155. Reclaiming Self-Centeredness
You may shudder at the thought of being seen as self-centered, but why? And who or what should be at the center of your life if not you?
It’s staggering how many times I’ve heard women mention they want to prioritize themselves in some small way, and then follow that up by saying, “not to be self-centered!”
Men are not socialized this way.
To be clear, I don’t want to be like men nor am I implying you should want or try to be.
But it’s very interesting who is taught that their needs and desires matter - that they are the main character of their own lives - and who is not.
The either/or dichotomy is also curious.
Why is self-centeredness seen as ONLY caring about oneself?
What if you could be at the center of your own life AND also show up for others?
(Spoiler alert: you can.)
It is wild how radical (and how demonized) it is for women and folks with marginalized identities to allow themselves to matter in their own lives.
It may feel downright wrong to do so.
But there’s also immense power in letting yourself matter, in being your own advocate instead of always putting everyone else before you.
And listen - you don’t have to center yourself if you don’t want to, but it’s worth considering why you’ve been discouraged from doing so and what might happen if you start.
And you might be surprised how much centering your own needs, desires, preferences, and problems can BENEFIT your relationships and the folks in your world.
Join me this week and let’s deep dive into what it could look like to center yourself.
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WHAT YOU’LL LEARN FROM THIS EPISODE:
What we think being self-centered means.
How women and people with marginalized identities are encouraged to not be self-centered.
Why you get to be at the center of your own life without it being a bad thing.
How self-centeredness isn’t about centering yourself at the expense of other people.
What becomes possible when you make sure your needs, desires, and problems are cared for.
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE:
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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
This week we’re talking about reclaiming self-centeredness.
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. Before we dive into this week’s topic, I just wanted to take a moment to say that the RIP Medical Debt campaign that I am doing, the fundraiser I’ve talked about on my social, in my emails, and on the podcast recently, is doing so well. We are currently, as of the time of this recording, at 68% of our goal.
So the goal that I set the campaign up with was $5,000. I kicked the campaign off with a $1,000 donation of my own. Another coach saw that, felt inspired and matched my $1,000 donation. So that kicked us almost to 50%. And since then, we’ve had several donations of all sizes, and we’re currently at $3,413.90.
Now, because RIP Medical Debt buys steeply discounted bundled debt, it’s likely that the impact will be about 100X. So that’s over $340,000 worth of impact. And by impact, I mean, that’s over $340,000 worth of debt that can be forgiven. And RIP Medical Debt doesn’t just forgive any debt, they actually focus on debt where the person or the household is either below four times the federal poverty rate, or where the debt is 5% or more as compared to their income, 5% or more of their income.
So I think this is such a good cause. And I just want to tell you that there is still time to donate. And if you donate $100 or more, you get a free 30 minute coaching call with me as a thank you and a bonus for your donation. So if you would like to do that, you can head on over to korilinn.com/learnmore. Or you can go to my Instagram, I’m @KoriLinn on Instagram, and in the bio you can click through and donate there as well.
So thank you for your donations. I super appreciate everyone who has supported the campaign so far and everyone who is going to go on and support the campaign. Thank you so much. From the tip top and the bottom of my heart, I’m so deeply grateful. And I feel really passionate about this nonprofit and this fundraiser. So I appreciate you so much for being part of it.
Okay, one more thing, I just want to take a minute, I’m trying to get better at inviting y’all to help the podcast out. And I feel a little awkward doing it, but it is true that following, rating, reviewing and sharing the podcast really helps. It helps us get the word out there about the important work we’re doing and it just helps the podcast reach more people. Then it helps more people have a wonderful impact in their life and create more satisfaction.
So if you haven’t already, I would love it so much and be so deeply grateful if you would take a minute to follow, rate, review and share the podcast. Thank you so, so much.
Okay, we also have a client win to celebrate. This client is going on leave from their job. They’re actually on leave now, so this is a win from a few months ago. So they were planning on quitting their job to be able to go on this trip that they’re going on with their elderly parent. And they were just kind of like, okay, well, I guess I have to quit my job.
And then through our coaching together, one of the things we talked about was like, what if we just ask? Like what if we just ask for what we want? What if we just try things and see what happens? They may have also talked to someone at work and been encouraged to do this, I don’t remember all the exact details because it’s been a few months that I’ve been trying to remember to tell you all this story.
But the long and the short of it is this client asked if they could have a leave instead of having to quit. And a leave basically means that they don’t have to go to work for the period of time, but they can still stay considered an employee, which means they’re going to keep their benefits. Which for those of us who live in the United States is a really important thing. Health insurance and things like that.
And even if the leave is unpaid, that’s a huge benefit to stay on the health insurance and to have your job waiting for you when you get back. And it’s also possible, I think there was a possibility that it could even be a paid leave. So I just wanted to tell you all that story as a celebration of that client’s win, and also for you to be inspired because there might be things that you want in life that you think are not possible or would just simply never happen.
And what if you just asked for them? What if you just make the pitch? What if you just fill out the application? What if you just have the conversation? There are so many amazing things I’ve gotten in life simply by being willing to put myself out there. And listen, do I get rejected sometimes? For fucking sure I do get rejected sometimes, it doesn’t always work out. I don’t get everything I ask for, but I do get some stuff.
And I think learning this skill is such an important part of building a wildly delicious life because usually all the things you want aren’t just going to magically show up. It’s so fun when they do, and sometimes they do. But it’s also an incredible skill to be able to risk rejection, to be able to risk hearing a no, and to just to ask.
So if you don’t have that skill and you want to have that skill, you should come join the next cohort of Satisfied As Fuck, my small group, or come and work with me one on one. Or donate to RIP Medical Debt and then get that free 30 minute call, and then we can work on it there. It is an extremely powerful tool and I would love to help you build it and harness it and use it to create more delight and satisfaction in your life and career.
Okay, now we’re going to move into talking about what this week’s podcast is actually about, which is the concept of being self-centered. So to kick this off, I’m going to tell another little story.
So over this past weekend, Alex and I and a friend of ours went up to Grass Valley. It’s just a cute little town that’s about an hour away from Sacramento. It’s got a fun little downtown to shop in, we had a great time. But on the way there in the car we were talking about, I don’t know, whatever. And this concept of being self-centered came up and self-centered being a bad thing.
And I personally have such an attitude problem with this because if you’re not at the center, who is? What is? And I think specifically people socialized as women, but also people with marginalized identities are really encouraged not to be self-centered and to center something else in their lives.
People socialized as women are so strongly encouraged to center other people. They’re strongly encouraged to center men. They’re strongly encouraged to center motherhood. They’re often strongly encouraged to center lots of things that can’t all be at the center together, like the expectation that you are a badass at work and a mom and you’re giving everything your 100%, which doesn’t even make sense mathematically.
And I think it’s really interesting that the idea of being self-centered is kind of like people think it means that you’re all about yourself. So I think it’s really interesting that the idea of being self-centered is a negative thing in our culture, right?
When I Google it, it says self-centeredness is a single-minded focus on one’s self and one’s own needs, desires, preferences, and problems. Someone who is self-centered may be preoccupied with their own thoughts and feelings and may not be very attentive to the needs and perspectives of others.
So I think this is such an interesting way of explaining it because to me, what’s at the center of your life isn’t the only thing in your life. What’s in the center of your focus isn’t the only thing in your focus. So I think this is kind of an example where the cultural norms are really kind of an either or thinking, right?
Like, either you’re self-centered and you only care about yourself, or you’re, what’s the opposite of self-centered? Like other-centered or service-centered, right? And then you’re only focused on this other thing.
But what I would offer is, what if there is a beauty and a power and an efficacy to being self-centered, but there’s other things in the circle with the self, right? So I think what I’m pitching here is a little bit of a both/and, but also kind of like a rant in defense of you getting to be at the center of your own life.
And it’s interesting, because I think the way men and boys are socialized, is actually to center themselves. But I think it’s less common for people to have that criticism about men. Like think about the ways you’ve heard this talked about in your own life, but I feel like this is a criticism that is much more often lobbed at women.
I also think it’s interesting because I think that there can be people who are so generous and so kind and so thoughtful, but the minute that they have a need or a desire of their own, then people might start calling them self-centered. It’s like a way that culturally, women are kept, quote unquote, “in their place.”
And I’m putting “in their place” in quotes because I don’t think that’s their place, but I do think living in a patriarchy, there are these explicit and implicit ideas about what a woman should be like and how she should behave and how she should treat people.
And I think women are human beings, right? Like, obviously, duh. And so it makes sense that they would have their own needs, desires, preferences, et cetera and that those would matter to them. So the idea that if those matter to you, you’re self-centered and that’s a bad thing and it’s harming others is very interesting.
Okay. So the pitch, though, that I want you to kind of take away from the podcast episode today is the idea of a circle, and that you get to pick what goes in the circle and what doesn’t. And if you don’t want to put yourself at the center, you don’t have to. But I do, again, think it’s very interesting that women are so often encouraged and marginalized people are so often encouraged to put someone besides themselves at the center, right?
And for women, for heteronormative women, I think they’re so often encouraged to put marriage and getting a relationship and babies and their children and their own parents, and all these people that culture expects them to be of service to. So, for me, if I’m going to be at the middle of anyone’s circle, I want to be at the middle of my own circle. I don’t want to be at the center of someone else’s circle.
You get to pick for yourself, but in my vote you’re going to be at the center of your circle because you’re the one who knows your needs, desires, preferences, and problems the best. And I think it makes the most sense that your life should be about those things, even if it’s also about other things.
There’s this thing I say sometimes when people are worried about being selfish, where I’m like, “Selfish versus who else-ish,” right? Like, who gets to matter the most in your life?
Now, let’s be really clear, though, I’m not saying center yourself at the expense of everyone else. I actually think when we truly center ourselves and when we truly make sure that our needs, preferences, desires, and problems are cared for, then it’s actually also much easier to be in intimacy, in deep relationship, in connection with other people and even to care for those other people in various ways, if that’s something we want to do. And this is why I like to give you the visual of the circle.
So inside my circle, I’m at the center. If I am not taking care of myself, I am not very much useful to all the other things I want to work on, whether those other things be my business, or people I want to have relationships with or activities I want to do, et cetera, right?
So in my circle, I’m in my circle. I need to care for me, right? I’m my own responsibility. I need to be aware of my needs and I need to figure out how to get those met, even if I’m asking other people to help out in that area. I need to be aware of my desires and figure out which ones I’m going to pursue and how I’m going to pursue them.
I need to be aware of my preferences, and then figure out when I’m going to set boundaries, when I’m going to manage expectations, when I’m going to make requests and what I’m going to do to meet those preferences in whatever way is suitable to me.
And I need to know what my problems are, and then figure out how to solve them, whether I solve them on my own or whether I hire a coach, hire a therapist, hire some other kind of professional, have a happy hour with a friend to talk about it. I’m in charge of all those things. As an adult human being, that’s my stuff to figure out. And I think that that’s so important, right? Because it’s like if you’re not allowed to be self-centered, who is supposed to be taking care of all that, right?
And for so many, especially I think women, they wind up in a position where no one’s taking care of it. Where they’re not taking care of it, but also no one else is taking care of it and then they’re overwhelmed and they’re resentful, and they’re not getting their needs met, and they feel like shit. And then they’re looking around going like, is this what fucking life is? It’s too hard, right?
And I’ve coached a lot of people who are at various stages of that, and so I’ve learned a lot from that. So here’s my pitch again. I think you need to be in your own circle. If you don’t want to put yourself at the center of it, that’s your business. But that’s where I’m putting myself in my circle.
For some people, though, they’re going to have something else at the center, like maybe their faith, or maybe one of their relationships or something else. But I just want you to be mindful and intentional about what the design of the circle is.
And then I think it’s like, who and what goes in the circle, right? So for me, I’m in the circle, but I’m not the only one in the circle. I’m self-centered, but I’m not only self-interested, I’m not only self-oriented. I’m at the center, because I think personally it makes the most sense to care for me so that then I can show up for the rest of the circle.
Alex is in the circle. My friends are in the circle. My business is in the circle. My clients are in the circle. The podcast is in the circle. You, my podcast listeners, you’re in the circle. Whether you ever sign up to work with me one on one or in a small group or in any other way or ever join one of my calls, you’re in my circle.
I care about you. I think about you all the time. I think about how do I make the podcast listeners’ lives better? How do I help their careers be more enjoyable? How do I help them improve their relationships? How do I help them have more deliciousness in their day-to-day life and also in the long-term trajectory of their life?
I think about y’all all the time. I love you to pieces. You don’t go at the center of my circle, though, because I think if I’m not at the center, I have less to give you. And even if it weren’t true that I’d have less to give you, it’s just I’m my top priority. And I think that that’s been so demonized and so frowned upon that that sounds really radical, but why would it be so radical for me to be my own priority? Who else’s priority would I be, if not my own?
Being a human requires a lot of care. I do all these things all day long for myself, like I get myself up in the morning out of bed. I take myself on a long walk. I feed myself, minimum three meals a day, but I eat a lot of snacks, so usually a lot more. Like sometimes I roast vegetables for myself. I do my physical therapy activities. I have a little chart to make sure I’m drinking water. I brush and floss my teeth.
These things require effort, and if I didn’t care about myself, if I wasn’t centering my own needs, I might not do some of those things. And I think that would have a detriment to me. And I think it’s also this interesting thing of like, if you’re not self-centered, who is going to make sure all of that gets done? If you’re not at the center of your own life, if you don’t have care for yourself, I think for so many women, especially, our self is almost like an afterthought as we care for everyone else.
And I personally just have a huge fucking problem with that. And so I’m here to talk with you about what it might be like to center yourself, even as you still also show up for other people and show up for other things.
What I like about the circle also is it’s a great way to visualize what do you want to be part of your care that you give to everything in your life, right? So what I was saying before is I’m reclaiming self-centeredness, I’m putting myself at the center of my circle. But there are all these other things in the circle, too.
I only listed some of them for you, right? Like walking goes in my circle, but like I was kind of just giving y’all some of the stuff off the top of my head. But there’s a lot of stuff I don’t want to be in my circle. There’s a lot of stuff I don’t want to be responsible for. And I think one of my specialties and one of the things I’m really good at, so kind of my secret superpower is I’m really good at not doing things that I don’t want to do, that I don’t think it makes sense to do.
So a lot of people without even meaning to sort of follow the rules. They follow the rules of culture. They follow the rules of their family. They follow the rules of whatever group that they’re part of. And for whatever reason, I’m not really sure how I developed this capacity in the beginning, I’m someone who questions things.
I’m like, do I have to do that? Why do I have to do that? What’s it going to get for me if I do that? If I don’t do that, what will the consequences be? And then I weigh those. As much as I’m a recovering perfectionist, I also remember being a kid and calculating, like if something was a percentage of my grade, I would calculate how low of a score can I get on this and still get an A in the class? Because I was a perfectionist in that I wanted that A, but I was also not about doing a lot of the work if I didn’t have to. So I was kind of a funky, offbeat perfectionist in that way.
I like to eliminate effort where I can’t. It’s funny, I’m a Taurus, right? So I saw this meme a while back that was like, “Tauruses aren’t lazy, they’re just selectively effective.” And I think that’s absolutely true for me. And so when you think about designing your circle, what do you want to put at the center of it? It doesn’t have to be you, I’m just pitching that it could be kind of wonderful if it is. Who do you want to be in the circle? What do you want to be in the circle? And I’m like, what do you want to leave out of the circle?
And I’m just here to be the advocate for you to leave all kinds of fucking shit outside of that circle. I think there’s so many things in life that people think they have to do, that you really don’t have to do, right? Sometimes you can do a worse job, like I was doing when I was figuring out how bad of a grade can I get on this and still get the A in the class? I was figuring out like, could I do a worse job on something? Could I ditch it entirely? Can I delegate it? Can I pay someone else to do it?
Like I’ve talked before about Alex and our chore chart and how there’s some stuff I do, some stuff she does, and some stuff we delegate out. I mean, we pay someone else to do it when I say we delegate it out, right? So if there are things that you do not want to be in your circle, can you get them the fuck out of your circle? Can you just ditch them entirely? Do they even need to be done? What will be the consequences if they’re not?
If they really do need to be done, can someone else do them, whether it’s someone else on your work team, someone else in your household, someone else you pay. If they have to be done, and for some reason they have to be done by you, can you do a worse job on them without having negative consequences?
I was listening to a podcast this morning about time and how to use your time well specifically to be happy. And one of the things that they were talking about was so many of us when we really look at our lives hour by hour, day by day, we’re not using our time on the things that we want to. And there’s little bits of time we’re sort of frittering away on unimportant activities that really add up to a huge chunk of your life.
Now, y’all know, I’m not about shame and blame, so I’m not saying this so you can feel badly about yourself or how you spend your time. What I am advocating for is like, design your circle and let it reflect the life you want to have as much as possible. Like, yeah, we all have some responsibilities that we’re not going to stop doing, but we don’t really love.
For me, it’s always like there’s some back end stuff of my business that I’m not going to hire out because I really do want to understand my money coming in, my money going out, like how much money I owe various governmental bodies and stuff like that.
I really like knowing my numbers. I don’t always enjoy the effort of doing it, but I’m not going to let it go. But there’s so much that I can let go of. There’s so much that I can delegate. There’s so much that just actually maybe doesn’t have to get done or I can negotiate with someone else to do it and then I can keep a task that I like more.
And when I put myself in the center of the circle, I think it sends a message to me that I matter. I matter, my choices matter, what I want matters, and that there’s a way for me to center myself that isn’t about being unavailable for others or not being attentive to them, or ignoring them.
It’s simply like it’s a hierarchy, right? It’s taking care of myself first so that I can be a happy functional person in how I show up to everything else in my circle. And then I can find ways to get as much that I don’t want out of the circle as possible.
Now, as folks socialized as women, which is me, and maybe it’s you or maybe you have some other socialization that’s getting in your way and blocking you here, it can be really hard to let go of that socialization. It can be really hard to switch from the idea that being self-centered is a bad thing to the idea that being self-centered is fucking delicious and part of living a satisfied life.
And you don’t have to do that work alone. The work that I do with my clients one on one and in my small group is unlearning the shit that’s not working and relearning something new that’s more in-line with the kind of life you want to have, with the kind of career you want to have, with the kind of relationships you want to have.
So this shift from thinking self-centeredness is bad and selfish to realizing that you can center yourself in a way that’s delicious and actually leads to deeper connection with other people, and better relationships, and a more satisfying happy career, that’s not a shift that you have to make on your own. You can do it in a cozy private container with just me where it’s all about you and what you’re going through.
Or you can join the most fabulous community and do it together with everyone in Satisfied As Fuck. The next cohort starts at the end of October and I would love to have you in it. Scoot on over to my website and you can sign up for a consult call and we can have a discussion about where you are now and what it would look like to center yourself and what it would look like for you to be satisfied as fuck.
All right, y’all, that’s what I have for you this week. Have a lovely week and I’ll talk to you next time.
Do you wanna end this year feeling Satisfied AF and setting yourself up for a delicious 2024? I have just the thing for you. I'm teaching a free class next week called Ending the Year Satisfied AF. The call is October 17th at 2 PM Pacific, and you can find a link to sign up in the show notes or via the link in my Instagram bio, which is korilinn.com/learnmore. I would love to see you on the call.
I'm going to be teaching my best and tips for how to finish this year on a happy high note. I'll answer questions, and I maybe even will have time for some live coaching. You're gonna leave this call feeling energized, inspired, and ready to welcome more satisfaction into your life and career, and you're gonna be equipped with the skills to do it. 2023 is not over yet, and there's still plenty of time to create more delight, satisfaction, and set yourself up for a gorgeous 2024. I hope to see you there.
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. Before we dive into this week’s topic, I just wanted to take a moment to say that the RIP Medical Debt campaign that I am doing, the fundraiser I’ve talked about on my social, in my emails, and on the podcast recently, is doing so well. We are currently, as of the time of this recording, at 68% of our goal.
So the goal that I set the campaign up with was $5,000. I kicked the campaign off with a $1,000 donation of my own. Another coach saw that, felt inspired and matched my $1,000 donation. So that kicked us almost to 50%. And since then, we’ve had several donations of all sizes, and we’re currently at $3,413.90.
Now, because RIP Medical Debt buys steeply discounted bundled debt, it’s likely that the impact will be about 100X. So that’s over $340,000 worth of impact. And by impact, I mean, that’s over $340,000 worth of debt that can be forgiven. And RIP Medical Debt doesn’t just forgive any debt, they actually focus on debt where the person or the household is either below four times the federal poverty rate, or where the debt is 5% or more as compared to their income, 5% or more of their income.
So I think this is such a good cause. And I just want to tell you that there is still time to donate. And if you donate $100 or more, you get a free 30 minute coaching call with me as a thank you and a bonus for your donation. So if you would like to do that, you can head on over to korilinn.com/learnmore. Or you can go to my Instagram, I’m @KoriLinn on Instagram, and in the bio you can click through and donate there as well.
So thank you for your donations. I super appreciate everyone who has supported the campaign so far and everyone who is going to go on and support the campaign. Thank you so much. From the tip top and the bottom of my heart, I’m so deeply grateful. And I feel really passionate about this nonprofit and this fundraiser. So I appreciate you so much for being part of it.
Okay, one more thing, I just want to take a minute, I’m trying to get better at inviting y’all to help the podcast out. And I feel a little awkward doing it, but it is true that following, rating, reviewing and sharing the podcast really helps. It helps us get the word out there about the important work we’re doing and it just helps the podcast reach more people. Then it helps more people have a wonderful impact in their life and create more satisfaction.
So if you haven’t already, I would love it so much and be so deeply grateful if you would take a minute to follow, rate, review and share the podcast. Thank you so, so much.
Okay, we also have a client win to celebrate. This client is going on leave from their job. They’re actually on leave now, so this is a win from a few months ago. So they were planning on quitting their job to be able to go on this trip that they’re going on with their elderly parent. And they were just kind of like, okay, well, I guess I have to quit my job.
And then through our coaching together, one of the things we talked about was like, what if we just ask? Like what if we just ask for what we want? What if we just try things and see what happens? They may have also talked to someone at work and been encouraged to do this, I don’t remember all the exact details because it’s been a few months that I’ve been trying to remember to tell you all this story.
But the long and the short of it is this client asked if they could have a leave instead of having to quit. And a leave basically means that they don’t have to go to work for the period of time, but they can still stay considered an employee, which means they’re going to keep their benefits. Which for those of us who live in the United States is a really important thing. Health insurance and things like that.
And even if the leave is unpaid, that’s a huge benefit to stay on the health insurance and to have your job waiting for you when you get back. And it’s also possible, I think there was a possibility that it could even be a paid leave. So I just wanted to tell you all that story as a celebration of that client’s win, and also for you to be inspired because there might be things that you want in life that you think are not possible or would just simply never happen.
And what if you just asked for them? What if you just make the pitch? What if you just fill out the application? What if you just have the conversation? There are so many amazing things I’ve gotten in life simply by being willing to put myself out there. And listen, do I get rejected sometimes? For fucking sure I do get rejected sometimes, it doesn’t always work out. I don’t get everything I ask for, but I do get some stuff.
And I think learning this skill is such an important part of building a wildly delicious life because usually all the things you want aren’t just going to magically show up. It’s so fun when they do, and sometimes they do. But it’s also an incredible skill to be able to risk rejection, to be able to risk hearing a no, and to just to ask.
So if you don’t have that skill and you want to have that skill, you should come join the next cohort of Satisfied As Fuck, my small group, or come and work with me one on one. Or donate to RIP Medical Debt and then get that free 30 minute call, and then we can work on it there. It is an extremely powerful tool and I would love to help you build it and harness it and use it to create more delight and satisfaction in your life and career.
Okay, now we’re going to move into talking about what this week’s podcast is actually about, which is the concept of being self-centered. So to kick this off, I’m going to tell another little story.
So over this past weekend, Alex and I and a friend of ours went up to Grass Valley. It’s just a cute little town that’s about an hour away from Sacramento. It’s got a fun little downtown to shop in, we had a great time. But on the way there in the car we were talking about, I don’t know, whatever. And this concept of being self-centered came up and self-centered being a bad thing.
And I personally have such an attitude problem with this because if you’re not at the center, who is? What is? And I think specifically people socialized as women, but also people with marginalized identities are really encouraged not to be self-centered and to center something else in their lives.
People socialized as women are so strongly encouraged to center other people. They’re strongly encouraged to center men. They’re strongly encouraged to center motherhood. They’re often strongly encouraged to center lots of things that can’t all be at the center together, like the expectation that you are a badass at work and a mom and you’re giving everything your 100%, which doesn’t even make sense mathematically.
And I think it’s really interesting that the idea of being self-centered is kind of like people think it means that you’re all about yourself. So I think it’s really interesting that the idea of being self-centered is a negative thing in our culture, right?
When I Google it, it says self-centeredness is a single-minded focus on one’s self and one’s own needs, desires, preferences, and problems. Someone who is self-centered may be preoccupied with their own thoughts and feelings and may not be very attentive to the needs and perspectives of others.
So I think this is such an interesting way of explaining it because to me, what’s at the center of your life isn’t the only thing in your life. What’s in the center of your focus isn’t the only thing in your focus. So I think this is kind of an example where the cultural norms are really kind of an either or thinking, right?
Like, either you’re self-centered and you only care about yourself, or you’re, what’s the opposite of self-centered? Like other-centered or service-centered, right? And then you’re only focused on this other thing.
But what I would offer is, what if there is a beauty and a power and an efficacy to being self-centered, but there’s other things in the circle with the self, right? So I think what I’m pitching here is a little bit of a both/and, but also kind of like a rant in defense of you getting to be at the center of your own life.
And it’s interesting, because I think the way men and boys are socialized, is actually to center themselves. But I think it’s less common for people to have that criticism about men. Like think about the ways you’ve heard this talked about in your own life, but I feel like this is a criticism that is much more often lobbed at women.
I also think it’s interesting because I think that there can be people who are so generous and so kind and so thoughtful, but the minute that they have a need or a desire of their own, then people might start calling them self-centered. It’s like a way that culturally, women are kept, quote unquote, “in their place.”
And I’m putting “in their place” in quotes because I don’t think that’s their place, but I do think living in a patriarchy, there are these explicit and implicit ideas about what a woman should be like and how she should behave and how she should treat people.
And I think women are human beings, right? Like, obviously, duh. And so it makes sense that they would have their own needs, desires, preferences, et cetera and that those would matter to them. So the idea that if those matter to you, you’re self-centered and that’s a bad thing and it’s harming others is very interesting.
Okay. So the pitch, though, that I want you to kind of take away from the podcast episode today is the idea of a circle, and that you get to pick what goes in the circle and what doesn’t. And if you don’t want to put yourself at the center, you don’t have to. But I do, again, think it’s very interesting that women are so often encouraged and marginalized people are so often encouraged to put someone besides themselves at the center, right?
And for women, for heteronormative women, I think they’re so often encouraged to put marriage and getting a relationship and babies and their children and their own parents, and all these people that culture expects them to be of service to. So, for me, if I’m going to be at the middle of anyone’s circle, I want to be at the middle of my own circle. I don’t want to be at the center of someone else’s circle.
You get to pick for yourself, but in my vote you’re going to be at the center of your circle because you’re the one who knows your needs, desires, preferences, and problems the best. And I think it makes the most sense that your life should be about those things, even if it’s also about other things.
There’s this thing I say sometimes when people are worried about being selfish, where I’m like, “Selfish versus who else-ish,” right? Like, who gets to matter the most in your life?
Now, let’s be really clear, though, I’m not saying center yourself at the expense of everyone else. I actually think when we truly center ourselves and when we truly make sure that our needs, preferences, desires, and problems are cared for, then it’s actually also much easier to be in intimacy, in deep relationship, in connection with other people and even to care for those other people in various ways, if that’s something we want to do. And this is why I like to give you the visual of the circle.
So inside my circle, I’m at the center. If I am not taking care of myself, I am not very much useful to all the other things I want to work on, whether those other things be my business, or people I want to have relationships with or activities I want to do, et cetera, right?
So in my circle, I’m in my circle. I need to care for me, right? I’m my own responsibility. I need to be aware of my needs and I need to figure out how to get those met, even if I’m asking other people to help out in that area. I need to be aware of my desires and figure out which ones I’m going to pursue and how I’m going to pursue them.
I need to be aware of my preferences, and then figure out when I’m going to set boundaries, when I’m going to manage expectations, when I’m going to make requests and what I’m going to do to meet those preferences in whatever way is suitable to me.
And I need to know what my problems are, and then figure out how to solve them, whether I solve them on my own or whether I hire a coach, hire a therapist, hire some other kind of professional, have a happy hour with a friend to talk about it. I’m in charge of all those things. As an adult human being, that’s my stuff to figure out. And I think that that’s so important, right? Because it’s like if you’re not allowed to be self-centered, who is supposed to be taking care of all that, right?
And for so many, especially I think women, they wind up in a position where no one’s taking care of it. Where they’re not taking care of it, but also no one else is taking care of it and then they’re overwhelmed and they’re resentful, and they’re not getting their needs met, and they feel like shit. And then they’re looking around going like, is this what fucking life is? It’s too hard, right?
And I’ve coached a lot of people who are at various stages of that, and so I’ve learned a lot from that. So here’s my pitch again. I think you need to be in your own circle. If you don’t want to put yourself at the center of it, that’s your business. But that’s where I’m putting myself in my circle.
For some people, though, they’re going to have something else at the center, like maybe their faith, or maybe one of their relationships or something else. But I just want you to be mindful and intentional about what the design of the circle is.
And then I think it’s like, who and what goes in the circle, right? So for me, I’m in the circle, but I’m not the only one in the circle. I’m self-centered, but I’m not only self-interested, I’m not only self-oriented. I’m at the center, because I think personally it makes the most sense to care for me so that then I can show up for the rest of the circle.
Alex is in the circle. My friends are in the circle. My business is in the circle. My clients are in the circle. The podcast is in the circle. You, my podcast listeners, you’re in the circle. Whether you ever sign up to work with me one on one or in a small group or in any other way or ever join one of my calls, you’re in my circle.
I care about you. I think about you all the time. I think about how do I make the podcast listeners’ lives better? How do I help their careers be more enjoyable? How do I help them improve their relationships? How do I help them have more deliciousness in their day-to-day life and also in the long-term trajectory of their life?
I think about y’all all the time. I love you to pieces. You don’t go at the center of my circle, though, because I think if I’m not at the center, I have less to give you. And even if it weren’t true that I’d have less to give you, it’s just I’m my top priority. And I think that that’s been so demonized and so frowned upon that that sounds really radical, but why would it be so radical for me to be my own priority? Who else’s priority would I be, if not my own?
Being a human requires a lot of care. I do all these things all day long for myself, like I get myself up in the morning out of bed. I take myself on a long walk. I feed myself, minimum three meals a day, but I eat a lot of snacks, so usually a lot more. Like sometimes I roast vegetables for myself. I do my physical therapy activities. I have a little chart to make sure I’m drinking water. I brush and floss my teeth.
These things require effort, and if I didn’t care about myself, if I wasn’t centering my own needs, I might not do some of those things. And I think that would have a detriment to me. And I think it’s also this interesting thing of like, if you’re not self-centered, who is going to make sure all of that gets done? If you’re not at the center of your own life, if you don’t have care for yourself, I think for so many women, especially, our self is almost like an afterthought as we care for everyone else.
And I personally just have a huge fucking problem with that. And so I’m here to talk with you about what it might be like to center yourself, even as you still also show up for other people and show up for other things.
What I like about the circle also is it’s a great way to visualize what do you want to be part of your care that you give to everything in your life, right? So what I was saying before is I’m reclaiming self-centeredness, I’m putting myself at the center of my circle. But there are all these other things in the circle, too.
I only listed some of them for you, right? Like walking goes in my circle, but like I was kind of just giving y’all some of the stuff off the top of my head. But there’s a lot of stuff I don’t want to be in my circle. There’s a lot of stuff I don’t want to be responsible for. And I think one of my specialties and one of the things I’m really good at, so kind of my secret superpower is I’m really good at not doing things that I don’t want to do, that I don’t think it makes sense to do.
So a lot of people without even meaning to sort of follow the rules. They follow the rules of culture. They follow the rules of their family. They follow the rules of whatever group that they’re part of. And for whatever reason, I’m not really sure how I developed this capacity in the beginning, I’m someone who questions things.
I’m like, do I have to do that? Why do I have to do that? What’s it going to get for me if I do that? If I don’t do that, what will the consequences be? And then I weigh those. As much as I’m a recovering perfectionist, I also remember being a kid and calculating, like if something was a percentage of my grade, I would calculate how low of a score can I get on this and still get an A in the class? Because I was a perfectionist in that I wanted that A, but I was also not about doing a lot of the work if I didn’t have to. So I was kind of a funky, offbeat perfectionist in that way.
I like to eliminate effort where I can’t. It’s funny, I’m a Taurus, right? So I saw this meme a while back that was like, “Tauruses aren’t lazy, they’re just selectively effective.” And I think that’s absolutely true for me. And so when you think about designing your circle, what do you want to put at the center of it? It doesn’t have to be you, I’m just pitching that it could be kind of wonderful if it is. Who do you want to be in the circle? What do you want to be in the circle? And I’m like, what do you want to leave out of the circle?
And I’m just here to be the advocate for you to leave all kinds of fucking shit outside of that circle. I think there’s so many things in life that people think they have to do, that you really don’t have to do, right? Sometimes you can do a worse job, like I was doing when I was figuring out how bad of a grade can I get on this and still get the A in the class? I was figuring out like, could I do a worse job on something? Could I ditch it entirely? Can I delegate it? Can I pay someone else to do it?
Like I’ve talked before about Alex and our chore chart and how there’s some stuff I do, some stuff she does, and some stuff we delegate out. I mean, we pay someone else to do it when I say we delegate it out, right? So if there are things that you do not want to be in your circle, can you get them the fuck out of your circle? Can you just ditch them entirely? Do they even need to be done? What will be the consequences if they’re not?
If they really do need to be done, can someone else do them, whether it’s someone else on your work team, someone else in your household, someone else you pay. If they have to be done, and for some reason they have to be done by you, can you do a worse job on them without having negative consequences?
I was listening to a podcast this morning about time and how to use your time well specifically to be happy. And one of the things that they were talking about was so many of us when we really look at our lives hour by hour, day by day, we’re not using our time on the things that we want to. And there’s little bits of time we’re sort of frittering away on unimportant activities that really add up to a huge chunk of your life.
Now, y’all know, I’m not about shame and blame, so I’m not saying this so you can feel badly about yourself or how you spend your time. What I am advocating for is like, design your circle and let it reflect the life you want to have as much as possible. Like, yeah, we all have some responsibilities that we’re not going to stop doing, but we don’t really love.
For me, it’s always like there’s some back end stuff of my business that I’m not going to hire out because I really do want to understand my money coming in, my money going out, like how much money I owe various governmental bodies and stuff like that.
I really like knowing my numbers. I don’t always enjoy the effort of doing it, but I’m not going to let it go. But there’s so much that I can let go of. There’s so much that I can delegate. There’s so much that just actually maybe doesn’t have to get done or I can negotiate with someone else to do it and then I can keep a task that I like more.
And when I put myself in the center of the circle, I think it sends a message to me that I matter. I matter, my choices matter, what I want matters, and that there’s a way for me to center myself that isn’t about being unavailable for others or not being attentive to them, or ignoring them.
It’s simply like it’s a hierarchy, right? It’s taking care of myself first so that I can be a happy functional person in how I show up to everything else in my circle. And then I can find ways to get as much that I don’t want out of the circle as possible.
Now, as folks socialized as women, which is me, and maybe it’s you or maybe you have some other socialization that’s getting in your way and blocking you here, it can be really hard to let go of that socialization. It can be really hard to switch from the idea that being self-centered is a bad thing to the idea that being self-centered is fucking delicious and part of living a satisfied life.
And you don’t have to do that work alone. The work that I do with my clients one on one and in my small group is unlearning the shit that’s not working and relearning something new that’s more in-line with the kind of life you want to have, with the kind of career you want to have, with the kind of relationships you want to have.
So this shift from thinking self-centeredness is bad and selfish to realizing that you can center yourself in a way that’s delicious and actually leads to deeper connection with other people, and better relationships, and a more satisfying happy career, that’s not a shift that you have to make on your own. You can do it in a cozy private container with just me where it’s all about you and what you’re going through.
Or you can join the most fabulous community and do it together with everyone in Satisfied As Fuck. The next cohort starts at the end of October and I would love to have you in it. Scoot on over to my website and you can sign up for a consult call and we can have a discussion about where you are now and what it would look like to center yourself and what it would look like for you to be satisfied as fuck.
All right, y’all, that’s what I have for you this week. Have a lovely week and I’ll talk to you next time.
Do you wanna end this year feeling Satisfied AF and setting yourself up for a delicious 2024? I have just the thing for you. I'm teaching a free class next week called Ending the Year Satisfied AF. The call is October 17th at 2 PM Pacific, and you can find a link to sign up in the show notes or via the link in my Instagram bio, which is korilinn.com/learnmore. I would love to see you on the call.
I'm going to be teaching my best and tips for how to finish this year on a happy high note. I'll answer questions, and I maybe even will have time for some live coaching. You're gonna leave this call feeling energized, inspired, and ready to welcome more satisfaction into your life and career, and you're gonna be equipped with the skills to do it. 2023 is not over yet, and there's still plenty of time to create more delight, satisfaction, and set yourself up for a gorgeous 2024. I hope to see you there.
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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