57. When Everything Feels Annoying
Have you ever felt like everything is just really annoying?
I have.
Sometimes, I get really attached to the idea that certain things are just annoying. And when I’m in that headspace, I don’t always feel open to questioning my perspective, even though part of me knows it would be helpful.
The beauty of coaching is that we have many ways to approach situations, and if we’re in a headspace where we don’t want to question our existing thought patterns, that doesn’t mean we’re stuck. We have additional options.
When we’re in a headspace that feels super annoyed, for instance, if we don’t want to question that annoyance, we can just work with it instead.
So, instead of questioning and interrogating the thought that things are annoying, we begin by accepting the thoughts and feelings of annoyance. We allow that feeling of irritation to be there. But instead of staying in that place and thrashing around in our irritation, we move through it.
We allow the irritation and then we ask ourselves, “Now what?” How do we want to show up with this thing or situation? Who do we want to be? People tend to get stuck in their annoyance and burn out there, but we can be annoyed and still choose how we’re going to think and feel about it. We can be annoyed and still choose how we’re going to show up.
Tune in this week to discover the thought work we can do when we’re not willing to question our thoughts on something. Even if you don’t agree with the way something is, you can still choose how you show up to it, and choosing how you show up to it will change everything and leave you feeling much more empowered.
If you want to supercharge your capacity to create a life that blows your mind, I have some one-on-one coaching slots opening up soon. Send me an email and let's talk about it or click here to schedule a call with me and we’ll see if we’re a good fit to start working together!
If there are topics y’all want me to teach and talk about on the podcast, feel free to write in and let me know by clicking here! I’d love to hear from you!
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN FROM THIS EPISODE:
A useful way to handle feeling super annoyed at everything.
How to avoid getting stuck in the pit of despair when we have thoughts about how irritating things are.
Why ignoring and excluding something we truly believe doesn’t tend to work.
What your negative thoughts and feelings are there to tell you.
How to love and include the parts of yourself that have unhelpful thoughts.
What you can do to acknowledge how annoying something is and decide how you want to deal with it.
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE:
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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
This week we’re talking about what to do when everything feels annoying.
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, I'm excited to talk to you this week about something that I've actually been getting coaching on myself lately. But before I jump into it, I wanted to share with y'all that this is actually the second time I'm recording this podcast. And that's because the first time I recorded it, the topic, the way I described it was when everything feels dumb.
And I described it that way because literally those were the words my brain was saying was like, “Everything is dumb.” And my wonderful podcast team at Digital Freedom Productions reached out and they were like, “Hey, I think you might want to know that this word has a history you may not be aware of when you're using it.”
And they were right, it had totally slipped my mind that this word is ableist. And they were right, I think I did know somewhere deep in the depths of my brain that the history of this word was ableist. But I think it had slipped my mind or I don't really know what happened. But the point is, I wanted to share that with all of you because I wanted you to know that these things happen to me also.
I make a lot of mistakes, or I do things that I don't even realize are mistakes until someone else comes along and says, “Hey, did you know this has this implication? I know language matters a lot to you, I thought maybe you didn't know.” And I didn't know.
So I just want to give such a big shout out of gratitude to Angela, who's on my team at Digital Freedom Productions. And I have a lot of people on my team there and they're all amazing, but it was specifically Angela who messaged me on Slack this morning and mentioned that.
And I was like, “Ah, let me re-record that immediately.” Because language does matter so deeply to me. And because I'm not always going to get things right. And when I don't get things right, I want to fix them. I want to have a new decision to think about like what are my values here? And then act from those values.
And I think being able to approach this situation with that attitude is such an example of everything I've done with coaching and the differences in me as someone who's done a very large amount of coaching in the last several years. Because I did feel embarrassed when I realized what had happened, but I didn't feel the giant surge of shame that I am certain I would have felt three or four years ago.
I didn't feel like I had fucked everything up beyond all recognition. I was like, “Oh shit, that is not what I want to have happen.” And then within, I would say five minutes, I was like, “Oh, I am deeply grateful.” And that is so fun. And I didn't actually have to coach myself on that at all. I didn't have to force that at all, it was pretty natural.
But by natural, let me be really clear about what I mean by that. By natural I mean over years of self-coaching and being coached by amazing coaches I have changed my thought patterns from these thought patterns of deep shame to these thought patterns of like, “Oh, okay, this is manageable and maybe there's even something here that I can be grateful for.”
And so if you're doing a lot of coaching, or coaching yourself, or trying to change your thought patterns and the thought you want to feel natural doesn't feel natural yet. That's okay, that doesn't mean anything has gone wrong. I would say keep practicing.
Because I've been practicing these thought patterns not consistently always, you know my take on consistency is consistent inconsistency, however we can do it. But I've been practicing them a lot for several years, sometimes hyper consistently and sometimes like sort of half-assedly. And I think both of those are okay and useful because we usually can't be hyper consistent all the time, as we all know. I teach and preach about that all the time.
Anyway, the point is, this is such an example of what coaching can do. And also such a good example of we're always going to have shit that we do that someone's going to be like, “Wait a minute, did you know this?” And we're going to be like, “Oh fuck, I didn't know that.”
Or we're going to realize after the fact that what we did didn't align with our values. And I want to speak openly about that, even though part of me is a little embarrassed to tell y'all and to admit to y'all and everyone that I made that mistake.
What I think is more important than my embarrassment, is my ability to lead by example, which of course, feels vulnerable when I'm doing it. But I think that's important because I want y’all to see that when I'm talking about being imperfect and living the human condition, I am also being imperfect and living the human condition. And I'm doing it all the time.
It's not like I'm just talking about past Kori who was imperfect and living the human condition. No, the person I am right now is imperfect and living the human condition. And the person I'm going to become will be imperfect and will be living the human condition.
And I think that's so essential for me to talk about too, because when someone becomes a coach or an influencer and is teaching other people stuff that's really impactful and important and can help them have a much better experience of their lives, I think sometimes people, especially coaches kind of get put on this pedestal. And people think we're living perfect lives over here or something. And just nothing could be further from the truth.
And I want y'all to know and be with me in the knowledge that I'm imperfect, and learning, and figuring it out. And I know some incredibly useful shit and I'm going to share everything I know with you. And it's also okay if sometimes you're like, “What the fuck?” Or “I don't think Kori is informed about blah, blah, blah.” That's okay too. I'm not perfect, I'm not informed about everything. I'm in process and that's all I can ever be.
Which isn't at all to excuse it, if I do something that is incorrect, I'm going to do my best to be accountable for it and to communicate it to everyone like I am right now. But it just means I think it's important to remember that our teachers are not perfect, even when they're useful and have really great ideas. We're also just people and we don't have all the knowledge. And we're figuring it out as we go.
And I do think something I've actually been thinking a lot about in my own life is about this specific vulnerability of putting all of my teachings out there in the world in this way where as long as the podcast stays up, people five years now could come and listen. And I'm sure that there will be some things in the podcast and my teachings that five years from now I'll go like,
“I wouldn't teach that that way.” Or like, “Oh, I've actually totally changed my stance on that.” And yet, I put this stuff out there anyway.
And I think that's because it's like I can either put nothing out, or I can put out my current ideas that I know may evolve. And some of them I might be really proud of in five years and some of them I might be like, “Oof, I have a really different idea on that.”
And sometimes it is like then we find out, “Oh no, I used a word that I wouldn't use anymore.” Or I said something that was a microaggression that I didn't realize was a microaggression, et cetera, et cetera.
So I just kind of wanted to give you all that context because I think that is a big kind of teaching in its own right, just that even when we're doing our best, sometimes it's not going to be aligned with our values.
But then from that place, we always get to choose what to do from there, which is like I'm choosing to re-record this podcast. And I'm so grateful to my podcast team for pointing this out. And I'm so grateful for them telling me today so I had enough time to re-record and time for you all to get this on the day it should be released to you.
And yeah, it's such a good example of how something that could be painful and is a little painful to me still because I am a little embarrassed, but it mostly is not painful. It's mostly something now that's a symbol of gratitude and delight and a way that I can improve what I'm doing in the world and what I'm delivering to you that feels really meaningful to me and aligned with my values.
So that's what I wanted to share with y'all. And now let's get into the topic of the podcast, which I've now switched from the language I was using before that I'm now choosing not to use because it's been brought to my attention again, that it's ableist, which was when everything feels dumb.
And if you didn't know that dumb is ableist language, I invite you to look that up and be educated alongside of me. And then you can also make new choices about the language you want to use. And the new language we're going to use is when everything feels annoying, and when you're just not feeling it, and when you just don't feel like using coaching.
And those are all kind of different ideas, but I think they go together in what I want to talk about because what I want to talk about is really kind of about when we're feeling really resistant towards reality and resistant towards using our coaching. And we kind of just want to be stubborn and stuck in our current thinking, even if that thinking feels terrible and isn't helping us.
As I mentioned before, part of why I wanted to talk about this with y'all is because it was an experience that I've been having lately. I got some coaching from my own coach, Maggie Reyes, where I was just thinking that everything was really annoying. And I'm a coach, so obviously I was like, “These are thoughts, and I could change them.” But I was kind of like, “I don't want to.”
And, again, it's kind of vulnerable for me to share with you that I sometimes– And I know it's my thoughts and I don't want to change them, and everything is irritating, and I just don't like any of it. But I have days and moments like that too. And the beauty of coaching is that even when we're in that head space coaching can still be useful. And that's what we're going to talk about today.
Another way we could word this is just like when you don't like something. When you're having the thought, “I don't like this. I don't like this, I don't want to choose to like it.” And then we get stuck in that head space of “I don't like it. I don't want to choose to like it, I guess there's nothing I can do.” When what I'm going to offer you today is that there is still so much you can do.
So let's take this example, let's actually take that language, I don't like this, or this is irritating, this is annoying. And let's think about what some examples could be. So one example could be a male coworker getting paid more for doing the same job. Or even getting paid more for doing a job that technically your job is more senior to their job. And this happens all the time and I think it's a good example of something that you might feel really resistant to letting go of the thought that it's wrong, or it's annoying, or you don't like it.
Another example could be working on a project for six months and working really hard to showcase your skills and everything you're doing. And then that project getting canceled and then it never coming to completion so you're not able to speak about it and write about it in the same way, like in performance reviews, let's say.
Or to get kind of like the credit for having done that work or even get the fulfillment of seeing it come to fruition. And instead it's just canceled, and you're expected to start working on something else. And I've seen this happen a lot and I've seen people get like really downtrodden over it, so I think it's a good example for this.
Another example is presenting a pitch to the leadership team, where you are addressing a problem you see in your workplace. And even giving them a really clear direction of how that problem could be solved. And then them giving you raving reviews and such positive feedback, and then not doing anything about it.
And a year later they're like, “Why is blah, blah, blah like blah, blah, blah?” And you're like, “I don't know, maybe for the exact reasons I said in my pitch one year ago, that you agreed with me, but then no one did anything about?”
And that's not something I've personally experienced but I know a lot of people who have, and they find that generally to be really frustrating, really annoying, they don't like it, et cetera.
So, the thing about this is, like the classic coaching is we can look at these thoughts we're having, and we can question and interrogate them. And that's obviously available and can even be wise in some situations. But if you're in a head space like I was in recently, where you don't want to do that or you're feeling really resistant to that, I think it's useful to have another way we can approach this.
Having many ways to approach something, I think is always useful. And often there is an approach that's like, this could be a really wise approach. But sometimes we're not going to do the approach that could be really wise and then it's useful just to have other ways we could approach it.
And I think it's also a great lesson in not being a perfectionist about how you coach yourself and about how you do thought work. To not say like, “Oh, well, I have to interrogate all of these thoughts. And if I'm not going to do that, then I'm stuck with this feeling.” And then just feeling stuck and hating it and being mad.
Versus what I want to offer to you is kind of just this idea of like, okay, what if we just allow that assessment to be there? That assessment being like the thought, “This is wrong. This is annoying. I don't like this,” et cetera, et cetera. What if we allow that to be there, but then we don't stay there and we go to now what?
So with the way we think about things, it's like there's layers. So, “everything is annoying” is a thought that might not be serving you, but if you're at a place where you can't get underneath that thought or you don't want to, then it can be a question of like, “Okay, everything is annoying and what?”
Then it can become a question of everything is annoying and what do we want to do about that? Everything is annoying and what do we want to think about that? Everything is annoying and how are we going to love ourselves through this situation where everything is annoying?
So on the one hand, not questioning that everything is annoying, there's a way to take the thought work deeper by questioning that. But there's also thought work that can be done when we're not willing to question that.
So for instance, if you're like, “Everything is annoying.” Okay, sure. Let's just say that's true, everything is annoying. What do we want to do about it? Who do we want to be as a person with this everything that's annoying? How do we want to show up? What kind of life do we want to live?
And I think that this can actually be really useful because, at least for me there's so much stuff in this world that I don't agree with, and I don't condone, and I don't want. And sometimes I do want to keep my thoughts that it's annoying, or wrong, or that I don't like it. But I don't want to just be like, “It's annoying, and wrong, and I don't like it. And it's here so now I have to live in a pit of despair and give up and not do anything.”
And I see a lot of people kind of get stuck in that space of like, “Well, everything's annoying.” And then they add on to that, so nothing I do matters. And so they don't do anything. And then things stay the same. And then they feel more and more helpless. Versus like, “Yeah, let's just give it to you that many things are annoying, but okay, what do we want to do about that?” What do we want to do about having a male coworker who makes more money for the same work?
If we're like, “Everything's annoying, and this is annoying, but everywhere we could work is like that and it'll never get better.” Then we're probably going to stay in that situation and be resentful and get burned out emotionally and just be annoyed with our lives. Which, listen, is an option. You're totally allowed to do that if you want, I just don't think it sounds like very much fun. It's not what I want to be doing with my life, but I understand why it can be very tempting.
Versus okay, such and such gets paid more than me and I'm annoyed about that. And what the fuck am I going to do about it? Am I going to put together a pitch to my supervisor to get a raise? Am I going to go out and find another job? Am I going to find a different job within this company? Am I going to leave this field altogether and start some kind of interesting nonprofit about pay equality, or pay equity rather?
What am I going to do? Who do we want to be? And what if we choose something so we don't get stuck in the like, “It's all terrible, nothing will get better, I may as well do nothing.” So we don't get stuck in that place, which I'm just going to call the pit of despair. Although there are lots of pits of despair and lots of ways to end up there. I definitely think that that is one, when we think that everything is annoying, and we don't like anything and there's no point.
And that kind of ties back into the podcast we've had recently about the fuck it effect and self-sabotage. When we're like, “Everything's annoying and there's nothing I can do,” then we don't do anything. And in a lot of ways that actually, I would say, is a form of self-sabotage as well.
Okay, so basically to summarize, what I'm saying is if you have an unhelpful thought that is difficult for you to shake, sometimes an easier thing to do versus interrogating it or doing a list of what's working, those are both useful. But if you don't want to do those things or they're not feeling helpful in this moment another thing you can do is just for now allow that unhelpful thought, and then what are we going to tack on to it? Who do we want to be? What values we want to live by? How do we want to show up in spite of this thing, whatever it is, that we think is annoying?
Okay, so that's like the basic premise. But here's a little bonus thing I want you all to think about. So often with coaching, with my own clients but I've also seen this a lot with myself, we can kind of get into this place where we're battling with our own brains. We're like, “Oh, my brain is an asshole. Why is it like this? It's making everything hard for me, it keeps telling me everything's annoying.”
It's like we get this antagonistic almost relationship with ourselves, with these different parts of ourselves inside our own heads that have these narratives that we have learned about coaching, we know these things aren't helpful. But what I want to offer to you is the exact opposite, which is what if we can love and include these parts of ourselves that have these unhelpful thoughts?
And that might feel really counterintuitive at first. You're like, “No, no, no, Kori, you told me that these thoughts that aren't helpful lead to feelings that aren't helpful, which leads to actions that aren’t helpful, which lead to a lot of shit I don't want in my life.”
And listen, that's all true. But I don't think excluding those parts of ourselves helps us rewire them into more useful thoughts. And I don't think excluding those parts of ourselves helps us have a fun, integrated life. Because we're constantly then battling with ourselves. And we’re on the lookout against ourselves of like, “Oh no, when is that problematic part of me going to come around and fuck everything up because it's an asshole and it doesn't want me to succeed?”
I see this a lot with people's relationship to what they're going to call their inner critic, right? So the way I have been starting to think about this is thinking about these parts of myself as all wanting to be really helpful, but many of them being confused about what it means to be really helpful.
So if I have a part of me that's saying something that I think isn't helpful, can I see that part of me and not just think, “Well, that part's an asshole,” but instead think, “What is that part of me trying to help me achieve? And it's just using this concept that I don't subscribe to anymore.”
So if part of me is saying everything is annoying, that doesn't sound helpful, it doesn't feel good. But is it possible that the part of me that’s saying that is trying to be helpful and it's just using this concept that's not helpful? And if it is trying to be helpful, what's it trying to help me by doing? What is it trying to offer me?
I think a thought like everything is annoying might be trying to offer me, maybe that part of me like wants to grieve about the things that aren't going the way it wants them to. Maybe that part of me wants to be mad for a little bit about the things that aren't going the way it wants them to. Maybe that part of me has big dreams, but is afraid we're not going to get to do those and is looking around for someone to blame.
So all the different parts of us were socialized, just like we were. So I think about them as internal parts, which I think there's actually like a therapy that is like this, which is internal family systems. Which I had an internal family systems therapist for a while.
But it's like the different parts of you inside of you kind of pick up ideas from socialization too. It's like they pick up some shit you're third grade art teacher said to you, or they pick up some shit a babysitter said to you in like 1997 or whatever. And they're parroting that back to you.
But I personally like to believe that all those parts are trying to be helpful and help me have a good life, but they're just confused about how to do that. And the reason I like to think this is because I have a better experience with myself and these internal parts when I do that.
If I think this part is just trying to be an asshole then I want to fight with that part, and I want to exclude that part, and I want to shut it out. But you can't shut out parts of yourself that are literally inside of your own head. And I think when we try to, we just push those parts out of our consciousness and then they also fuck things up in sort of self-sabotage-y ways because they don't feel included.
And I imagine being at a house party and everyone wants to come to the house party. But if we have these parts of ourselves, we think are assholes we’re like, “No, you're not allowed to go to the house party.” And they're standing outside the house party looking in the windows being angry. And then they're going to throw some rocks through the glass or toilet paper the house or whatever.
I don't know, this metaphor has gotten a little bit weird, but go with me on this. I think it makes more sense to include those parts and re-educate them about how to be helpful and what we want to choose to believe on purpose about the world. And to see all of them as trying to help me live a great life, but they're confused about how to do that.
But they are allowed to be confused because I am the one who's in charge and I am the one who decides what we're doing. And I can let them all be kind of part of my party and still make the party go the way I want it to. And that things actually go better for me when I learn how to integrate those parts versus trying to exclude them and cut them out of my life because you, again, can't cut things out if they're part of your own thought patterns.
Those thought patterns are still going to happen. And so if they're going to happen, what if we just choose to relate to them on purpose? And what if we choose to relate to them lovingly? Not because we're going to listen to what they're saying, but because I think that's just more effective than trying to battle them.
Okay, so that's kind of a lot for today, but I think this can be really useful because I know a lot of people struggle with this because I see it with my clients and other people where they're like, “I want to change my thoughts. I want to feel better, but I'm just really struggling to let go of this idea.” And if that's where you are, let yourself just have the fucking idea, but then just add something on to it that's going to help you have a better experience.
And I think learning to see these little parts of ourselves that think everything's annoying or think they don't like things, as parts of us that could be useful and maybe just need some education and some love from us to figure out how to be useful. Versus parts of us that are trying to destroy us that we need to stamp out because that's just not going to work and it's going to make the inside of your head feel always like a battle.
So, all right, that's what I have for y'all today. Thanks so much and I will talk to you next week. Bye bye.
Thank you for listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It. We'll have another episode for you next week. And in the meantime, if you're feeling super fired up, head on over to korilinn.com for more guidance and resources.
You are listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It, the podcast for ambitious, high-achieving women who are ready to stop feeling stressed about work and kiss burnout goodbye forever. Whether you’re starting a business or staying in your day job, this show will give you the coaching and guidance you need to start loving your work today. Here’s your host, Career Coach, Kori Linn.
Hey y'all, I'm excited to talk to you this week about something that I've actually been getting coaching on myself lately. But before I jump into it, I wanted to share with y'all that this is actually the second time I'm recording this podcast. And that's because the first time I recorded it, the topic, the way I described it was when everything feels dumb.
And I described it that way because literally those were the words my brain was saying was like, “Everything is dumb.” And my wonderful podcast team at Digital Freedom Productions reached out and they were like, “Hey, I think you might want to know that this word has a history you may not be aware of when you're using it.”
And they were right, it had totally slipped my mind that this word is ableist. And they were right, I think I did know somewhere deep in the depths of my brain that the history of this word was ableist. But I think it had slipped my mind or I don't really know what happened. But the point is, I wanted to share that with all of you because I wanted you to know that these things happen to me also.
I make a lot of mistakes, or I do things that I don't even realize are mistakes until someone else comes along and says, “Hey, did you know this has this implication? I know language matters a lot to you, I thought maybe you didn't know.” And I didn't know.
So I just want to give such a big shout out of gratitude to Angela, who's on my team at Digital Freedom Productions. And I have a lot of people on my team there and they're all amazing, but it was specifically Angela who messaged me on Slack this morning and mentioned that.
And I was like, “Ah, let me re-record that immediately.” Because language does matter so deeply to me. And because I'm not always going to get things right. And when I don't get things right, I want to fix them. I want to have a new decision to think about like what are my values here? And then act from those values.
And I think being able to approach this situation with that attitude is such an example of everything I've done with coaching and the differences in me as someone who's done a very large amount of coaching in the last several years. Because I did feel embarrassed when I realized what had happened, but I didn't feel the giant surge of shame that I am certain I would have felt three or four years ago.
I didn't feel like I had fucked everything up beyond all recognition. I was like, “Oh shit, that is not what I want to have happen.” And then within, I would say five minutes, I was like, “Oh, I am deeply grateful.” And that is so fun. And I didn't actually have to coach myself on that at all. I didn't have to force that at all, it was pretty natural.
But by natural, let me be really clear about what I mean by that. By natural I mean over years of self-coaching and being coached by amazing coaches I have changed my thought patterns from these thought patterns of deep shame to these thought patterns of like, “Oh, okay, this is manageable and maybe there's even something here that I can be grateful for.”
And so if you're doing a lot of coaching, or coaching yourself, or trying to change your thought patterns and the thought you want to feel natural doesn't feel natural yet. That's okay, that doesn't mean anything has gone wrong. I would say keep practicing.
Because I've been practicing these thought patterns not consistently always, you know my take on consistency is consistent inconsistency, however we can do it. But I've been practicing them a lot for several years, sometimes hyper consistently and sometimes like sort of half-assedly. And I think both of those are okay and useful because we usually can't be hyper consistent all the time, as we all know. I teach and preach about that all the time.
Anyway, the point is, this is such an example of what coaching can do. And also such a good example of we're always going to have shit that we do that someone's going to be like, “Wait a minute, did you know this?” And we're going to be like, “Oh fuck, I didn't know that.”
Or we're going to realize after the fact that what we did didn't align with our values. And I want to speak openly about that, even though part of me is a little embarrassed to tell y'all and to admit to y'all and everyone that I made that mistake.
What I think is more important than my embarrassment, is my ability to lead by example, which of course, feels vulnerable when I'm doing it. But I think that's important because I want y’all to see that when I'm talking about being imperfect and living the human condition, I am also being imperfect and living the human condition. And I'm doing it all the time.
It's not like I'm just talking about past Kori who was imperfect and living the human condition. No, the person I am right now is imperfect and living the human condition. And the person I'm going to become will be imperfect and will be living the human condition.
And I think that's so essential for me to talk about too, because when someone becomes a coach or an influencer and is teaching other people stuff that's really impactful and important and can help them have a much better experience of their lives, I think sometimes people, especially coaches kind of get put on this pedestal. And people think we're living perfect lives over here or something. And just nothing could be further from the truth.
And I want y'all to know and be with me in the knowledge that I'm imperfect, and learning, and figuring it out. And I know some incredibly useful shit and I'm going to share everything I know with you. And it's also okay if sometimes you're like, “What the fuck?” Or “I don't think Kori is informed about blah, blah, blah.” That's okay too. I'm not perfect, I'm not informed about everything. I'm in process and that's all I can ever be.
Which isn't at all to excuse it, if I do something that is incorrect, I'm going to do my best to be accountable for it and to communicate it to everyone like I am right now. But it just means I think it's important to remember that our teachers are not perfect, even when they're useful and have really great ideas. We're also just people and we don't have all the knowledge. And we're figuring it out as we go.
And I do think something I've actually been thinking a lot about in my own life is about this specific vulnerability of putting all of my teachings out there in the world in this way where as long as the podcast stays up, people five years now could come and listen. And I'm sure that there will be some things in the podcast and my teachings that five years from now I'll go like,
“I wouldn't teach that that way.” Or like, “Oh, I've actually totally changed my stance on that.” And yet, I put this stuff out there anyway.
And I think that's because it's like I can either put nothing out, or I can put out my current ideas that I know may evolve. And some of them I might be really proud of in five years and some of them I might be like, “Oof, I have a really different idea on that.”
And sometimes it is like then we find out, “Oh no, I used a word that I wouldn't use anymore.” Or I said something that was a microaggression that I didn't realize was a microaggression, et cetera, et cetera.
So I just kind of wanted to give you all that context because I think that is a big kind of teaching in its own right, just that even when we're doing our best, sometimes it's not going to be aligned with our values.
But then from that place, we always get to choose what to do from there, which is like I'm choosing to re-record this podcast. And I'm so grateful to my podcast team for pointing this out. And I'm so grateful for them telling me today so I had enough time to re-record and time for you all to get this on the day it should be released to you.
And yeah, it's such a good example of how something that could be painful and is a little painful to me still because I am a little embarrassed, but it mostly is not painful. It's mostly something now that's a symbol of gratitude and delight and a way that I can improve what I'm doing in the world and what I'm delivering to you that feels really meaningful to me and aligned with my values.
So that's what I wanted to share with y'all. And now let's get into the topic of the podcast, which I've now switched from the language I was using before that I'm now choosing not to use because it's been brought to my attention again, that it's ableist, which was when everything feels dumb.
And if you didn't know that dumb is ableist language, I invite you to look that up and be educated alongside of me. And then you can also make new choices about the language you want to use. And the new language we're going to use is when everything feels annoying, and when you're just not feeling it, and when you just don't feel like using coaching.
And those are all kind of different ideas, but I think they go together in what I want to talk about because what I want to talk about is really kind of about when we're feeling really resistant towards reality and resistant towards using our coaching. And we kind of just want to be stubborn and stuck in our current thinking, even if that thinking feels terrible and isn't helping us.
As I mentioned before, part of why I wanted to talk about this with y'all is because it was an experience that I've been having lately. I got some coaching from my own coach, Maggie Reyes, where I was just thinking that everything was really annoying. And I'm a coach, so obviously I was like, “These are thoughts, and I could change them.” But I was kind of like, “I don't want to.”
And, again, it's kind of vulnerable for me to share with you that I sometimes– And I know it's my thoughts and I don't want to change them, and everything is irritating, and I just don't like any of it. But I have days and moments like that too. And the beauty of coaching is that even when we're in that head space coaching can still be useful. And that's what we're going to talk about today.
Another way we could word this is just like when you don't like something. When you're having the thought, “I don't like this. I don't like this, I don't want to choose to like it.” And then we get stuck in that head space of “I don't like it. I don't want to choose to like it, I guess there's nothing I can do.” When what I'm going to offer you today is that there is still so much you can do.
So let's take this example, let's actually take that language, I don't like this, or this is irritating, this is annoying. And let's think about what some examples could be. So one example could be a male coworker getting paid more for doing the same job. Or even getting paid more for doing a job that technically your job is more senior to their job. And this happens all the time and I think it's a good example of something that you might feel really resistant to letting go of the thought that it's wrong, or it's annoying, or you don't like it.
Another example could be working on a project for six months and working really hard to showcase your skills and everything you're doing. And then that project getting canceled and then it never coming to completion so you're not able to speak about it and write about it in the same way, like in performance reviews, let's say.
Or to get kind of like the credit for having done that work or even get the fulfillment of seeing it come to fruition. And instead it's just canceled, and you're expected to start working on something else. And I've seen this happen a lot and I've seen people get like really downtrodden over it, so I think it's a good example for this.
Another example is presenting a pitch to the leadership team, where you are addressing a problem you see in your workplace. And even giving them a really clear direction of how that problem could be solved. And then them giving you raving reviews and such positive feedback, and then not doing anything about it.
And a year later they're like, “Why is blah, blah, blah like blah, blah, blah?” And you're like, “I don't know, maybe for the exact reasons I said in my pitch one year ago, that you agreed with me, but then no one did anything about?”
And that's not something I've personally experienced but I know a lot of people who have, and they find that generally to be really frustrating, really annoying, they don't like it, et cetera.
So, the thing about this is, like the classic coaching is we can look at these thoughts we're having, and we can question and interrogate them. And that's obviously available and can even be wise in some situations. But if you're in a head space like I was in recently, where you don't want to do that or you're feeling really resistant to that, I think it's useful to have another way we can approach this.
Having many ways to approach something, I think is always useful. And often there is an approach that's like, this could be a really wise approach. But sometimes we're not going to do the approach that could be really wise and then it's useful just to have other ways we could approach it.
And I think it's also a great lesson in not being a perfectionist about how you coach yourself and about how you do thought work. To not say like, “Oh, well, I have to interrogate all of these thoughts. And if I'm not going to do that, then I'm stuck with this feeling.” And then just feeling stuck and hating it and being mad.
Versus what I want to offer to you is kind of just this idea of like, okay, what if we just allow that assessment to be there? That assessment being like the thought, “This is wrong. This is annoying. I don't like this,” et cetera, et cetera. What if we allow that to be there, but then we don't stay there and we go to now what?
So with the way we think about things, it's like there's layers. So, “everything is annoying” is a thought that might not be serving you, but if you're at a place where you can't get underneath that thought or you don't want to, then it can be a question of like, “Okay, everything is annoying and what?”
Then it can become a question of everything is annoying and what do we want to do about that? Everything is annoying and what do we want to think about that? Everything is annoying and how are we going to love ourselves through this situation where everything is annoying?
So on the one hand, not questioning that everything is annoying, there's a way to take the thought work deeper by questioning that. But there's also thought work that can be done when we're not willing to question that.
So for instance, if you're like, “Everything is annoying.” Okay, sure. Let's just say that's true, everything is annoying. What do we want to do about it? Who do we want to be as a person with this everything that's annoying? How do we want to show up? What kind of life do we want to live?
And I think that this can actually be really useful because, at least for me there's so much stuff in this world that I don't agree with, and I don't condone, and I don't want. And sometimes I do want to keep my thoughts that it's annoying, or wrong, or that I don't like it. But I don't want to just be like, “It's annoying, and wrong, and I don't like it. And it's here so now I have to live in a pit of despair and give up and not do anything.”
And I see a lot of people kind of get stuck in that space of like, “Well, everything's annoying.” And then they add on to that, so nothing I do matters. And so they don't do anything. And then things stay the same. And then they feel more and more helpless. Versus like, “Yeah, let's just give it to you that many things are annoying, but okay, what do we want to do about that?” What do we want to do about having a male coworker who makes more money for the same work?
If we're like, “Everything's annoying, and this is annoying, but everywhere we could work is like that and it'll never get better.” Then we're probably going to stay in that situation and be resentful and get burned out emotionally and just be annoyed with our lives. Which, listen, is an option. You're totally allowed to do that if you want, I just don't think it sounds like very much fun. It's not what I want to be doing with my life, but I understand why it can be very tempting.
Versus okay, such and such gets paid more than me and I'm annoyed about that. And what the fuck am I going to do about it? Am I going to put together a pitch to my supervisor to get a raise? Am I going to go out and find another job? Am I going to find a different job within this company? Am I going to leave this field altogether and start some kind of interesting nonprofit about pay equality, or pay equity rather?
What am I going to do? Who do we want to be? And what if we choose something so we don't get stuck in the like, “It's all terrible, nothing will get better, I may as well do nothing.” So we don't get stuck in that place, which I'm just going to call the pit of despair. Although there are lots of pits of despair and lots of ways to end up there. I definitely think that that is one, when we think that everything is annoying, and we don't like anything and there's no point.
And that kind of ties back into the podcast we've had recently about the fuck it effect and self-sabotage. When we're like, “Everything's annoying and there's nothing I can do,” then we don't do anything. And in a lot of ways that actually, I would say, is a form of self-sabotage as well.
Okay, so basically to summarize, what I'm saying is if you have an unhelpful thought that is difficult for you to shake, sometimes an easier thing to do versus interrogating it or doing a list of what's working, those are both useful. But if you don't want to do those things or they're not feeling helpful in this moment another thing you can do is just for now allow that unhelpful thought, and then what are we going to tack on to it? Who do we want to be? What values we want to live by? How do we want to show up in spite of this thing, whatever it is, that we think is annoying?
Okay, so that's like the basic premise. But here's a little bonus thing I want you all to think about. So often with coaching, with my own clients but I've also seen this a lot with myself, we can kind of get into this place where we're battling with our own brains. We're like, “Oh, my brain is an asshole. Why is it like this? It's making everything hard for me, it keeps telling me everything's annoying.”
It's like we get this antagonistic almost relationship with ourselves, with these different parts of ourselves inside our own heads that have these narratives that we have learned about coaching, we know these things aren't helpful. But what I want to offer to you is the exact opposite, which is what if we can love and include these parts of ourselves that have these unhelpful thoughts?
And that might feel really counterintuitive at first. You're like, “No, no, no, Kori, you told me that these thoughts that aren't helpful lead to feelings that aren't helpful, which leads to actions that aren’t helpful, which lead to a lot of shit I don't want in my life.”
And listen, that's all true. But I don't think excluding those parts of ourselves helps us rewire them into more useful thoughts. And I don't think excluding those parts of ourselves helps us have a fun, integrated life. Because we're constantly then battling with ourselves. And we’re on the lookout against ourselves of like, “Oh no, when is that problematic part of me going to come around and fuck everything up because it's an asshole and it doesn't want me to succeed?”
I see this a lot with people's relationship to what they're going to call their inner critic, right? So the way I have been starting to think about this is thinking about these parts of myself as all wanting to be really helpful, but many of them being confused about what it means to be really helpful.
So if I have a part of me that's saying something that I think isn't helpful, can I see that part of me and not just think, “Well, that part's an asshole,” but instead think, “What is that part of me trying to help me achieve? And it's just using this concept that I don't subscribe to anymore.”
So if part of me is saying everything is annoying, that doesn't sound helpful, it doesn't feel good. But is it possible that the part of me that’s saying that is trying to be helpful and it's just using this concept that's not helpful? And if it is trying to be helpful, what's it trying to help me by doing? What is it trying to offer me?
I think a thought like everything is annoying might be trying to offer me, maybe that part of me like wants to grieve about the things that aren't going the way it wants them to. Maybe that part of me wants to be mad for a little bit about the things that aren't going the way it wants them to. Maybe that part of me has big dreams, but is afraid we're not going to get to do those and is looking around for someone to blame.
So all the different parts of us were socialized, just like we were. So I think about them as internal parts, which I think there's actually like a therapy that is like this, which is internal family systems. Which I had an internal family systems therapist for a while.
But it's like the different parts of you inside of you kind of pick up ideas from socialization too. It's like they pick up some shit you're third grade art teacher said to you, or they pick up some shit a babysitter said to you in like 1997 or whatever. And they're parroting that back to you.
But I personally like to believe that all those parts are trying to be helpful and help me have a good life, but they're just confused about how to do that. And the reason I like to think this is because I have a better experience with myself and these internal parts when I do that.
If I think this part is just trying to be an asshole then I want to fight with that part, and I want to exclude that part, and I want to shut it out. But you can't shut out parts of yourself that are literally inside of your own head. And I think when we try to, we just push those parts out of our consciousness and then they also fuck things up in sort of self-sabotage-y ways because they don't feel included.
And I imagine being at a house party and everyone wants to come to the house party. But if we have these parts of ourselves, we think are assholes we’re like, “No, you're not allowed to go to the house party.” And they're standing outside the house party looking in the windows being angry. And then they're going to throw some rocks through the glass or toilet paper the house or whatever.
I don't know, this metaphor has gotten a little bit weird, but go with me on this. I think it makes more sense to include those parts and re-educate them about how to be helpful and what we want to choose to believe on purpose about the world. And to see all of them as trying to help me live a great life, but they're confused about how to do that.
But they are allowed to be confused because I am the one who's in charge and I am the one who decides what we're doing. And I can let them all be kind of part of my party and still make the party go the way I want it to. And that things actually go better for me when I learn how to integrate those parts versus trying to exclude them and cut them out of my life because you, again, can't cut things out if they're part of your own thought patterns.
Those thought patterns are still going to happen. And so if they're going to happen, what if we just choose to relate to them on purpose? And what if we choose to relate to them lovingly? Not because we're going to listen to what they're saying, but because I think that's just more effective than trying to battle them.
Okay, so that's kind of a lot for today, but I think this can be really useful because I know a lot of people struggle with this because I see it with my clients and other people where they're like, “I want to change my thoughts. I want to feel better, but I'm just really struggling to let go of this idea.” And if that's where you are, let yourself just have the fucking idea, but then just add something on to it that's going to help you have a better experience.
And I think learning to see these little parts of ourselves that think everything's annoying or think they don't like things, as parts of us that could be useful and maybe just need some education and some love from us to figure out how to be useful. Versus parts of us that are trying to destroy us that we need to stamp out because that's just not going to work and it's going to make the inside of your head feel always like a battle.
So, all right, that's what I have for y'all today. Thanks so much and I will talk to you next week. Bye bye.
Thank you for listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It. We'll have another episode for you next week. And in the meantime, if you're feeling super fired up, head on over to korilinn.com for more guidance and resources.
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