97. Choose Your Own Adventure
Thought work and coaching are incredible tools you can use to help you achieve pretty much anything. However, not all of us are going to want to do the same things.
We all have different goals and things we want to accomplish.
And some of us have specific focuses we’re working on which may inform which goals we select and how we choose to go about them.
For instance, one of my focuses is asking for what I want.
I choose to apply this focus to my thought work and coaching efforts.
That means in a given situation, I will often use coaching to get clear on what I want, to create courage in order to take action or make requests, and to either soothe myself or celebrate depending on whether I get the thing I was going after.
This does not mean I never use coaching to accept what is or to celebrate what’s working - I do both of those things, too.
But I’ve decided that the project, the focus, that I’m working on is asking.
My partner, Alex, on the other hand often chooses the project of acceptance.
When things don’t go the way she wants them to, the thing she works on is accepting that. She may still make requests or take action, but those aren’t her main focus. They aren’t the adventure she’s chosen for herself.
So, we have two very different projects, and as a result, we do our self reflection differently and we grow in different ways.
Neither of us are right or better. It’s just different.
So, what do you want to use coaching for? What focus or adventure sounds fun or interesting to you? What seems scary (or maybe exhilarating)?
Do you want to use coaching to love what is before you change it? Do you want to use coaching to practice asking for what you want, even when it feels terrifying AF? Or do you have a different project in mind?
Tune in this week to discover how to choose your own adventure, and why everything else becomes clearer when you do.
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WHAT YOU’LL LEARN FROM THIS EPISODE:
How we can apply the tools of coaching and thought work to completely different goals and projects than others choose.
Why having a life project or a focus that you use coaching for gives you direction when you’re not sure how to proceed in a certain situation.
Why having a project and focus can make it seem like you’re a natural at whatever your focus is, even if you don’t feel like a natural.
How to choose your focus in your coaching.
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE:
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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
This week we’re talking about choosing your own coaching adventure.
You are listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It, the podcast for ambitious, high-achieving women who are ready to stop feeling stressed about work and kiss burnout goodbye forever. Whether you’re starting a business or staying in your day job, this show will give you the coaching and guidance you need to start loving your work today. Here’s your host, Career Coach, Kori Linn.
Hello, hello, hello. Happy Wednesday. If you can hear the leaf blower in the background, I apologize. Sacramento is just the land of leaf blowers. And I don’t understand why that is, but it is. And I try to time recording my podcast to when the leaf blowers are not singing their song, but sometimes they just are singing their song all day. And today they’re singing, so I’m sorry/you’re welcome/maybe you can’t hear it at all.
Anyways Alex and I just went on a super fun adventure. So it was her birthday recently and for her birthday she likes to do fun adventures. So we went out of town, we went to Big Trees, which is an area in California. There’s actually a park called Big Trees Park. I was like, “Is the name of the city Big Trees?” The name of the city was not, but the name of the park is. And we saw these giant sequoias and it was really fun.
But this thing happened on the way there that I want to tell you all about because it relates to coaching. And what happened was the area we were going to doesn’t have great cell phone service, but we had set our GPS up ahead of time. And the GPS will keep going even if you go out of service and so I didn’t look up the directions.
I’m usually, or at least I used to be pretty prepared and think things through and be kind of higher anxiety. And I will be honest that sometimes being higher anxiety in that way means you think of more things that could go wrong and you kind of catch them. And I didn’t on this trip.
I did get the GPS set up, but I didn’t think about it too much or look up or print out or any of that the directions. And so we’re going and we’re going and we’re going and we’re almost there. We don’t have any cell phone reception and then the road is closed. The road that the GPS is telling us to go on is closed.
And so we go back, and I don’t have enough cell phone reception to reroute it, but I have just enough to like be able to see the map on my phone. So I was like, “Okay, get back on the main road and then just go.” And Alex was like, “What?”
And I was like just go and I’m going to try to see where the main road intersects with this other road which intersects with, I basically was trying to find a road that went from the main road to where our house was because I could see that picture of the map. I just couldn’t get it to route it.
And we were able to make it work. We went further on the road and into the little city that’s technically the city center of where we were staying. There was no cell phone reception there either, but I was able to just get that map picture loaded and then make the picture bigger in certain places. What’s that called? Zoom in.
I was able to zoom in and figure out like okay, I think if we get on this road and stay on this fork and then turn here we can get to the place. And we got there. And it was really interesting because, again, I think when I was more anxious the idea of letting go of that anxiety was really hard and scary because the anxiety was doing something, and that’s true.
It was doing a lot of somethings in that it was making life painful and uncomfortable and keeping me up at night. But it was also doing something in that I was a lot more prepared in some ways for certain things. But what’s interesting about this is we still figured it out.
I wasn’t as prepared as I could have been, that’s true. And being more anxious could have led me to be more prepared, that’s also true. And also we figured it out and it was fine. And even if we had had to go back into Murphy’s, which was the city before where we were going where there still was cell phone reception that would have been okay too.
It would have added 40 minutes to our arrival time, but we didn’t even need to do that. We were able to figure it out with a map. It’s such a good reminder too of like we didn’t all used to have cell phones, we didn’t all use to have GPSs, we used to have like fucking Map Quest or like actual paper maps way back in the day.
And humans have like a really incredible capacity to figure shit out. And I wanted to share that with y’all because there may be something in your life that’s not as literal and straightforward as a road being closed and you not being able to go the direction you thought you could and not actually knowing how to get where you go. But that might be like metaphorically where you’re at.
Maybe you want to get somewhere in your career and path that you thought you were going to take to get there you’ve hit a road closure and you’re like, “Fuck, I have to either go back to the last city that has Wi-Fi metaphorically or I have to get back on that main road and try to figure out a different way through.
Or for some of us in careers we’re like, “Well, I guess I have to build a new road if I want to go to over there because there are no fucking roads.” And whatever you’re working on, whatever you’re thinking about, I just want to bolster the idea that you can get to wherever you’re trying to go. Even if it’s somewhere no one’s ever been before, I believe in you.
And I can’t prove that you can get there, but I just think it’s as possible that you can as you can’t, and so why not try out some ideas and see what happens and see how close you can get?
And sometimes even when we don’t get there we get pretty close and that can be amazing. Like for going to an Airbnb you need to actually get there, pretty close kind of won’t cut it because we’re not going to camp in the road nearby. But for a lot of things in life it’s like if you have a big revenue goal and you get 97% of the way there that’s pretty fucking spectacular and absolutely worth celebrating even if you don’t get to that 100% of the revenue goal.
Okay, so that’s your micro mini lesson and then let’s move on to what I actually want to talk about today, which I’m calling choosing your own adventure or choosing your own coaching adventure. And the reason we’re doing this podcast is because I was talking, I think I was talking to Maggie Reyes, it was one of my coaches, spectacular, I talk about her all the time.
And I was talking about how my partner, and I have different life projects and I was explaining that. And she was like, “Oh my gosh, you should make a podcast on this.” So here I am, I’m making a podcast on it. So if you like this podcast, go thank Maggie Reyes.
But basically the idea is that thought work and coaching are tools that you can use to do all kinds of different things and not all of us are going to want to do the same things. And the example I was using with my partner, and I is the thought work adventure that I like to do, the project that I’ve selected is I want to use thought work to help me be more of who I am, ask for more of what I want. And either then learn how to enjoy getting that more of what I want or learn how to tolerate the discomfort of asking and not getting.
So that's the project that I am currently focusing on mostly. Now, it doesn't mean that's the only thing I do. I use thought work and coaching for all kinds of different stuff. And even if my main project is using thought work to ask for more of what I want, that doesn't mean I don't also use thought work to delight in what I already have.
It doesn't mean I don't also use thought work to accept reality because we usually do need to accept reality in order to go create something else. Because if we're in huge resistance to reality, that usually doesn't lend itself to us going and asking or creating change. It usually just leads us kind of being pissed off, in my experience. You may have a different experience.
So that's me, but my partner, what I perceive her life project to be, and I think she'd feel comfortable with me sharing this with you. And I'll double check before I publish, don't worry, y'all. We will respect Alex's privacy. Her main project is like kind of accepting life. Finding acceptance in what happens.
So those are like really different projects, right? And because we have these different projects, these different focuses, we each use our internal growth and our reflection differently than each other. And it doesn't mean, one of our projects is right, it doesn't mean the other one's wrong. It doesn't mean that either project is better, they're just different projects.
And so I wanted to point that out because there's a lot of different projects you can use coaching for. There's the literal different projects, like having a certain career or making a certain amount of money, having a certain relationship, or getting married, moving to Portugal. There's all kinds of different projects you could be using it to do specific things you're trying to create.
And then within those projects there's different approaches, right? Like are you going to use thought work to accept the job you have unconditionally? Or are you going to use thought work to love your partner unconditionally? Or are you going to use thought work to practice asking for what you want, even when it feels fucking terrifying?
Not that you can't do both. You can totally do both, you can totally do multiple. But when you have a specific focus or a specific project like that, it gives you direction when you're not sure what to do in a certain situation.
So take, for me, for instance there's a lot of times when I would be tempted to just not say anything. Which is interesting because I think a lot of people see me as the person who is willing to say something. Like I'm the person at a restaurant who's willing to ask to taste three wines and then say I don't like any of these, can I taste a few more?
And I think other people think I feel like perfectly fine and comfortable with doing that. And the reality is, y’all, I do not feel fine or comfortable most of the time when I'm doing that. I feel willing. I feel willing to do that because again, that's my project I've chosen, is I will ask for what I want. And if I get told no, then I will use coaching to tolerate that and to soothe myself and to decide what I want to do next.
So I actually think it's really interesting because I think sometimes the things that other people perceive about us, the things they think are easy for us, sometimes they're not easy for us. Sometimes they see us doing that thing all the time because that's our project right?
And that may happen for you. There may be something you're working on that you haven't even articulated to yourself is your project. And so you may be struggling and trying so hard at it and there may be other people in your life who just think you're a fucking natural at it. And that is so fascinating.
It's such an interesting idea about the difference between what we perceive about each other versus what we perceive about ourselves. And I think this is also really interesting for you to think about with other people in your life. So it's not just that they may perceive you being really good at something you're actually having to learn to do and doing a lot of effort to do.
There may be other people in your life where you perceive them as being a natural or something or you perceive them as being really good at it and it may be their project. It may be the thing that they're working hard to cultivate. But from your side, they're just always doing it, they seem to be so good at it.
So even though this podcast is really about you choosing your adventure and being clear with yourself about what that is, I think there's a bonus lesson here as well that oftentimes when we compare ourselves to other people, we're comparing what we know about ourselves on the inside to what we see about them on the outside. And I think that can result in us feeling super lonely and like everyone else is doing better and like we don't belong.
When the reality is I think a lot of our internal experiences actually have a lot of overlap. And I think the way we perceive others can be a really beautiful thing because we can often like see beautiful things about them that they're not seeing about themselves. And that's something to keep in mind for ourselves as well too. We know our internal experience, but we don't know what we look like from the outside.
Okay, that was like a micro different teaching. So to bring it back for you, what I want you to kind of think about is like what's your project? Do you already have a project that you just haven't even made explicit to yourself yet? Do you not have a project and you want to pick one and make it explicit and make that a thing you focus on?
Something that gets talked a lot about in the coaching space is the idea of constraint. I don't think I actually have a full podcast on this, but I think Kara has one if you want to go listen to hers at Unfuck Your Brain. And it's a really cool idea because when we try to do everything, it's hard to do anything.
Yes, I get it, life is full of lots of little things, but when we try to do everything, and specifically when we try to do everything well or when we're trying to grow in every area of our lives, like our careers, our relationships, our relationship to our body, our health activities, like blah, blah, blah. Our relationship with our parents, our relationship with our kids, our friendships, our hobbies.
When we're trying to grow in every area or do everything, that can make it hard to do anything or do anything well. And I think it can be true also with the project thing. Sometimes we try to have too many projects at the same time and then it can be very confusing about what kind of coaching we should even be doing with a situation that's come up.
Whereas if you pick a focus, if you pick an adventure that you're on with your growth or your coaching, it can help you kind of think through what you want to do or how you want to tackle that situation.
And another way to think about this could be core values. So core values are something that people talk about all over, like in personal growth and business. Figuring out your core values and then behaving according to those can be a really great frame. But even with core values sometimes it's like, oh, we have so many, and which one do we pick? And how do we prioritize?
And so I think like picking a little project to focus on, picking a little coaching adventure to work on and seeing things through that lens can be incredibly useful. So what do you want your coaching adventure to be? What do you want your little project to be? And when you think about everything in your life that you're kind of working on right now, how do things shift when you think about it through the lens of that project?
So, for me, having the lens of the thing I am focused on is learning how to ask for what I want and then handle whatever happens afterwards, gives me so much focus to like, if I want to be on someone's podcast and that's my project, then my job is to ask. And it doesn't mean I have to ask for everything. It's just one way of thinking about this is a way I could move this forward.
And also the project, I think, can also really determine what success is. And I don't want success to just be getting what I want because I don't want to get what I want at whatever means necessary. That's not my project. My project is more about owning my desire, learning how to speak my desire, learning how to share my desire with others, seeing if other people are in line with my desire and they want to do the thing too. Whether it's being a guest on their podcast or are they willing to bring me those samples of wine, whatever it is.
And then also, for me a big part of it is also learning how to tolerate it when I don't get what I want. How do I be with myself and the disappointment of that? How do I celebrate myself for asking, but make it as much of a success even if I don't get what I want? So that's like my project. And that gives me a framework to handle all kinds of stuff in my life.
Again, it doesn't mean I ask for everything. There's still a lot of stuff I don't ask for because I'm still a person with a brain and I can't do everything. And there's still stuff that I'm like, “I'm too scared to ask for that one for now.” So I can just love myself anyways and work on the project in other areas.
And then for Alex, and I don't know her internal experience, because this is really more about how I perceive her. But I think a lot of what her project is, is about accepting what happens. And so when things come up, a lot of her work is about figuring out what's going on for her, and then how to make peace with that and how to be there for herself. And she doesn't necessarily ask for the situation to change.
Now, sometimes she does, right? And I think her and I being in partnership together means we get a little interested in each other's projects. So sometimes me being in partnership with her, I'm like, “You know what? Maybe this time I don't ask. Maybe this time I just embrace accepting and I learn how to be with what is.” And I think for her sometimes being with me, she's like, “Oh, I could ask.”
So as much as this is about picking your project and letting that be something that can help guide you, there is also something to be said for knowing when to step away from your project and when to try on a different task. Or not task, but like a different frame or a different way of doing things.
And I think, actually, for me and a lot of y'all, sometimes we have sort of a project that we're not aware of for a really long time. And then it becomes very habitual, very routine. And so sometimes what coaching also can help us do is discover a new project and discover a new way of being.
I think, for me, like past me and a lot of my clients, our project is trying to make everything in the world go according to what we think it should be. And that may sound like a good project, but it's very deeply exhausting and difficult and never ending. And it tends to result in a lot of dissatisfaction.
So that may be an example of a project that you release, that you step away from. That you go, “You know what? I've worked on that for 20 fucking years, and thank you to past me who worked on it so diligently, and it's not the project I want to focus on anymore.”
So let's take a moment to normalize quitting because sometimes when we've had a project for a long time, or a focus for a long time, or a certain kind of growth we've been going after for a long time, it may feel very disorienting and unsettling to step away from it. And you're also allowed to.
Okay, so all of that being said, take a moment and write down the unintentional projects you've been carrying around. Like what are the unintentional projects, and adventures, and efforts? And they probably don't feel like adventurous to you, they probably feel like burdens, right?
So what are the unintentional, ooh, let's even call them like what are the unintentional commitments you're carrying around? And then which of those are working for you? And which ones aren't? And which one single project or adventure do you want to choose to carry instead? What single project or adventure do you want to choose to use as like a framework for the next little chapter of your life?
And you're not getting married to it, you don't have to have it forever. But I think it's a really compelling idea to try on and to see what's different for your life when you release all those old projects, all those old commitments, and potentially burdens, that you've been carrying around and try a new one on instead.
And try one on on purpose because so often the little projects that we have are things we've been taught by culture that we think we have to have. Like we think we have to have a clean house. Or we think we have to have our kids be a certain way. Or we think we have to parent in a certain way. Or we think we have to have our career look a certain way. And we don't.
It may feel more comfortable to go with the flow of culture because it can feel very disorienting and unsettling, again, to step away from that. And you're also allowed to, and you get to choose what projects you're doing. And I realize that there can be times in life when we feel like we just don't have any choice about what's going on, but I really just want to remind you that you do.
You have free will. People might have thoughts about you and there may be consequences sometimes, but you get to do whatever the fuck you want for whatever reason you want. So choose an adventure, go on it, see what happens and report back.
And if you want support and guidance on how to do this, come have a consult call with me. I will tell you all about how to work with me if that's something you want to do. Or we can just talk through this together and get you to a good place with a good little adventure to go on.
And also if you want to spend six months doing this kind of work with an incredible community of wonderful humans, women, and non-binary humans, sign up for the Satisfied As Fuck waitlist and get in the next group of Satisfied As Fuck because that group is, first of all, just incredible. I love all the humans in there so much.
And also doing this work in community just speeds up everything. And it's so incredible getting to see the behind the scenes of other people being coached. I just think it provides so many breakthroughs at such a high speed. So if that's something you would like to do, come sign up for the Satisfied As Fuck waitlist.
All right y'all, that's what I got for you. Have an incredible week, I'll talk to you next time. Bye.
Thank you for listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It. We'll have another episode for you next week. And in the meantime, if you're feeling super fired up, head on over to korilinn.com for more guidance and resources.
You are listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It, the podcast for ambitious, high-achieving women who are ready to stop feeling stressed about work and kiss burnout goodbye forever. Whether you’re starting a business or staying in your day job, this show will give you the coaching and guidance you need to start loving your work today. Here’s your host, Career Coach, Kori Linn.
Hello, hello, hello. Happy Wednesday. If you can hear the leaf blower in the background, I apologize. Sacramento is just the land of leaf blowers. And I don’t understand why that is, but it is. And I try to time recording my podcast to when the leaf blowers are not singing their song, but sometimes they just are singing their song all day. And today they’re singing, so I’m sorry/you’re welcome/maybe you can’t hear it at all.
Anyways Alex and I just went on a super fun adventure. So it was her birthday recently and for her birthday she likes to do fun adventures. So we went out of town, we went to Big Trees, which is an area in California. There’s actually a park called Big Trees Park. I was like, “Is the name of the city Big Trees?” The name of the city was not, but the name of the park is. And we saw these giant sequoias and it was really fun.
But this thing happened on the way there that I want to tell you all about because it relates to coaching. And what happened was the area we were going to doesn’t have great cell phone service, but we had set our GPS up ahead of time. And the GPS will keep going even if you go out of service and so I didn’t look up the directions.
I’m usually, or at least I used to be pretty prepared and think things through and be kind of higher anxiety. And I will be honest that sometimes being higher anxiety in that way means you think of more things that could go wrong and you kind of catch them. And I didn’t on this trip.
I did get the GPS set up, but I didn’t think about it too much or look up or print out or any of that the directions. And so we’re going and we’re going and we’re going and we’re almost there. We don’t have any cell phone reception and then the road is closed. The road that the GPS is telling us to go on is closed.
And so we go back, and I don’t have enough cell phone reception to reroute it, but I have just enough to like be able to see the map on my phone. So I was like, “Okay, get back on the main road and then just go.” And Alex was like, “What?”
And I was like just go and I’m going to try to see where the main road intersects with this other road which intersects with, I basically was trying to find a road that went from the main road to where our house was because I could see that picture of the map. I just couldn’t get it to route it.
And we were able to make it work. We went further on the road and into the little city that’s technically the city center of where we were staying. There was no cell phone reception there either, but I was able to just get that map picture loaded and then make the picture bigger in certain places. What’s that called? Zoom in.
I was able to zoom in and figure out like okay, I think if we get on this road and stay on this fork and then turn here we can get to the place. And we got there. And it was really interesting because, again, I think when I was more anxious the idea of letting go of that anxiety was really hard and scary because the anxiety was doing something, and that’s true.
It was doing a lot of somethings in that it was making life painful and uncomfortable and keeping me up at night. But it was also doing something in that I was a lot more prepared in some ways for certain things. But what’s interesting about this is we still figured it out.
I wasn’t as prepared as I could have been, that’s true. And being more anxious could have led me to be more prepared, that’s also true. And also we figured it out and it was fine. And even if we had had to go back into Murphy’s, which was the city before where we were going where there still was cell phone reception that would have been okay too.
It would have added 40 minutes to our arrival time, but we didn’t even need to do that. We were able to figure it out with a map. It’s such a good reminder too of like we didn’t all used to have cell phones, we didn’t all use to have GPSs, we used to have like fucking Map Quest or like actual paper maps way back in the day.
And humans have like a really incredible capacity to figure shit out. And I wanted to share that with y’all because there may be something in your life that’s not as literal and straightforward as a road being closed and you not being able to go the direction you thought you could and not actually knowing how to get where you go. But that might be like metaphorically where you’re at.
Maybe you want to get somewhere in your career and path that you thought you were going to take to get there you’ve hit a road closure and you’re like, “Fuck, I have to either go back to the last city that has Wi-Fi metaphorically or I have to get back on that main road and try to figure out a different way through.
Or for some of us in careers we’re like, “Well, I guess I have to build a new road if I want to go to over there because there are no fucking roads.” And whatever you’re working on, whatever you’re thinking about, I just want to bolster the idea that you can get to wherever you’re trying to go. Even if it’s somewhere no one’s ever been before, I believe in you.
And I can’t prove that you can get there, but I just think it’s as possible that you can as you can’t, and so why not try out some ideas and see what happens and see how close you can get?
And sometimes even when we don’t get there we get pretty close and that can be amazing. Like for going to an Airbnb you need to actually get there, pretty close kind of won’t cut it because we’re not going to camp in the road nearby. But for a lot of things in life it’s like if you have a big revenue goal and you get 97% of the way there that’s pretty fucking spectacular and absolutely worth celebrating even if you don’t get to that 100% of the revenue goal.
Okay, so that’s your micro mini lesson and then let’s move on to what I actually want to talk about today, which I’m calling choosing your own adventure or choosing your own coaching adventure. And the reason we’re doing this podcast is because I was talking, I think I was talking to Maggie Reyes, it was one of my coaches, spectacular, I talk about her all the time.
And I was talking about how my partner, and I have different life projects and I was explaining that. And she was like, “Oh my gosh, you should make a podcast on this.” So here I am, I’m making a podcast on it. So if you like this podcast, go thank Maggie Reyes.
But basically the idea is that thought work and coaching are tools that you can use to do all kinds of different things and not all of us are going to want to do the same things. And the example I was using with my partner, and I is the thought work adventure that I like to do, the project that I’ve selected is I want to use thought work to help me be more of who I am, ask for more of what I want. And either then learn how to enjoy getting that more of what I want or learn how to tolerate the discomfort of asking and not getting.
So that's the project that I am currently focusing on mostly. Now, it doesn't mean that's the only thing I do. I use thought work and coaching for all kinds of different stuff. And even if my main project is using thought work to ask for more of what I want, that doesn't mean I don't also use thought work to delight in what I already have.
It doesn't mean I don't also use thought work to accept reality because we usually do need to accept reality in order to go create something else. Because if we're in huge resistance to reality, that usually doesn't lend itself to us going and asking or creating change. It usually just leads us kind of being pissed off, in my experience. You may have a different experience.
So that's me, but my partner, what I perceive her life project to be, and I think she'd feel comfortable with me sharing this with you. And I'll double check before I publish, don't worry, y'all. We will respect Alex's privacy. Her main project is like kind of accepting life. Finding acceptance in what happens.
So those are like really different projects, right? And because we have these different projects, these different focuses, we each use our internal growth and our reflection differently than each other. And it doesn't mean, one of our projects is right, it doesn't mean the other one's wrong. It doesn't mean that either project is better, they're just different projects.
And so I wanted to point that out because there's a lot of different projects you can use coaching for. There's the literal different projects, like having a certain career or making a certain amount of money, having a certain relationship, or getting married, moving to Portugal. There's all kinds of different projects you could be using it to do specific things you're trying to create.
And then within those projects there's different approaches, right? Like are you going to use thought work to accept the job you have unconditionally? Or are you going to use thought work to love your partner unconditionally? Or are you going to use thought work to practice asking for what you want, even when it feels fucking terrifying?
Not that you can't do both. You can totally do both, you can totally do multiple. But when you have a specific focus or a specific project like that, it gives you direction when you're not sure what to do in a certain situation.
So take, for me, for instance there's a lot of times when I would be tempted to just not say anything. Which is interesting because I think a lot of people see me as the person who is willing to say something. Like I'm the person at a restaurant who's willing to ask to taste three wines and then say I don't like any of these, can I taste a few more?
And I think other people think I feel like perfectly fine and comfortable with doing that. And the reality is, y’all, I do not feel fine or comfortable most of the time when I'm doing that. I feel willing. I feel willing to do that because again, that's my project I've chosen, is I will ask for what I want. And if I get told no, then I will use coaching to tolerate that and to soothe myself and to decide what I want to do next.
So I actually think it's really interesting because I think sometimes the things that other people perceive about us, the things they think are easy for us, sometimes they're not easy for us. Sometimes they see us doing that thing all the time because that's our project right?
And that may happen for you. There may be something you're working on that you haven't even articulated to yourself is your project. And so you may be struggling and trying so hard at it and there may be other people in your life who just think you're a fucking natural at it. And that is so fascinating.
It's such an interesting idea about the difference between what we perceive about each other versus what we perceive about ourselves. And I think this is also really interesting for you to think about with other people in your life. So it's not just that they may perceive you being really good at something you're actually having to learn to do and doing a lot of effort to do.
There may be other people in your life where you perceive them as being a natural or something or you perceive them as being really good at it and it may be their project. It may be the thing that they're working hard to cultivate. But from your side, they're just always doing it, they seem to be so good at it.
So even though this podcast is really about you choosing your adventure and being clear with yourself about what that is, I think there's a bonus lesson here as well that oftentimes when we compare ourselves to other people, we're comparing what we know about ourselves on the inside to what we see about them on the outside. And I think that can result in us feeling super lonely and like everyone else is doing better and like we don't belong.
When the reality is I think a lot of our internal experiences actually have a lot of overlap. And I think the way we perceive others can be a really beautiful thing because we can often like see beautiful things about them that they're not seeing about themselves. And that's something to keep in mind for ourselves as well too. We know our internal experience, but we don't know what we look like from the outside.
Okay, that was like a micro different teaching. So to bring it back for you, what I want you to kind of think about is like what's your project? Do you already have a project that you just haven't even made explicit to yourself yet? Do you not have a project and you want to pick one and make it explicit and make that a thing you focus on?
Something that gets talked a lot about in the coaching space is the idea of constraint. I don't think I actually have a full podcast on this, but I think Kara has one if you want to go listen to hers at Unfuck Your Brain. And it's a really cool idea because when we try to do everything, it's hard to do anything.
Yes, I get it, life is full of lots of little things, but when we try to do everything, and specifically when we try to do everything well or when we're trying to grow in every area of our lives, like our careers, our relationships, our relationship to our body, our health activities, like blah, blah, blah. Our relationship with our parents, our relationship with our kids, our friendships, our hobbies.
When we're trying to grow in every area or do everything, that can make it hard to do anything or do anything well. And I think it can be true also with the project thing. Sometimes we try to have too many projects at the same time and then it can be very confusing about what kind of coaching we should even be doing with a situation that's come up.
Whereas if you pick a focus, if you pick an adventure that you're on with your growth or your coaching, it can help you kind of think through what you want to do or how you want to tackle that situation.
And another way to think about this could be core values. So core values are something that people talk about all over, like in personal growth and business. Figuring out your core values and then behaving according to those can be a really great frame. But even with core values sometimes it's like, oh, we have so many, and which one do we pick? And how do we prioritize?
And so I think like picking a little project to focus on, picking a little coaching adventure to work on and seeing things through that lens can be incredibly useful. So what do you want your coaching adventure to be? What do you want your little project to be? And when you think about everything in your life that you're kind of working on right now, how do things shift when you think about it through the lens of that project?
So, for me, having the lens of the thing I am focused on is learning how to ask for what I want and then handle whatever happens afterwards, gives me so much focus to like, if I want to be on someone's podcast and that's my project, then my job is to ask. And it doesn't mean I have to ask for everything. It's just one way of thinking about this is a way I could move this forward.
And also the project, I think, can also really determine what success is. And I don't want success to just be getting what I want because I don't want to get what I want at whatever means necessary. That's not my project. My project is more about owning my desire, learning how to speak my desire, learning how to share my desire with others, seeing if other people are in line with my desire and they want to do the thing too. Whether it's being a guest on their podcast or are they willing to bring me those samples of wine, whatever it is.
And then also, for me a big part of it is also learning how to tolerate it when I don't get what I want. How do I be with myself and the disappointment of that? How do I celebrate myself for asking, but make it as much of a success even if I don't get what I want? So that's like my project. And that gives me a framework to handle all kinds of stuff in my life.
Again, it doesn't mean I ask for everything. There's still a lot of stuff I don't ask for because I'm still a person with a brain and I can't do everything. And there's still stuff that I'm like, “I'm too scared to ask for that one for now.” So I can just love myself anyways and work on the project in other areas.
And then for Alex, and I don't know her internal experience, because this is really more about how I perceive her. But I think a lot of what her project is, is about accepting what happens. And so when things come up, a lot of her work is about figuring out what's going on for her, and then how to make peace with that and how to be there for herself. And she doesn't necessarily ask for the situation to change.
Now, sometimes she does, right? And I think her and I being in partnership together means we get a little interested in each other's projects. So sometimes me being in partnership with her, I'm like, “You know what? Maybe this time I don't ask. Maybe this time I just embrace accepting and I learn how to be with what is.” And I think for her sometimes being with me, she's like, “Oh, I could ask.”
So as much as this is about picking your project and letting that be something that can help guide you, there is also something to be said for knowing when to step away from your project and when to try on a different task. Or not task, but like a different frame or a different way of doing things.
And I think, actually, for me and a lot of y'all, sometimes we have sort of a project that we're not aware of for a really long time. And then it becomes very habitual, very routine. And so sometimes what coaching also can help us do is discover a new project and discover a new way of being.
I think, for me, like past me and a lot of my clients, our project is trying to make everything in the world go according to what we think it should be. And that may sound like a good project, but it's very deeply exhausting and difficult and never ending. And it tends to result in a lot of dissatisfaction.
So that may be an example of a project that you release, that you step away from. That you go, “You know what? I've worked on that for 20 fucking years, and thank you to past me who worked on it so diligently, and it's not the project I want to focus on anymore.”
So let's take a moment to normalize quitting because sometimes when we've had a project for a long time, or a focus for a long time, or a certain kind of growth we've been going after for a long time, it may feel very disorienting and unsettling to step away from it. And you're also allowed to.
Okay, so all of that being said, take a moment and write down the unintentional projects you've been carrying around. Like what are the unintentional projects, and adventures, and efforts? And they probably don't feel like adventurous to you, they probably feel like burdens, right?
So what are the unintentional, ooh, let's even call them like what are the unintentional commitments you're carrying around? And then which of those are working for you? And which ones aren't? And which one single project or adventure do you want to choose to carry instead? What single project or adventure do you want to choose to use as like a framework for the next little chapter of your life?
And you're not getting married to it, you don't have to have it forever. But I think it's a really compelling idea to try on and to see what's different for your life when you release all those old projects, all those old commitments, and potentially burdens, that you've been carrying around and try a new one on instead.
And try one on on purpose because so often the little projects that we have are things we've been taught by culture that we think we have to have. Like we think we have to have a clean house. Or we think we have to have our kids be a certain way. Or we think we have to parent in a certain way. Or we think we have to have our career look a certain way. And we don't.
It may feel more comfortable to go with the flow of culture because it can feel very disorienting and unsettling, again, to step away from that. And you're also allowed to, and you get to choose what projects you're doing. And I realize that there can be times in life when we feel like we just don't have any choice about what's going on, but I really just want to remind you that you do.
You have free will. People might have thoughts about you and there may be consequences sometimes, but you get to do whatever the fuck you want for whatever reason you want. So choose an adventure, go on it, see what happens and report back.
And if you want support and guidance on how to do this, come have a consult call with me. I will tell you all about how to work with me if that's something you want to do. Or we can just talk through this together and get you to a good place with a good little adventure to go on.
And also if you want to spend six months doing this kind of work with an incredible community of wonderful humans, women, and non-binary humans, sign up for the Satisfied As Fuck waitlist and get in the next group of Satisfied As Fuck because that group is, first of all, just incredible. I love all the humans in there so much.
And also doing this work in community just speeds up everything. And it's so incredible getting to see the behind the scenes of other people being coached. I just think it provides so many breakthroughs at such a high speed. So if that's something you would like to do, come sign up for the Satisfied As Fuck waitlist.
All right y'all, that's what I got for you. Have an incredible week, I'll talk to you next time. Bye.
Thank you for listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It. We'll have another episode for you next week. And in the meantime, if you're feeling super fired up, head on over to korilinn.com for more guidance and resources.
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