102. How to Move Forward
In the Satisfied AF Group Coaching Program recently, one of my clients shared a win, focusing on where they’re at and where they want to go from there, instead of focusing on what they hadn’t done.
They said they often get stuck dwelling on the past, everything they didn’t do, and how they fell short. But not this time.
This is so common because our human brain has a negativity bias, and left to its own devices, it loves to focus on everything that’s not working and all the ways we’ve failed.
We can easily get stuck in this way of thinking, marinating on what we didn’t do instead of focusing on how we want to move forward from where we are.
This week, we’re going to discuss how to move forward from where you are, even if you’re not where you wanted to be.
One key step here is to notice where you are, accept it (not always fun!), and then ask, “Where do I want to go from here?”
When we’re hyper-focused on our imperfections, thinking about all the ways we fell short, we’re not going anywhere or doing anything useful.
But once you learn how to accept where you are, appreciate the good things about it, and actually go from there, you’ll be much more effective and have way more fun along the way!
Tune in this week to learn how to reorient yourself in a way that will always make forward movement possible, no matter where you currently find yourself.
If you want to supercharge your capacity to create a life that blows your mind, I have some one-on-one coaching slots opening up soon. Send me an email and let's talk about it or click here to schedule a call with me and we’ll see if we’re a good fit to start working together!
If there are topics y’all want me to talk about on the podcast, feel free to write in and let me know by clicking here! I’d love to hear from you!
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WHAT YOU’LL LEARN FROM THIS EPISODE:
How looking at where you are and deciding where you want to go from there orients you to the most successful route forward.
Where you might be thinking in a past-oriented way without realizing.
Why our brains love to obsess about things that have already happened that we can’t control.
Why focusing on the shortfalls of the past stops you from moving forward.
Why you can’t move forward from the place you think you should be, but only from where you actually are.
What you can do to disrupt the habit of looking back and thinking you should be further ahead, so you can start moving forward.
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE:
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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
This week we’re talking about how to move forward.
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.
Hey, hey, hey y'all. Happy Wednesday. As I'm recording this, my 100th podcast episode just came out. By the time y'all hear this, I think this is episode 102, but right now I'm just reveling in having created 100 episodes of this podcast. And thank you so much to all of you for being here and for listening to the podcast.
And I also just want to say thank you so much to Digital Freedom Productions, who is my podcast production team. Also y'all, if you follow me on Instagram, you already saw this, but they sent me flowers. Digital Freedom Productions sent me a beautiful bouquet to celebrate the 100th episode. And I just think that's really fun.
And I would just invite y'all, like when you're doing work and collaborating with people, like hiring contractors, all that kind of stuff, and this doesn't just have to be in your work life. This could be in your home life or in other areas, right, in your relationships. Whoever you're choosing to collaborate with in life and work and all the things, choose people who celebrate you.
Like we can use coaching to have a good experience of anything. And also, I think there's something really beautiful about choosing people it's easy to love, who love you, who support you, who celebrate you without you having to coach yourself about it.
Again, coaching is an incredible tool that allows us to manage whatever is going on in our lives, allows us to manage whatever is going on in the world. And also our time on Earth and each day is limited. Yes, time is a construct, but the amount of hours we have in a day is limited and while we could coach on everything and anything, it's also really nice to set ourselves up in life with things that are just really yummy and delicious, with people who celebrate us, with people who delight in our wins.
And don't worry, life will still be 50/50 and there will still be shit that goes wrong. People don't always act loyal and loving, things don't always go according to plan. So there will still be plenty of opportunities for growth and plenty of chances to coach ourselves. We don't have to set ourselves up with a bunch of difficulty, so we have something to coach on, that's not required.
I mean, if you want to do a bunch of difficult things, I support you. I'm happy to coach you on it. Come join one of my programs or come join my one-on-one coaching program. And also there's something so beautiful about just giving yourself the gift of something that is already working really well. Giving yourself the gift of building connections, and relationships, and collaborations with people who will surprise you in beautiful and kind ways.
Because Digital Freedom Productions, like the team, they messaged me and they were like, “How are you going to celebrate your 100th episode?” And I was just like, “Oh.” Y'all, you know, I am the queen of let's celebrate what's working, and also sometimes I forget to celebrate what's working.
So they messaged and they were like, “How are you celebrating?” And I was like, “Oh, I mean, I posted about it on Instagram.” And they were just like, “You need to celebrate.” And I was like, “How am I going to celebrate?” So I've actually been thinking about that.
My go-to way of celebrating is go out to dinner, have a glass of fancy wine, that kind of thing. I've actually not been drinking any fancy wine because I've been working on my sleep a little and as part of my work on that I decided to just cut alcohol out for a little bit. But you know what? I'm still going to celebrate this with a glass of fancy wine, I just didn't do it on the day the podcast came out, I'm just going to reserve that celebration.
But also celebrating, I'm a big fan of celebrating as something we do with our words, right? And so me coming on and talking about it with you, that's also a way of celebrating. It doesn't all just have to be like parties and confetti and rainbows. It can also just be like noticing and talking about the achievement.
I think, honestly, sometimes people don't celebrate because they're like, well, I don't really want to have a glass of champagne, or I don't really want to go out to dinner. But there are as many ways of celebrating as there are grains of sand in the world, and that's a lot. I don't have data on that because I didn't know I was going to say that, so I didn't look the facts up ahead of time. But that's a lot, basically.
There's so many different ways you could celebrate anything. And if you're not sure how to celebrate, I invite you just to try some shit. Also, we have whole podcast episodes on celebration, go check those out. That's not even what we're talking about today though.
What we're talking about today is how to move forward. And the reason we're talking about it is because in the Satisfied As Fuck group coaching program recently, one of my clients shared a win about how they were focusing on like this is where I'm at, where do I want to go from here? Instead of focusing on what they hadn't done.
And I loved that they brought this up. And I was like, oh, I love this idea, can I do a podcast on this? And of course, I said it's always okay to say no because privacy matters and consent matters. But this person was like, hell yeah, do a podcast episode on it.
So that's what I'm here to talk about with y'all today. This person was talking about how so often they get stuck dwelling on the past, dwelling on what they didn't do or like the ways that they fell short. And this is so common, right? We talk all the time on the podcast about how the human brain has a negativity bias. And the negativity bias, left to its own devices, will just tell you everything that's not working.
And one of the specific things it likes to focus on about what's not working is what we didn't do. What we didn't do, how we fell short, all the ways we failed. And we can get really stuck there. And I think that can kind of lead to what I've referred to before as the pit of despair. We can get into the fuck-it effect, which we have a whole episode on that.
But basically, we can get stuck in this place of like I didn't do XYZ and then we don't move forward. So when I said that on this week's episode we're going to talk about how to move forward, the key to doing that is to notice where you are, accept it, which is not always fun. And then be like, where do I want to fucking go from here?
When we get stuck thinking about what we didn't do, or the ways we failed, or the ways we fell short, we're not going anywhere. We're like just sitting down stuck, like hyper focused on our imperfections. And I get the urge to do that, again, I also have a human brain, I also have a negativity bias. And there is something to be said for taking time to evaluate like, hmm, what went well? What didn't go well? What would I like to do differently? But that's not what we're talking about here.
What we're talking about here is as you're going about whatever it is you're doing in your life or your career, right, this is technically a work podcast, even though we talk about all the things. So let's use a work example, right? Like if you have been working on a project and it's time to check in with your direct manager, your brain might want to focus on all the things you didn't do.
One of the things we talk about in this podcast is focusing on what's working. And we're still going to look at what's not working, but first we look at what is working because that primes our brain up to not get trapped in the negativity bias. But the purpose of this podcast is little bit different, it's looking at where you are, starting from where you are, and then deciding where you want to go from there. Versus getting hooked into what didn't get done.
And this does a few things, but I think the most important thing it does is it gets us oriented in the present and into the future. What didn't I do? What didn't go well? What are the ways I fell short? That's all past oriented. That's all focused on things you can't directly control anymore because they're done, right?
It's so interesting, life with a brain, because the brain, I don't know if yours does this, but mine so often likes to obsess about things that have already happened that I can't directly control. And the specific way my brain obsesses about these things I get the idea, like I have this suspicion that it thinks I could still impact it.
And yeah, I'm talking about my brain like it's a separate person because that's the kind of relationship I have with my brain, is I treat it like it's a separate person. There's a lot of us in here, okay?
So what I say when I'm saying that, like what I mean when I say that is sometimes I'll walk by one of those grates on the ground and I'll have my phone in my hand and I will not drop my phone into the grate. But then for like the next 10 minutes my brain will be like, “But what if you had? But what if you had dropped your phone into the grate? But what have you had?” I didn't even drop it, but my brain is still thinking about the past as though it could happen differently.
Now, in that example, my brain is thinking about the past and nothing went wrong, and my brain is still like, “But what if something had gone wrong?” Right? It's like kind of trolling me. But I think our brains often do the opposite thing, right? Where we didn't do something, or we fell short or whatever and then our brain keeps replaying it as though we can directly influence it anymore.
But we can't, right? The past is over and done, even if it was five minutes ago. And I know that's hard for the brain to handle and it like hurts, hurts to think about, but the past is over and done. Even if it was five minutes ago you cannot change it directly anymore.
But when you think about like well, where am I now and where do I want to go? That's what you can directly impact. The past is over, but the now is wide open and available to you. But if in the now all you're doing is thinking about what you didn't do, or how you fell short, or the ways you failed, your I'm not going to do anything in the now. And then five minutes from now your brain is going to look back at this moment and want to lament about that. And then this is like a vicious cycle that's going to keep going, right?
So thinking about like where am I, where do I want to go from here reorients us to the present, it reorients us to what we can control, what we can impact directly versus what's actually over and done with. Even if we're still dealing with the impacts of it directly, we can't impact it anymore if it's in the past.
Another reason that this is really useful, here's the thing, we're all human beings. So we're all going to be imperfect. We're all going to have fuck ups. We're all going to make mistakes. We're all going to have failures, there's always going to be stuff we didn't do.
Sometimes there's stuff we didn't do because shit just did not go according to plan. Sometimes there's stuff we didn't do because we tried to do way too many things, many more things that aren't humanly possible. Sometimes there's stuff we didn't do because we had a cold. Sometimes there's stuff we didn't do because we accidentally watched two hours of TikToks.
So I don't really think it actually matters why you didn't do the stuff you didn't do. Now, again, if you want to do an evaluation about how you're working, how you're running your schedule and kind of make some choices about what's working and what's not working, that's a beautiful thing to do. But that's not what we're talking about here.
What we're talking about here is how to be able to reorient yourself to the present moment and to the destination you're trying to achieve. You cannot be focused on what you didn't do and the ways that you fell short and also be in the current present moment and be strategically planning for how you're going to get to the destination you want to get to. You can't do both of those at the same time.
And again, life with a brain, the brain is going to want to focus on what you didn't do. The brain is going to want to focus on the flaws, the failures, the fuck ups, right? Nothing wrong with your brain if it wants to do that, negativity bias, we all have it, right? But that's not going to help you get to where you want to go, it's not going to help you move forward. It's appropriate when you're doing an evaluation. If you're not actively doing an evaluation, it's not helpful and you need to learn to let that shit go.
Now, easier said than done, right? But this, like everything we talk about here, is a habit. If you've been doing this for years and years and maybe decades, then of course your brain's habit is going to always be to look at what you didn't do, the ways you failed, blah, blah, blah, the ways you fell short. And so what you need to learn to do is to reorient yourself.
You need to learn to disrupt that habit and put a new habit in. And this can be as easy as saying to yourself like, okay, thank you for that report about what I didn't do. But now in this moment, the fastest and most effective way to get to our destination is to look around and find out where we are and then make a plan to get to where we want to go.
We will look at the things we didn't do, and the ways things went wrong and that failures and fuck ups, we will look at all of those during our evaluation. But we're not going to obsess about them right now because that won't actually help us. That's not going to help us go where we want to go. That's not going to help us move forward. That's not going to help us achieve our actual goal.
And I don't know about for you, but for me tying it to achieving the actual goal is helpful because that gives me something to like refocus my brain's attention on and to reorient to, right? It can be very tempting to just obsess about what we didn't do right and beat ourselves up.
But when we're paying attention and we tune in and we're being logical, we're like, wait, the only reason I wanted to do it well, and I wish I had done everything, is so I can get to my goal. So I can't go back and change the fact that I didn't do those things, but I can still get to my goal, so I need to reorient to how to get to the goal and that's going to be much more useful than this thing where my brain replays what I didn't do like it's like a home movie.
I also mentioned acceptance, and I was like this isn't always our favorite thing to do. And if it's your favorite thing, good job. But it's not always my favorite thing. When I am in that headspace where I really wish things were different, or I really wish I had done things differently, I had done more, I had anticipated something, I had optimized better, I can get really frustrated.
It's really interesting, like my brain is super good at optimizing. And what's fascinating about that is that a lot of the time instead of being like really jazzed and grateful that my brain is so good at that, when it is good at it. I just like don't even see it at all. And then when it's bad at it I get like really, really grumpy and I feel like I should have known better.
And listen, this is me being an imperfect human being and this is me in a place where I need to like take my own tools and use them. Because what I would tell all of y'all if you were doing that is like that's setting you up for like not a very fun time.
When we're really good at something but when we do it well we don't notice and we only notice when we do it not well, that's just setting ourselves up not to have a very delightful experience and to be constantly disappointed. It's like either neutral or disappointed, and that's just not the kind of life I want to live. And it's not the kind of life I want y'all to live. I mean, you can if you want to, but why?
I think it's much more delightful to notice what is working and to use that as fuel to like orient ourselves towards where we want to go, and then go there with the fuel of like what is working, right? That's what we talk about all the time here.
That being said, I also do appreciate that in that moment where you're feeling disappointed that you didn't do that thing and you're looking around about like where are you actually and what's going on? Yeah, there may be some disappointment there, there may be some like, ugh, right? And that's okay. This is not about having a super positive attitude all the time, this part is actually just about paying attention to like what actually is. So the disappointment can be there, too, right?
So you're in a situation, let's say you're in a work situation, you're working on some kind of project, you have that check in with your boss. And before you check in with your boss you're kind of checking in with yourself about where you are and you're like, here's all the stuff I thought I'd have done, that they didn't do. And you're like, yeah, I feel fucking disappointed about that, I maybe feel a little guilty. So we're just going to let those feelings be there, right?
And then we're going to think about like, okay, but where am I? Right, we got to start from where we are because we literally can't start from anywhere else. So you have to look around and be like, this is where I am. You have to assess the situation, and that's what I'm talking about with acceptance, right?
So if where you are is five steps behind where you wanted to be, noticing that may feel painful because of the thoughts you're thinking about it. And because the idea that you should be further ahead. It actually doesn't have to be painful, I just find for me at my current level of thinking, it often is still. That's like something I'm still working on and so I imagine it will be for you. And if it's not, congratulations, that's sexy as fuck, I love that for you.
But if acceptance is a little uncomfortable, that's okay. It doesn't mean you're doing it wrong. So you just kind of have whatever emotional experience you're having and just let it be with you. Like let it sit side by side with you, but it's not going to like direct what we're doing. And side by side with that you just also bring in this like observer energy to like look around at what is actually real, what is actually true, where are you?
It's kind of like if you were on a road trip across the country, right, let's say you're driving from North Carolina to Seattle, which is what I did when I moved to Seattle, from North Carolina like a million years ago. I don't know the actual amount. 12, 12 years ago. Some days I didn't maybe make as good of time as I wanted to, right?
So it's like if I've left North Carolina and I'm in Tennessee, I can be mad that I'm in Tennessee. I can think about what I didn't do and how I didn't leave earlier and how if I'd done something differently I'd be further along. And that's okay, but none of that's going to change that I'm in Tennessee. And in order to figure out how to get to where I want to go, I need to accept that I am in fact, in Tennessee, and I have to like do the directions from there.
The geographical equivalent would be like if you're like, well, I should already be in El Paso, Texas, I don't even know if we drove through El Paso, Texas. We probably didn't, geography is not my strong suit. But let's just say I wanted to be in El Paso, Texas but I was like in Nashville, Tennessee.
Wanting to be in El Paso doesn't make me be in El Paso. Pretending I'm in El Paso doesn't make me be in El Paso. Pulling up the directions from El Paso to Seattle is not going to help me while I'm in Tennessee, and it actually may lead me to get lost and get confused and take longer to actually get to my goal, which was Seattle in that particular move.
So I think that's like a really great example or a really a great metaphor for you to understand this. You have to start where you are, and in order to start where you are, you have to set aside what you didn't do so that you can be in the present moment and look around at what's happening, what's available and like assess from where you actually are, how to get to where you want to go.
And I think the magical thing about this is once you're willing to actually be present with what is, it's usually not that hard to figure out either all the way to where you want to go, or just the next steps, right? If I'm in Nashville, Tennessee and I want to go to Seattle, and we did not go directly. And so if y'all are wondering why I was in Texas, it's because we went to New Mexico because I drove across the country with my cousin who's from New Mexico. So we did that and then went up, right?
So being honest with myself about where I was and where I was going, which was Seattle but first it was New Mexico, that allowed me to actually be clear on like, okay, I'm not going to do the drive from El Paso to New Mexico. I have to first do the drive from Nashville, Tennessee to El Paso and then I can drive to New Mexico, right?
We can't do the further along steps necessarily from where we are. And when we think we should already be there, I think sometimes we just sort of fuck things up for ourselves and do things out of order versus start where you are. Notice where you actually are and notice what needs to happen from where you are to get you to where you want to go. Don't try to start from where you think you should be, that's literally not going to work and may slow things down.
Okay, so to recap, you got to start from where you are if you want to move forward. You got to start from where you are, you got to like observe where you are, see where you are, see what needs to happen from where you are. And then you can make a strategic plan from where you are to get to where you want to go. And in order to do that, you may need to stop blaming yourself.
And in this podcast episode we talked about blaming yourself, but it could be someone else, right? You could be like stuck thinking about what you didn't do, but you could also be stuck thinking about what your boss didn't do, what your coworker didn't do. If you're applying this in marriage you could be thinking about what your spouse didn't do. If you're applying this with your kids, you could be thinking about what they didn't do or what you didn't do like in regards to them.
And there is a time and place to examine that. Again, there's a time and place to evaluate, where we look at what's working, we look at what's not working, we look at what we want to do differently. Maybe we want to have a conversation with someone, maybe we want to make a request.
That is all useful, but in the moment to move forward what you have to do is be able to see where you actually are, be where you actually are, right? Make the plan from there. And then focus on where you are and where you want to go. Instead of letting your brain focus on what you didn't do, or the ways you fell short, or the ways that you failed.
Okay, that's what I have for you today. I hope this really helps you move forward at work and in your relationships and in your hobbies and everywhere you want to move forward. And also if you want to take this work deeper and do it in a community, I would really invite you to come sign up for a Satisfied As Fuck consult call with me and we will have a conversation about how that could look in Satisfied As Fuck and we'll see if it's a good fit for you.
And if you don't really want to do this group and community and you would rather just have a very like private customized coaching experience, I'm also still accepting one-on-one coaching clients. And you can sign up for a coaching consult for that as well on my website. I would love to talk to you about how to use the coaching tools to move forward in every area of your life so you can create a wildly delicious life and career.
All right, have a great week. I will 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.
Hey, hey, hey y'all. Happy Wednesday. As I'm recording this, my 100th podcast episode just came out. By the time y'all hear this, I think this is episode 102, but right now I'm just reveling in having created 100 episodes of this podcast. And thank you so much to all of you for being here and for listening to the podcast.
And I also just want to say thank you so much to Digital Freedom Productions, who is my podcast production team. Also y'all, if you follow me on Instagram, you already saw this, but they sent me flowers. Digital Freedom Productions sent me a beautiful bouquet to celebrate the 100th episode. And I just think that's really fun.
And I would just invite y'all, like when you're doing work and collaborating with people, like hiring contractors, all that kind of stuff, and this doesn't just have to be in your work life. This could be in your home life or in other areas, right, in your relationships. Whoever you're choosing to collaborate with in life and work and all the things, choose people who celebrate you.
Like we can use coaching to have a good experience of anything. And also, I think there's something really beautiful about choosing people it's easy to love, who love you, who support you, who celebrate you without you having to coach yourself about it.
Again, coaching is an incredible tool that allows us to manage whatever is going on in our lives, allows us to manage whatever is going on in the world. And also our time on Earth and each day is limited. Yes, time is a construct, but the amount of hours we have in a day is limited and while we could coach on everything and anything, it's also really nice to set ourselves up in life with things that are just really yummy and delicious, with people who celebrate us, with people who delight in our wins.
And don't worry, life will still be 50/50 and there will still be shit that goes wrong. People don't always act loyal and loving, things don't always go according to plan. So there will still be plenty of opportunities for growth and plenty of chances to coach ourselves. We don't have to set ourselves up with a bunch of difficulty, so we have something to coach on, that's not required.
I mean, if you want to do a bunch of difficult things, I support you. I'm happy to coach you on it. Come join one of my programs or come join my one-on-one coaching program. And also there's something so beautiful about just giving yourself the gift of something that is already working really well. Giving yourself the gift of building connections, and relationships, and collaborations with people who will surprise you in beautiful and kind ways.
Because Digital Freedom Productions, like the team, they messaged me and they were like, “How are you going to celebrate your 100th episode?” And I was just like, “Oh.” Y'all, you know, I am the queen of let's celebrate what's working, and also sometimes I forget to celebrate what's working.
So they messaged and they were like, “How are you celebrating?” And I was like, “Oh, I mean, I posted about it on Instagram.” And they were just like, “You need to celebrate.” And I was like, “How am I going to celebrate?” So I've actually been thinking about that.
My go-to way of celebrating is go out to dinner, have a glass of fancy wine, that kind of thing. I've actually not been drinking any fancy wine because I've been working on my sleep a little and as part of my work on that I decided to just cut alcohol out for a little bit. But you know what? I'm still going to celebrate this with a glass of fancy wine, I just didn't do it on the day the podcast came out, I'm just going to reserve that celebration.
But also celebrating, I'm a big fan of celebrating as something we do with our words, right? And so me coming on and talking about it with you, that's also a way of celebrating. It doesn't all just have to be like parties and confetti and rainbows. It can also just be like noticing and talking about the achievement.
I think, honestly, sometimes people don't celebrate because they're like, well, I don't really want to have a glass of champagne, or I don't really want to go out to dinner. But there are as many ways of celebrating as there are grains of sand in the world, and that's a lot. I don't have data on that because I didn't know I was going to say that, so I didn't look the facts up ahead of time. But that's a lot, basically.
There's so many different ways you could celebrate anything. And if you're not sure how to celebrate, I invite you just to try some shit. Also, we have whole podcast episodes on celebration, go check those out. That's not even what we're talking about today though.
What we're talking about today is how to move forward. And the reason we're talking about it is because in the Satisfied As Fuck group coaching program recently, one of my clients shared a win about how they were focusing on like this is where I'm at, where do I want to go from here? Instead of focusing on what they hadn't done.
And I loved that they brought this up. And I was like, oh, I love this idea, can I do a podcast on this? And of course, I said it's always okay to say no because privacy matters and consent matters. But this person was like, hell yeah, do a podcast episode on it.
So that's what I'm here to talk about with y'all today. This person was talking about how so often they get stuck dwelling on the past, dwelling on what they didn't do or like the ways that they fell short. And this is so common, right? We talk all the time on the podcast about how the human brain has a negativity bias. And the negativity bias, left to its own devices, will just tell you everything that's not working.
And one of the specific things it likes to focus on about what's not working is what we didn't do. What we didn't do, how we fell short, all the ways we failed. And we can get really stuck there. And I think that can kind of lead to what I've referred to before as the pit of despair. We can get into the fuck-it effect, which we have a whole episode on that.
But basically, we can get stuck in this place of like I didn't do XYZ and then we don't move forward. So when I said that on this week's episode we're going to talk about how to move forward, the key to doing that is to notice where you are, accept it, which is not always fun. And then be like, where do I want to fucking go from here?
When we get stuck thinking about what we didn't do, or the ways we failed, or the ways we fell short, we're not going anywhere. We're like just sitting down stuck, like hyper focused on our imperfections. And I get the urge to do that, again, I also have a human brain, I also have a negativity bias. And there is something to be said for taking time to evaluate like, hmm, what went well? What didn't go well? What would I like to do differently? But that's not what we're talking about here.
What we're talking about here is as you're going about whatever it is you're doing in your life or your career, right, this is technically a work podcast, even though we talk about all the things. So let's use a work example, right? Like if you have been working on a project and it's time to check in with your direct manager, your brain might want to focus on all the things you didn't do.
One of the things we talk about in this podcast is focusing on what's working. And we're still going to look at what's not working, but first we look at what is working because that primes our brain up to not get trapped in the negativity bias. But the purpose of this podcast is little bit different, it's looking at where you are, starting from where you are, and then deciding where you want to go from there. Versus getting hooked into what didn't get done.
And this does a few things, but I think the most important thing it does is it gets us oriented in the present and into the future. What didn't I do? What didn't go well? What are the ways I fell short? That's all past oriented. That's all focused on things you can't directly control anymore because they're done, right?
It's so interesting, life with a brain, because the brain, I don't know if yours does this, but mine so often likes to obsess about things that have already happened that I can't directly control. And the specific way my brain obsesses about these things I get the idea, like I have this suspicion that it thinks I could still impact it.
And yeah, I'm talking about my brain like it's a separate person because that's the kind of relationship I have with my brain, is I treat it like it's a separate person. There's a lot of us in here, okay?
So what I say when I'm saying that, like what I mean when I say that is sometimes I'll walk by one of those grates on the ground and I'll have my phone in my hand and I will not drop my phone into the grate. But then for like the next 10 minutes my brain will be like, “But what if you had? But what if you had dropped your phone into the grate? But what have you had?” I didn't even drop it, but my brain is still thinking about the past as though it could happen differently.
Now, in that example, my brain is thinking about the past and nothing went wrong, and my brain is still like, “But what if something had gone wrong?” Right? It's like kind of trolling me. But I think our brains often do the opposite thing, right? Where we didn't do something, or we fell short or whatever and then our brain keeps replaying it as though we can directly influence it anymore.
But we can't, right? The past is over and done, even if it was five minutes ago. And I know that's hard for the brain to handle and it like hurts, hurts to think about, but the past is over and done. Even if it was five minutes ago you cannot change it directly anymore.
But when you think about like well, where am I now and where do I want to go? That's what you can directly impact. The past is over, but the now is wide open and available to you. But if in the now all you're doing is thinking about what you didn't do, or how you fell short, or the ways you failed, your I'm not going to do anything in the now. And then five minutes from now your brain is going to look back at this moment and want to lament about that. And then this is like a vicious cycle that's going to keep going, right?
So thinking about like where am I, where do I want to go from here reorients us to the present, it reorients us to what we can control, what we can impact directly versus what's actually over and done with. Even if we're still dealing with the impacts of it directly, we can't impact it anymore if it's in the past.
Another reason that this is really useful, here's the thing, we're all human beings. So we're all going to be imperfect. We're all going to have fuck ups. We're all going to make mistakes. We're all going to have failures, there's always going to be stuff we didn't do.
Sometimes there's stuff we didn't do because shit just did not go according to plan. Sometimes there's stuff we didn't do because we tried to do way too many things, many more things that aren't humanly possible. Sometimes there's stuff we didn't do because we had a cold. Sometimes there's stuff we didn't do because we accidentally watched two hours of TikToks.
So I don't really think it actually matters why you didn't do the stuff you didn't do. Now, again, if you want to do an evaluation about how you're working, how you're running your schedule and kind of make some choices about what's working and what's not working, that's a beautiful thing to do. But that's not what we're talking about here.
What we're talking about here is how to be able to reorient yourself to the present moment and to the destination you're trying to achieve. You cannot be focused on what you didn't do and the ways that you fell short and also be in the current present moment and be strategically planning for how you're going to get to the destination you want to get to. You can't do both of those at the same time.
And again, life with a brain, the brain is going to want to focus on what you didn't do. The brain is going to want to focus on the flaws, the failures, the fuck ups, right? Nothing wrong with your brain if it wants to do that, negativity bias, we all have it, right? But that's not going to help you get to where you want to go, it's not going to help you move forward. It's appropriate when you're doing an evaluation. If you're not actively doing an evaluation, it's not helpful and you need to learn to let that shit go.
Now, easier said than done, right? But this, like everything we talk about here, is a habit. If you've been doing this for years and years and maybe decades, then of course your brain's habit is going to always be to look at what you didn't do, the ways you failed, blah, blah, blah, the ways you fell short. And so what you need to learn to do is to reorient yourself.
You need to learn to disrupt that habit and put a new habit in. And this can be as easy as saying to yourself like, okay, thank you for that report about what I didn't do. But now in this moment, the fastest and most effective way to get to our destination is to look around and find out where we are and then make a plan to get to where we want to go.
We will look at the things we didn't do, and the ways things went wrong and that failures and fuck ups, we will look at all of those during our evaluation. But we're not going to obsess about them right now because that won't actually help us. That's not going to help us go where we want to go. That's not going to help us move forward. That's not going to help us achieve our actual goal.
And I don't know about for you, but for me tying it to achieving the actual goal is helpful because that gives me something to like refocus my brain's attention on and to reorient to, right? It can be very tempting to just obsess about what we didn't do right and beat ourselves up.
But when we're paying attention and we tune in and we're being logical, we're like, wait, the only reason I wanted to do it well, and I wish I had done everything, is so I can get to my goal. So I can't go back and change the fact that I didn't do those things, but I can still get to my goal, so I need to reorient to how to get to the goal and that's going to be much more useful than this thing where my brain replays what I didn't do like it's like a home movie.
I also mentioned acceptance, and I was like this isn't always our favorite thing to do. And if it's your favorite thing, good job. But it's not always my favorite thing. When I am in that headspace where I really wish things were different, or I really wish I had done things differently, I had done more, I had anticipated something, I had optimized better, I can get really frustrated.
It's really interesting, like my brain is super good at optimizing. And what's fascinating about that is that a lot of the time instead of being like really jazzed and grateful that my brain is so good at that, when it is good at it. I just like don't even see it at all. And then when it's bad at it I get like really, really grumpy and I feel like I should have known better.
And listen, this is me being an imperfect human being and this is me in a place where I need to like take my own tools and use them. Because what I would tell all of y'all if you were doing that is like that's setting you up for like not a very fun time.
When we're really good at something but when we do it well we don't notice and we only notice when we do it not well, that's just setting ourselves up not to have a very delightful experience and to be constantly disappointed. It's like either neutral or disappointed, and that's just not the kind of life I want to live. And it's not the kind of life I want y'all to live. I mean, you can if you want to, but why?
I think it's much more delightful to notice what is working and to use that as fuel to like orient ourselves towards where we want to go, and then go there with the fuel of like what is working, right? That's what we talk about all the time here.
That being said, I also do appreciate that in that moment where you're feeling disappointed that you didn't do that thing and you're looking around about like where are you actually and what's going on? Yeah, there may be some disappointment there, there may be some like, ugh, right? And that's okay. This is not about having a super positive attitude all the time, this part is actually just about paying attention to like what actually is. So the disappointment can be there, too, right?
So you're in a situation, let's say you're in a work situation, you're working on some kind of project, you have that check in with your boss. And before you check in with your boss you're kind of checking in with yourself about where you are and you're like, here's all the stuff I thought I'd have done, that they didn't do. And you're like, yeah, I feel fucking disappointed about that, I maybe feel a little guilty. So we're just going to let those feelings be there, right?
And then we're going to think about like, okay, but where am I? Right, we got to start from where we are because we literally can't start from anywhere else. So you have to look around and be like, this is where I am. You have to assess the situation, and that's what I'm talking about with acceptance, right?
So if where you are is five steps behind where you wanted to be, noticing that may feel painful because of the thoughts you're thinking about it. And because the idea that you should be further ahead. It actually doesn't have to be painful, I just find for me at my current level of thinking, it often is still. That's like something I'm still working on and so I imagine it will be for you. And if it's not, congratulations, that's sexy as fuck, I love that for you.
But if acceptance is a little uncomfortable, that's okay. It doesn't mean you're doing it wrong. So you just kind of have whatever emotional experience you're having and just let it be with you. Like let it sit side by side with you, but it's not going to like direct what we're doing. And side by side with that you just also bring in this like observer energy to like look around at what is actually real, what is actually true, where are you?
It's kind of like if you were on a road trip across the country, right, let's say you're driving from North Carolina to Seattle, which is what I did when I moved to Seattle, from North Carolina like a million years ago. I don't know the actual amount. 12, 12 years ago. Some days I didn't maybe make as good of time as I wanted to, right?
So it's like if I've left North Carolina and I'm in Tennessee, I can be mad that I'm in Tennessee. I can think about what I didn't do and how I didn't leave earlier and how if I'd done something differently I'd be further along. And that's okay, but none of that's going to change that I'm in Tennessee. And in order to figure out how to get to where I want to go, I need to accept that I am in fact, in Tennessee, and I have to like do the directions from there.
The geographical equivalent would be like if you're like, well, I should already be in El Paso, Texas, I don't even know if we drove through El Paso, Texas. We probably didn't, geography is not my strong suit. But let's just say I wanted to be in El Paso, Texas but I was like in Nashville, Tennessee.
Wanting to be in El Paso doesn't make me be in El Paso. Pretending I'm in El Paso doesn't make me be in El Paso. Pulling up the directions from El Paso to Seattle is not going to help me while I'm in Tennessee, and it actually may lead me to get lost and get confused and take longer to actually get to my goal, which was Seattle in that particular move.
So I think that's like a really great example or a really a great metaphor for you to understand this. You have to start where you are, and in order to start where you are, you have to set aside what you didn't do so that you can be in the present moment and look around at what's happening, what's available and like assess from where you actually are, how to get to where you want to go.
And I think the magical thing about this is once you're willing to actually be present with what is, it's usually not that hard to figure out either all the way to where you want to go, or just the next steps, right? If I'm in Nashville, Tennessee and I want to go to Seattle, and we did not go directly. And so if y'all are wondering why I was in Texas, it's because we went to New Mexico because I drove across the country with my cousin who's from New Mexico. So we did that and then went up, right?
So being honest with myself about where I was and where I was going, which was Seattle but first it was New Mexico, that allowed me to actually be clear on like, okay, I'm not going to do the drive from El Paso to New Mexico. I have to first do the drive from Nashville, Tennessee to El Paso and then I can drive to New Mexico, right?
We can't do the further along steps necessarily from where we are. And when we think we should already be there, I think sometimes we just sort of fuck things up for ourselves and do things out of order versus start where you are. Notice where you actually are and notice what needs to happen from where you are to get you to where you want to go. Don't try to start from where you think you should be, that's literally not going to work and may slow things down.
Okay, so to recap, you got to start from where you are if you want to move forward. You got to start from where you are, you got to like observe where you are, see where you are, see what needs to happen from where you are. And then you can make a strategic plan from where you are to get to where you want to go. And in order to do that, you may need to stop blaming yourself.
And in this podcast episode we talked about blaming yourself, but it could be someone else, right? You could be like stuck thinking about what you didn't do, but you could also be stuck thinking about what your boss didn't do, what your coworker didn't do. If you're applying this in marriage you could be thinking about what your spouse didn't do. If you're applying this with your kids, you could be thinking about what they didn't do or what you didn't do like in regards to them.
And there is a time and place to examine that. Again, there's a time and place to evaluate, where we look at what's working, we look at what's not working, we look at what we want to do differently. Maybe we want to have a conversation with someone, maybe we want to make a request.
That is all useful, but in the moment to move forward what you have to do is be able to see where you actually are, be where you actually are, right? Make the plan from there. And then focus on where you are and where you want to go. Instead of letting your brain focus on what you didn't do, or the ways you fell short, or the ways that you failed.
Okay, that's what I have for you today. I hope this really helps you move forward at work and in your relationships and in your hobbies and everywhere you want to move forward. And also if you want to take this work deeper and do it in a community, I would really invite you to come sign up for a Satisfied As Fuck consult call with me and we will have a conversation about how that could look in Satisfied As Fuck and we'll see if it's a good fit for you.
And if you don't really want to do this group and community and you would rather just have a very like private customized coaching experience, I'm also still accepting one-on-one coaching clients. And you can sign up for a coaching consult for that as well on my website. I would love to talk to you about how to use the coaching tools to move forward in every area of your life so you can create a wildly delicious life and career.
All right, have a great week. I will 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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