back.
Coaching is a decision you have to make for yourself. Your partner won’t be doing the work, doesn’t know the conversation that was had, in many cases, doesn’t know just how awful you feel sometimes. But we try to avoid responsibility by delegating our power to our partners.
We think, harmlessly, that if they agree, then you’ll do it. Then if you don’t do the work or get the results you want, because you haven’t yet this is something new, you don’t take full responsibility because it was a joint decision.
We also can seek validation from our partners to tell us that we are worth the investment.
If they say I can do this, then it’s worth it, then I’m worth it.
It’s sneaky.
I’m all for communicating expenses and collaborating with your partner. My wife and I have a system, a threshold we can spend without discussing it first BUT, we also are prepared to advocate for ourselves if we really want something.
For example – when I hired my first coach, I set up a call with my potential coach and talked to my wife about it. I told her I was interested in coaching and how it would help me. I asked what amount she would be comfortable with me spending, she asked how much I thought it would be, we negotiated, and so I had that number. I was empowered to make a decision for myself and I knew even if it was a bit more, if I really believed I needed it, she trusted my ability to make a decision for myself.
So when price came up, the decision was if I wanted to work with the coach, not anything else. This is taking full responsibility for your decisions, having your back, not delegating for more time, talking to someone, checking on things. The decision is can the person help you, will it solve your problem, do you want to do it? It allows you stand in your power without delegating your power away.
I talk to my wife about this and she tells me I’m different, most people don’t think like that, but I guess that is why I’m in this work too. I want you to feel empowered to make decisions for yourself.
Because it’s your life. Only you know what you need. You don’t need to delegate your happiness, career, fulfillment, to someone or something else.
You don’t need to dismiss what you want, whether it be a coach or a new outfit or applying for a job you think is out of reach.
Having your own back is not only trusting yourself and being your own ride or die but it’s also the way you treat yourself when you make a mistake.
When you make a bad decision, flub a presentation, say the wrong thing, you don’t beat yourself up.
It’s part of the human experience.
Imagine what you can do, what you would try if you had your own back.
If you didn’t dismiss your wants and needs, didn’t blame yourself when things go wrong.
You would be unstoppable.
And friend, you are unstoppable. That’s the thing.
The only thing stopping you, is you.
That is the end of this week’s episode.
If you want to learn more about coaching, schedule a call with me at www.melissamlawrence.com. It’s an hour and it’s all about your goals and I’ll let you know if coaching can help you.
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