83. Things That Cannot Be Undone
This week’s topic is an interesting one because there are actually so many things that we can undo.
When we buy something, most of the time, we can return it.
If we do something we don’t like on our computer, we can hit CTRL-Z and go back to the old version.
But sometimes, especially in our careers (but also in our personal lives), there are things we simply cannot undo.
A non-work example from my life right now is that I recently got a new haircut.
And I don’t like it.
I’m pretty sure it actually is what I asked for. It just turns out I don’t like what I asked for.
And of course, hair is not the only thing this can happen with.
Sometimes we ask for a new set of responsibilities at work, and then we don’t like them.
Sometimes we switch industries, and then we don’t like the new industry as much as we thought we would.
Sometimes we quit our job and wish we could just CTRL-Z our way back to it.
And yes, sometimes we can go back.
But sometimes, we can’t.
So the question becomes, how do we navigate a choice we can’t undo?
How do we think about it ahead of time and how do we handle it when we find ourselves in that situation?
Tune in to this week’s episode and we’ll talk alllll about it.
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WHAT YOU’LL LEARN FROM THIS EPISODE:
Where you might have done something in your life, personally or professionally, that can’t be undone.
Why you can’t undo some things, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do something about them.
The socialization that leads us to believe some things need undoing when that is not necessarily true.
How our brains interact with risk and trying new things when we’re on default, and why we need to switch out of this default.
Where the learning and growth opportunities are in situations where you’ve done something that can’t be undone.
How to love yourself, even if you don’t love your situation.
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE:
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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
This week we’re talking about things that cannot be undone.
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 y'all, happy Wednesday. It's been so long since I've talked to you. I know on your end it's been a week, but I think I recorded the last podcast a little earlier on. And so much has happened in my life since I've talked to y’all.
For one thing, I had my birthday, so that was pretty exciting. Took a few days off for that, had some lovely food, great wine. And then last week I went up to Seattle. I actually just got back yesterday, and that was a lot of fun. I had some of the food that I really, really love from Seattle.
There's like this specific Indian restaurant, it's in Renton, it's called Naan-N-Curry’s. So if you are in the Seattle area Naan-N-Curry Renton is by far my favorite best Indian I've ever had in my life. This is not an ad, I just fucking love their food so much. And I've had a few Indian dishes down here in Sac and I haven't found anything that I like as much.
So we went back, and I was like, I'm just going to buy a bunch of this, and I ate it for like dinner twice the night we got there. And then I like had it for breakfast the next day, and I think breakfast the day after that. And I probably would have eaten it for even more meals, but I was like going out to dinner with friends and some stuff.
And then we also had my favorite Mediterranean food, which is Mediterranean Kitchen in Bellevue. Also not an ad but I just, I fucking love their food. They have this thing called Zahra, which is like cauliflower that I think they probably deep fry. And it comes with like this creamy garlic sauce.
But the sauce doesn't have any dairy in it which is great because I do have pills I can take that will allow my body to eat dairy, but I feel like it's always better when things don't actually have the dairy and then I don't have to take the pills. You know, it's like my body doesn't really want that. But I'm super grateful that there are pills I can take that help out with that.
Okay, so just a lot of eating basically, eating and drinking. I did also have some really good wines in Seattle, but the food was the main event up there. And of course, seeing some wonderful friends, going dancing with the dancing community that I adore in Seattle.
Which is rain country dance, which is a LGBTQIA2S+ dancing community. It's so amazing, if you live in that area and are into country dancing in a queer space, I highly recommend. It's like one of the number one things I miss about living in Seattle.
Okay, so so many fun times Seattle things. But what are we talking about this week? This week we're talking about things that cannot be undone. Things that we've done that we cannot undo. And I think this is a really interesting topic because there are so many things that we can undo.
I mean, I don't know about y'all, but me, and I think most people who live a life similar to me, live in this world were so many things can be undone. Like, just think about like Ctrl+Z, right, you can just like undo. So many things can be undone. Like when I was a little kid, I remember when we first got our very first computer.
But before that it's like if you're drawing on a piece of paper and you draw something you don't like, if you were drawing with pencil you can try to erase it and you might erase all of it, you might only erase some of it and still have that line there where you can see what you had done. And for a lot of stuff, you couldn't erase it at all. Like marker, you were not erasing that. They probably have erasable markers now, but I don't really know.
Crayons, I did a lot with crayons when I was a kid. So many things when I was a child, once you did them, they were just done, you couldn't undo them. You could get a new piece of paper to draw on. But if you were drawing a picture and really liked it and then made a choice and then didn't like that choice, you were just stuck with that choice.
And I think about this a lot too, with like shopping. I'm a big fan of returns, like I buy a lot of shit and then if it's not exactly what I want, I want to take it back. I want to get exactly what I want, which is a privilege and it's me being pretty picky. But it's something that I value, the ability to be able to try things and test things, then take them back.
Like I'm also especially susceptible to when people are like, “Oh, buy this and if you don't like it for any reason, we'll give you your money back.” I'm like, great, because it's like there's no risk there. But sometimes in life, even now there are things that we can't undo.
And these things can happen in our careers, and they can happen in our personal lives. And my current example that I'm going to share with you today is one from my personal life. And I think it's an interesting thing to think about because it has kind of some complexities I'm going to get into.
So what happened for me is I got a haircut. And I got the haircut that I asked for, I think. Like I'm pretty sure that what I asked for is what I got. But what I got is not what I like. And so some of that is like I was trying something new. And I think some of that is I didn't actually 100% understand what the words I was using would mean actually in real life and to this other person.
And I think this is an interesting example too, because living in our culture where the beauty is really kind of weaponized, right? It's like women are demanded to be beautiful. Like beauty is like currency that is put on to us and expected of us. And we're like socialized that all these things matter, but also look beautiful while you do them.
And beauty is such a performance, it requires all these things. But there's so much socialization in there and so much value in there. And we do live in, I mean, at least I live in a culture where beauty also gives you privilege, right?
So if you are beautiful in a way that matches like cultural ideals, which are obviously completely fucked up and full of all kinds of other things like thin supremacy, and white supremacy, and ableism. But you get things for it, right? You get unearned benefits.
And just a side note, I'm going to, at some point, do a podcast on just privilege in general too. Because I think it's a really important topic to think about when designing a career and life you love. But for the purpose of this, I'm just kind of touching on that because part of my brain is like, it's a fucking haircut. Like who cares? It's not doing anything, right? It's not actually impacting my ability to have a great life.
But on this other hand, I don't want to belittle my feelings about it because I also understand that I grew up in a culture where what I look like has mattered because of the way culture talks to women about their appearance. And so, of course, those ideas are deeply conditioned and deeply embedded into me.
I remember being a small child and understanding that beauty was a way that women had power. And so I remember from a very young age, pretty much as young as I can remember, that I wanted to be beautiful because that's a way I could have power. And I wanted to be powerful, right? I wanted access to that.
So fast forward to now and I got this haircut, and I don't particularly like it. And the funny thing is, other people love it. So that's like really fascinating too. Other people are like, “Oh, I love this hair cut on you, it's so great.” And I love that they love it. Actually, like I'm a social mammal and as much coaching as I've done, I still give lots of fucks about what other people think, especially like certain specific other people I love.
So it does feel good because of my thoughts about like that other people like it. It's not, you know, a terrible haircut. It's just not what I wanted, even though it's what I asked for. And again, no disrespect to the person who cut the hair, because I think she did do what I asked for. I just don't think I realized what that would look like.
And I don't think I realized what it would look like on me. And it's so different than what I'm used to. And I think it's also made me question like some of my identity pieces about who I think I am and what I think I look like. This is all a lot coming from a haircut, right? But I think this is very common.
And it does relate to work, right? So let's say you change jobs, and you got a job and it's the job that's exactly what you asked for. Everyone else in your life thinks it's great. They're like, “What a great change for you,” like my hair cut. But on the inside, you're like, “Oh no, this is what I asked for, but I don't like this. This is not what I want. This makes me question all this other shit that I know to be true about myself.”
Or maybe you're even, like maybe it changes how you do your work, right? Again, my brain is still judging me about the hair example, but we're just going to go with it. Be with me and my brain and it's judgment of itself because fucking brains are like that.
So doing my hair now is not the same as doing my hair for like any of the rest of my adult life. Like this hair cut is different and the way I interact with it is different and the way I try to style it is different and it involves like different skills. And I think that's how work can be too, right?
You switch the job, you get the new job that's the job you asked for. And you get it and you're like, “How the fuck do I do this job?” You're like, “I thought I wanted this job and I thought it would be like this. But now that I have it, it's not like that. And I don't fucking know how to do it.”
And then you're maybe in this awkward in the middle phase where you’re trying to figure out how to do the new thing, right? Like, how do I style the new hair? How do I do the new job? How do I interact with these new people? How do I own this new identity piece that I'm in?
And I think, again, the hair is like kind of a lightweight example aside from all the pressure we put on our physical looks in Western culture. But it's also related to so many other things that feel deeply important to people and deeply like part of their identity.
And to circle back, hair also isn't lightweight because of that, because so many of us do deeply identify with our visual aesthetic, with what we look like, with how we present ourselves to the world. And I made a choice to change my hair and change how I presented myself to the world. And it didn't go the way I thought it would.
And now I have this thing that cannot be undone, right? Because I could cut my hair more, but I can't uncut my hair. I can't uncut my hair back to the other hair, I have to wait until it grows. Hair is cool because it will grow, but it may take a long time. Definitely to get to the length it was before, it would take a long time. And it may take some time to get to something that I enjoy more.
And the same could be true of a job, right? So if you quit a job to get a different job, whether you're in the same organization, whether you're in a different organization, a lot of times you can't undo that. Maybe you could, maybe you could ask the people to give you your job back, maybe they would. But a lot of times we either can’t, or we wouldn't, or even if we did it would be like taping a piece of paper back together again in that it can't just be undone exactly, right? You cannot Ctrl+Z that and just have it be what it was before.
And this happens in relationships too, where we make choices and then the relationship shifts. Something about it changes and then we have to navigate from where we are then, not from where we used to be. And this can be very unsettling, right? Because the human brain wants you to be safe, it wants you to survive. And a lot of times it doesn't really want you to take a risk.
And so much of getting anything we don't already have in life is taking a risk. And sometimes when we take a risk, we wind up somewhere we didn't want to be. And that can be pretty unfun, right? That can be upsetting, it can be unsettling personally. But also again, the brain is like, I don't know this other place. Like what if I'm not safe here? What if something bad happens, right?
So I think then the question is, what can we all learn from my haircut? Like what can we all learn about our lives, and about our jobs, and our careers, and our relationships from my current experience? And I think one of the first things is the way I choose to think about the haircut is still the key element. And I don't have to like it. I don't have to love it, right?
So it's interesting, right? This podcast is called Love Your Job Before You Leave It, y'all know I'm a big fan of the idea. But I'm also a big fan of like, do whatever the fuck you want for whatever reasons you want because you are the sovereign in charge of your own life. So when it comes to me and his haircut, I don't think I want to love it. I think I want to love myself with this haircut.
Do you see the difference in that? Loving the haircut is kind of like being like, “Okay, it's this thing and I don't like it, but I can choose to like it.” And I totally could, I'm like totally allowed to do that. I just don't want to because I think for me it's a bigger piece of learning and growth and magic, quite frankly, for me to love myself with the haircut I don't like. I think that is more impactful.
And I think that what that does is it really sets me up in life, one, to be able to take risks and know that even if I don't like the outcomes, I can still love myself with those outcomes. Not despite those outcomes, with those outcomes. I can love the me who has this haircut, and I can love the me who made the choice to get this haircut. And I can see that she was trying something interesting, trying something new, and it just didn't go the way she thought it would.
I think as a kid, so much of my life was making choices and then being so upset with the like “logical consequences” of that. And it's interesting because one time as a kid I also cut off all my hair in an even more extreme way than this haircut.
It was seventh grade and I cut off my hair into like a very short, short haircut. And from there, there's really not very far you can go. I could have shaved my head or made it a little shorter, but there wasn't very far I could go. So I really did just have to be like all right, I guess this is the thing until it grows out.
And it was not a very fun experience for me, I got made fun of ruthlessly. It was not the best. And I think I spent so much time as a kid being upset that I had done that and hating it and hating the whole experience.
And so it is really interesting to kind of be back in this place of like, oh, look, I made a choice, I tried a thing, I took a risk. I don't actually like what I got, and I don't have to hate it the whole time. And I don't have to hate myself for having chosen it. And I also don't have to love it. I can just love me.
And of course this doesn't mean we don't learn from our experiences, right? I will not ask for that specific haircut again because I don't like what happened when I asked for it, and now I know that. It wasn't what I thought it was going to be, but that's going to happen probably again in life.
Especially because I'm going to ask for all kinds of things and I want to live a life where I can ask for things I've never asked for before. And some of the time I'm going to be delighted with what I get and some of the time I'm not. And what if that's just okay? What if that is not something to be avoided?
I think I've spent so much of my life trying to avoid being upset with my past choices. And in some ways, and at some ages, and in some stages of development that can be a really good lesson, that can be a really good learning, a really good tool. But it can also hold us back and it can keep us from trying things. And it can keep our lives kind of small sometimes.
So as much as a haircut is just a haircut, I think it's also kind of a profound example of what if we're willing to try things? Because there never is a guarantee, but I think a lot of us are like, “Well, I'm willing to try things if they'll probably be good.” But what if we were willing to try things even if they might not be good?
And what if we were willing to love ourselves when they weren't? What if we were willing to try things that cannot be undone, and then if we didn't like what couldn't be done, we were still willing to be with ourselves in that, love ourselves, take really good care of ourselves?
So to take it back to the work example, it's like if you've made some kind of change in your career and you can't undo it, are you beating yourself up about it? Are you telling yourself you should have known better? You should have known better is like one of my brains go-to self-punishment thoughts.
It's interesting, my brain thinks I should know everything. I don't get that. It doesn't make any sense, like how would I have known better, brain? I didn't know, that's the whole point. But it doesn't stop my brain from saying that.
And I've really had to do a lot of work around that because my brain still says that shit and I'm just like, “Yep, this is the part where my brain says we should have known better.” And I'm just like, is that who I want to be with myself though? Is the self who says I should have known better? No, it's not who I want to be.
Here's the thing too, to love yourself when you make a choice that you then wish you hadn't made that can't be undone, that takes some skill. A lot of us have a lot of practice beating ourselves up, that's going to be easier in the short term just because you have the muscle memory for it. But that doesn't mean you can't do the other thing.
And it doesn't mean it's easier in the long run because, obviously, it's not because all you get is more practice beating yourself up. And then you feel like shit, and then you're scared to make choices and take risks. And then you're trying to live your life in this really small, like in between these little lines of like, oh I never want to do anything that will make me upset with myself because then I have to be mean. So I would vote that's just not a very fun way to do things.
Anyways, this is a ramble, as it is every week. So basically, what I want to offer is that sometimes in life, things happen that can't be undone. Sometimes we do them, like I took my ass to the hair cutting place and paid the money and asked for the thing, and got the haircut and then was like, “Oh no.” Sometimes we don't ask for them. Sometimes the world does things in our lives that can't be done.
And either way, when something can't be undone that we wish could, who do we want to be? How do we want to be in relationship with ourselves about that? How do we want to speak to ourselves about that? How do we want to nurture, and comfort, and soothe ourselves?
And then how do we want to engage with the thing? Like, do we want to choose to love it? Or do we just want to choose to love ourselves with it? There is no right answer here, but I really want you to think about all the options you have and how so many of us just spend our time in the option of just being miserable.
And listen, I'm a person as well, like as a coach. So I spend some time being miserable too. I spend some time having a super bad attitude and wishing I'd made a different choice and like bemoaning. I'm doing all of that. But in addition to doing that, I try to spend some time as well loving myself and being really proud of myself for trying something new.
And also figuring out like are there ways I can style this haircut that I like? And what are those ways? And you know what? There are. Is it the haircut I wish I had? Abso-fucking-lutely not. But can I love myself with it? Yes, I can.
And can I find ways to style it that actually delight me and the aesthetic that I prefer versus like trying to love the aesthetic that it is? And I kind of dabble in both with that, but yeah, mostly I just try and style it in ways that I'm like, “Yeah, this is the thing I like.” So I can do that this way. And I can do other nice things for myself, and I can, whatever, put on cute earrings.
And of course when I want to go hard I can also sit down with myself and question the beauty narrative because that's also totally optional. Like that is our socialization that says that being beautiful is important. And that being beautiful is like a specific narrow set of things.
And it's interesting too with this, because I've noticed that I would think this haircut was cute on someone else. But my brain does not want to accept it and think it's cute on me. So that's also just an interesting piece to think about, like the difference between, like what our brain thinks is acceptable and preferable for other people and what it thinks about us.
Now, I don't know what's going on in your life right now, but what I know for sure is there is some shit that is probably not undoable, and there is some shit you cannot change. Or maybe cannot change immediately right away, right? Hair will grow, jobs change over time, we can change our jobs. Like we might not change jobs again if we've just gotten into a new one, but eventually we could change jobs again.
But what I want you to think about is like, how are you going to relate to yourself about that? How are you going to talk to yourself about that? How are you going to narrate that for yourself and for what it means for you as a person and for your life and for the trajectory of your life?
Are we going to turn it into a narrative of triumph and about how you can build a life you love that really delights you even though there are certain things that cannot be done, or certain things the world is doing that you don't have direct control over? Or are we going to build a narrative that things are terrible?
And listen, I get the temptation for the things are terrible narrative. If that's where you are or want to be, you're totally allowed. Like I said before, you get to do whatever the fuck you want for whatever reasons you want. For me, though, I find that if I go there and get stuck there, it doesn't work out very well for me. And it results in a lot of fuck it effect, and a lot of pit of despair, and a lot of me not showing up to the world the way I want to. So you get to choose. As always, you get to choose for you.
All right y'all, that's what I have for you this week. Go forth and figure out what you want to do with those things in your life that cannot be undone, who you want to be, how you want to be with yourself.
And if you want to do this work of figuring out who you want to be and how to become that person and how to go from someone who beats herself up to someone who loves herself, even in a circumstance that she doesn't prefer, come work with me.
Come sign up for a consult call and let's talk about what's going on for you and what you want to have going on for you. And if it's a good fit I'll tell you about my current offering. You can find out more or sign up for a consult at korilinn.com/learnmore. All right y'all, have a lovely week.
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 y'all, happy Wednesday. It's been so long since I've talked to you. I know on your end it's been a week, but I think I recorded the last podcast a little earlier on. And so much has happened in my life since I've talked to y’all.
For one thing, I had my birthday, so that was pretty exciting. Took a few days off for that, had some lovely food, great wine. And then last week I went up to Seattle. I actually just got back yesterday, and that was a lot of fun. I had some of the food that I really, really love from Seattle.
There's like this specific Indian restaurant, it's in Renton, it's called Naan-N-Curry’s. So if you are in the Seattle area Naan-N-Curry Renton is by far my favorite best Indian I've ever had in my life. This is not an ad, I just fucking love their food so much. And I've had a few Indian dishes down here in Sac and I haven't found anything that I like as much.
So we went back, and I was like, I'm just going to buy a bunch of this, and I ate it for like dinner twice the night we got there. And then I like had it for breakfast the next day, and I think breakfast the day after that. And I probably would have eaten it for even more meals, but I was like going out to dinner with friends and some stuff.
And then we also had my favorite Mediterranean food, which is Mediterranean Kitchen in Bellevue. Also not an ad but I just, I fucking love their food. They have this thing called Zahra, which is like cauliflower that I think they probably deep fry. And it comes with like this creamy garlic sauce.
But the sauce doesn't have any dairy in it which is great because I do have pills I can take that will allow my body to eat dairy, but I feel like it's always better when things don't actually have the dairy and then I don't have to take the pills. You know, it's like my body doesn't really want that. But I'm super grateful that there are pills I can take that help out with that.
Okay, so just a lot of eating basically, eating and drinking. I did also have some really good wines in Seattle, but the food was the main event up there. And of course, seeing some wonderful friends, going dancing with the dancing community that I adore in Seattle.
Which is rain country dance, which is a LGBTQIA2S+ dancing community. It's so amazing, if you live in that area and are into country dancing in a queer space, I highly recommend. It's like one of the number one things I miss about living in Seattle.
Okay, so so many fun times Seattle things. But what are we talking about this week? This week we're talking about things that cannot be undone. Things that we've done that we cannot undo. And I think this is a really interesting topic because there are so many things that we can undo.
I mean, I don't know about y'all, but me, and I think most people who live a life similar to me, live in this world were so many things can be undone. Like, just think about like Ctrl+Z, right, you can just like undo. So many things can be undone. Like when I was a little kid, I remember when we first got our very first computer.
But before that it's like if you're drawing on a piece of paper and you draw something you don't like, if you were drawing with pencil you can try to erase it and you might erase all of it, you might only erase some of it and still have that line there where you can see what you had done. And for a lot of stuff, you couldn't erase it at all. Like marker, you were not erasing that. They probably have erasable markers now, but I don't really know.
Crayons, I did a lot with crayons when I was a kid. So many things when I was a child, once you did them, they were just done, you couldn't undo them. You could get a new piece of paper to draw on. But if you were drawing a picture and really liked it and then made a choice and then didn't like that choice, you were just stuck with that choice.
And I think about this a lot too, with like shopping. I'm a big fan of returns, like I buy a lot of shit and then if it's not exactly what I want, I want to take it back. I want to get exactly what I want, which is a privilege and it's me being pretty picky. But it's something that I value, the ability to be able to try things and test things, then take them back.
Like I'm also especially susceptible to when people are like, “Oh, buy this and if you don't like it for any reason, we'll give you your money back.” I'm like, great, because it's like there's no risk there. But sometimes in life, even now there are things that we can't undo.
And these things can happen in our careers, and they can happen in our personal lives. And my current example that I'm going to share with you today is one from my personal life. And I think it's an interesting thing to think about because it has kind of some complexities I'm going to get into.
So what happened for me is I got a haircut. And I got the haircut that I asked for, I think. Like I'm pretty sure that what I asked for is what I got. But what I got is not what I like. And so some of that is like I was trying something new. And I think some of that is I didn't actually 100% understand what the words I was using would mean actually in real life and to this other person.
And I think this is an interesting example too, because living in our culture where the beauty is really kind of weaponized, right? It's like women are demanded to be beautiful. Like beauty is like currency that is put on to us and expected of us. And we're like socialized that all these things matter, but also look beautiful while you do them.
And beauty is such a performance, it requires all these things. But there's so much socialization in there and so much value in there. And we do live in, I mean, at least I live in a culture where beauty also gives you privilege, right?
So if you are beautiful in a way that matches like cultural ideals, which are obviously completely fucked up and full of all kinds of other things like thin supremacy, and white supremacy, and ableism. But you get things for it, right? You get unearned benefits.
And just a side note, I'm going to, at some point, do a podcast on just privilege in general too. Because I think it's a really important topic to think about when designing a career and life you love. But for the purpose of this, I'm just kind of touching on that because part of my brain is like, it's a fucking haircut. Like who cares? It's not doing anything, right? It's not actually impacting my ability to have a great life.
But on this other hand, I don't want to belittle my feelings about it because I also understand that I grew up in a culture where what I look like has mattered because of the way culture talks to women about their appearance. And so, of course, those ideas are deeply conditioned and deeply embedded into me.
I remember being a small child and understanding that beauty was a way that women had power. And so I remember from a very young age, pretty much as young as I can remember, that I wanted to be beautiful because that's a way I could have power. And I wanted to be powerful, right? I wanted access to that.
So fast forward to now and I got this haircut, and I don't particularly like it. And the funny thing is, other people love it. So that's like really fascinating too. Other people are like, “Oh, I love this hair cut on you, it's so great.” And I love that they love it. Actually, like I'm a social mammal and as much coaching as I've done, I still give lots of fucks about what other people think, especially like certain specific other people I love.
So it does feel good because of my thoughts about like that other people like it. It's not, you know, a terrible haircut. It's just not what I wanted, even though it's what I asked for. And again, no disrespect to the person who cut the hair, because I think she did do what I asked for. I just don't think I realized what that would look like.
And I don't think I realized what it would look like on me. And it's so different than what I'm used to. And I think it's also made me question like some of my identity pieces about who I think I am and what I think I look like. This is all a lot coming from a haircut, right? But I think this is very common.
And it does relate to work, right? So let's say you change jobs, and you got a job and it's the job that's exactly what you asked for. Everyone else in your life thinks it's great. They're like, “What a great change for you,” like my hair cut. But on the inside, you're like, “Oh no, this is what I asked for, but I don't like this. This is not what I want. This makes me question all this other shit that I know to be true about myself.”
Or maybe you're even, like maybe it changes how you do your work, right? Again, my brain is still judging me about the hair example, but we're just going to go with it. Be with me and my brain and it's judgment of itself because fucking brains are like that.
So doing my hair now is not the same as doing my hair for like any of the rest of my adult life. Like this hair cut is different and the way I interact with it is different and the way I try to style it is different and it involves like different skills. And I think that's how work can be too, right?
You switch the job, you get the new job that's the job you asked for. And you get it and you're like, “How the fuck do I do this job?” You're like, “I thought I wanted this job and I thought it would be like this. But now that I have it, it's not like that. And I don't fucking know how to do it.”
And then you're maybe in this awkward in the middle phase where you’re trying to figure out how to do the new thing, right? Like, how do I style the new hair? How do I do the new job? How do I interact with these new people? How do I own this new identity piece that I'm in?
And I think, again, the hair is like kind of a lightweight example aside from all the pressure we put on our physical looks in Western culture. But it's also related to so many other things that feel deeply important to people and deeply like part of their identity.
And to circle back, hair also isn't lightweight because of that, because so many of us do deeply identify with our visual aesthetic, with what we look like, with how we present ourselves to the world. And I made a choice to change my hair and change how I presented myself to the world. And it didn't go the way I thought it would.
And now I have this thing that cannot be undone, right? Because I could cut my hair more, but I can't uncut my hair. I can't uncut my hair back to the other hair, I have to wait until it grows. Hair is cool because it will grow, but it may take a long time. Definitely to get to the length it was before, it would take a long time. And it may take some time to get to something that I enjoy more.
And the same could be true of a job, right? So if you quit a job to get a different job, whether you're in the same organization, whether you're in a different organization, a lot of times you can't undo that. Maybe you could, maybe you could ask the people to give you your job back, maybe they would. But a lot of times we either can’t, or we wouldn't, or even if we did it would be like taping a piece of paper back together again in that it can't just be undone exactly, right? You cannot Ctrl+Z that and just have it be what it was before.
And this happens in relationships too, where we make choices and then the relationship shifts. Something about it changes and then we have to navigate from where we are then, not from where we used to be. And this can be very unsettling, right? Because the human brain wants you to be safe, it wants you to survive. And a lot of times it doesn't really want you to take a risk.
And so much of getting anything we don't already have in life is taking a risk. And sometimes when we take a risk, we wind up somewhere we didn't want to be. And that can be pretty unfun, right? That can be upsetting, it can be unsettling personally. But also again, the brain is like, I don't know this other place. Like what if I'm not safe here? What if something bad happens, right?
So I think then the question is, what can we all learn from my haircut? Like what can we all learn about our lives, and about our jobs, and our careers, and our relationships from my current experience? And I think one of the first things is the way I choose to think about the haircut is still the key element. And I don't have to like it. I don't have to love it, right?
So it's interesting, right? This podcast is called Love Your Job Before You Leave It, y'all know I'm a big fan of the idea. But I'm also a big fan of like, do whatever the fuck you want for whatever reasons you want because you are the sovereign in charge of your own life. So when it comes to me and his haircut, I don't think I want to love it. I think I want to love myself with this haircut.
Do you see the difference in that? Loving the haircut is kind of like being like, “Okay, it's this thing and I don't like it, but I can choose to like it.” And I totally could, I'm like totally allowed to do that. I just don't want to because I think for me it's a bigger piece of learning and growth and magic, quite frankly, for me to love myself with the haircut I don't like. I think that is more impactful.
And I think that what that does is it really sets me up in life, one, to be able to take risks and know that even if I don't like the outcomes, I can still love myself with those outcomes. Not despite those outcomes, with those outcomes. I can love the me who has this haircut, and I can love the me who made the choice to get this haircut. And I can see that she was trying something interesting, trying something new, and it just didn't go the way she thought it would.
I think as a kid, so much of my life was making choices and then being so upset with the like “logical consequences” of that. And it's interesting because one time as a kid I also cut off all my hair in an even more extreme way than this haircut.
It was seventh grade and I cut off my hair into like a very short, short haircut. And from there, there's really not very far you can go. I could have shaved my head or made it a little shorter, but there wasn't very far I could go. So I really did just have to be like all right, I guess this is the thing until it grows out.
And it was not a very fun experience for me, I got made fun of ruthlessly. It was not the best. And I think I spent so much time as a kid being upset that I had done that and hating it and hating the whole experience.
And so it is really interesting to kind of be back in this place of like, oh, look, I made a choice, I tried a thing, I took a risk. I don't actually like what I got, and I don't have to hate it the whole time. And I don't have to hate myself for having chosen it. And I also don't have to love it. I can just love me.
And of course this doesn't mean we don't learn from our experiences, right? I will not ask for that specific haircut again because I don't like what happened when I asked for it, and now I know that. It wasn't what I thought it was going to be, but that's going to happen probably again in life.
Especially because I'm going to ask for all kinds of things and I want to live a life where I can ask for things I've never asked for before. And some of the time I'm going to be delighted with what I get and some of the time I'm not. And what if that's just okay? What if that is not something to be avoided?
I think I've spent so much of my life trying to avoid being upset with my past choices. And in some ways, and at some ages, and in some stages of development that can be a really good lesson, that can be a really good learning, a really good tool. But it can also hold us back and it can keep us from trying things. And it can keep our lives kind of small sometimes.
So as much as a haircut is just a haircut, I think it's also kind of a profound example of what if we're willing to try things? Because there never is a guarantee, but I think a lot of us are like, “Well, I'm willing to try things if they'll probably be good.” But what if we were willing to try things even if they might not be good?
And what if we were willing to love ourselves when they weren't? What if we were willing to try things that cannot be undone, and then if we didn't like what couldn't be done, we were still willing to be with ourselves in that, love ourselves, take really good care of ourselves?
So to take it back to the work example, it's like if you've made some kind of change in your career and you can't undo it, are you beating yourself up about it? Are you telling yourself you should have known better? You should have known better is like one of my brains go-to self-punishment thoughts.
It's interesting, my brain thinks I should know everything. I don't get that. It doesn't make any sense, like how would I have known better, brain? I didn't know, that's the whole point. But it doesn't stop my brain from saying that.
And I've really had to do a lot of work around that because my brain still says that shit and I'm just like, “Yep, this is the part where my brain says we should have known better.” And I'm just like, is that who I want to be with myself though? Is the self who says I should have known better? No, it's not who I want to be.
Here's the thing too, to love yourself when you make a choice that you then wish you hadn't made that can't be undone, that takes some skill. A lot of us have a lot of practice beating ourselves up, that's going to be easier in the short term just because you have the muscle memory for it. But that doesn't mean you can't do the other thing.
And it doesn't mean it's easier in the long run because, obviously, it's not because all you get is more practice beating yourself up. And then you feel like shit, and then you're scared to make choices and take risks. And then you're trying to live your life in this really small, like in between these little lines of like, oh I never want to do anything that will make me upset with myself because then I have to be mean. So I would vote that's just not a very fun way to do things.
Anyways, this is a ramble, as it is every week. So basically, what I want to offer is that sometimes in life, things happen that can't be undone. Sometimes we do them, like I took my ass to the hair cutting place and paid the money and asked for the thing, and got the haircut and then was like, “Oh no.” Sometimes we don't ask for them. Sometimes the world does things in our lives that can't be done.
And either way, when something can't be undone that we wish could, who do we want to be? How do we want to be in relationship with ourselves about that? How do we want to speak to ourselves about that? How do we want to nurture, and comfort, and soothe ourselves?
And then how do we want to engage with the thing? Like, do we want to choose to love it? Or do we just want to choose to love ourselves with it? There is no right answer here, but I really want you to think about all the options you have and how so many of us just spend our time in the option of just being miserable.
And listen, I'm a person as well, like as a coach. So I spend some time being miserable too. I spend some time having a super bad attitude and wishing I'd made a different choice and like bemoaning. I'm doing all of that. But in addition to doing that, I try to spend some time as well loving myself and being really proud of myself for trying something new.
And also figuring out like are there ways I can style this haircut that I like? And what are those ways? And you know what? There are. Is it the haircut I wish I had? Abso-fucking-lutely not. But can I love myself with it? Yes, I can.
And can I find ways to style it that actually delight me and the aesthetic that I prefer versus like trying to love the aesthetic that it is? And I kind of dabble in both with that, but yeah, mostly I just try and style it in ways that I'm like, “Yeah, this is the thing I like.” So I can do that this way. And I can do other nice things for myself, and I can, whatever, put on cute earrings.
And of course when I want to go hard I can also sit down with myself and question the beauty narrative because that's also totally optional. Like that is our socialization that says that being beautiful is important. And that being beautiful is like a specific narrow set of things.
And it's interesting too with this, because I've noticed that I would think this haircut was cute on someone else. But my brain does not want to accept it and think it's cute on me. So that's also just an interesting piece to think about, like the difference between, like what our brain thinks is acceptable and preferable for other people and what it thinks about us.
Now, I don't know what's going on in your life right now, but what I know for sure is there is some shit that is probably not undoable, and there is some shit you cannot change. Or maybe cannot change immediately right away, right? Hair will grow, jobs change over time, we can change our jobs. Like we might not change jobs again if we've just gotten into a new one, but eventually we could change jobs again.
But what I want you to think about is like, how are you going to relate to yourself about that? How are you going to talk to yourself about that? How are you going to narrate that for yourself and for what it means for you as a person and for your life and for the trajectory of your life?
Are we going to turn it into a narrative of triumph and about how you can build a life you love that really delights you even though there are certain things that cannot be done, or certain things the world is doing that you don't have direct control over? Or are we going to build a narrative that things are terrible?
And listen, I get the temptation for the things are terrible narrative. If that's where you are or want to be, you're totally allowed. Like I said before, you get to do whatever the fuck you want for whatever reasons you want. For me, though, I find that if I go there and get stuck there, it doesn't work out very well for me. And it results in a lot of fuck it effect, and a lot of pit of despair, and a lot of me not showing up to the world the way I want to. So you get to choose. As always, you get to choose for you.
All right y'all, that's what I have for you this week. Go forth and figure out what you want to do with those things in your life that cannot be undone, who you want to be, how you want to be with yourself.
And if you want to do this work of figuring out who you want to be and how to become that person and how to go from someone who beats herself up to someone who loves herself, even in a circumstance that she doesn't prefer, come work with me.
Come sign up for a consult call and let's talk about what's going on for you and what you want to have going on for you. And if it's a good fit I'll tell you about my current offering. You can find out more or sign up for a consult at korilinn.com/learnmore. All right y'all, have a lovely week.
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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