Latest / SisterSmart Leadership / 16: How to Stop Working Too Much

Transcript

16: How to Stop Working Too Much · SisterSmart Leadership

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"I feel like I'm on the road to burnout.
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I constantly feel like I'm not able to do everything necessary and I don't
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have enough time to follow through on everything that needs to be done."
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That's what one of my clients said to me when we first talked and
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she was considering joining the sisters and leadership program.
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Through her experience in the program, she was able to turn that situation
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around, which was a good thing because she got a promotion and new leadership
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responsibilities that would have felt impossible had she not changed her ways.
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If you've ever struggled with feeling like you have too much on your
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plate or wondering why you can't get more budget or the head count to be
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successful, you're going to want to stick with me for the roadmap on how
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to get out of working so much and how to get more time by working smarter.
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I'm Jill Avey, a career success coach, and this is Sister Smart Leadership, the
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show that explores how women can rise from director to vice president and beyond
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by fully leaning into their feminine energy as their biggest advantage.
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Let's get you one step closer to the recognition and promotion you deserve.
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In episode 14, we talked about how taking on more work doesn't get you promoted.
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And I left you with a challenge to start seeing what you could do less of.
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So how did that go?
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If you're like most of us, you probably didn't turn your life
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around with that one shift.
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This is because it's not as easy as just looking at your to do
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list and crossing some things off that you don't feel like doing.
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There's social and psychological reasons that you stay stuck in a
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busyness trap unless you understand these influences and create a plan
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about how to work through them.
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So we often think that we can just get this to do list cleared off and
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then we'll finally be in this place where we can take care of ourselves
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and have a little fun and enjoyment of our lives and plan for the future.
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Yet the problem with to do lists is that they never end.
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As one thing gets crossed off, more get added.
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And there is always a list going because that's just the nature of life for women.
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Some societal factors can also keep us trapped in this busyness cycle as well.
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When I was doing the research for developing my leadership program, I
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learned from Sally Hagelson and Marshall Goldsmith in their book, How Women Rise,
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that there are a few unhelpful habits that are common among women, which
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keep us doing more and more without reaping the benefits of our efforts.
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These three unhelpful habits are,
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First, we have people pleasing.
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This is one that's helpful for us early in our career.
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And that's because women are socialized in most societies to
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be helpful, pleasing, and nice.
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So as you get established in your career, you get promoted for being
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the go-to person who gets things done with a smile and some signs that you
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might still be a people pleaser include having a strong need to be liked and
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needing reassurance by others about their acceptance of you and your work.
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You might feel the need to put the needs of others ahead of your own
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and it might be hard for you to express your own needs and to even
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understand what your needs are.
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This might come with a worry that expressing your own needs is also selfish.
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The downside of people pleasing is that it can easily learn
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to burn out and resentment.
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People often take advantage of people pleasers, unwittingly even, because
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they lack the boundaries to let their colleagues know what is and isn't
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acceptable for them and they leave it to everyone else to figure that out.
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So people pleasing can also degrade trust.
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I had one client who was surprised that her teammates didn't know
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if they could trust her or not.
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And this totally came as a shock to her because she has really high integrity
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and considers herself very trustworthy.
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But when she inquired further, she found that her people pleasing
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is what had gotten in the way.
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She often went along with the group, even when she didn't agree.
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And then later, if her true feelings came out, her team didn't
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know whether they could trust her to truly speak her mind or not.
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It was easy for her to turn the situation around once she got used to speaking up
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and disagreeing with people more often.
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The next unhelpful habit is perfectionism.
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You'll notice yourself being a perfectionist when you are punctual,
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methodical, and striving for perfect quality combined with being highly
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critical of yourself and others.
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So it kind of takes all of that into play.
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It's not just doing a great job.
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You might also be working overtime to make up for the unacceptable work of others.
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And this might include not handing off projects that you don't feel will
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be done quite as well as you can.
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Often a perfectionist is driven to be so good because they're
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afraid to get criticism.
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And I can tell you that this was a tactic I used in my career.
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People with ADHD have something called rejection sensitivity
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disorder or RSD, which makes us extra sensitive to criticism.
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And before I understood my own ADHD, I used to try to get everything
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perfect so that I could avoid that possibility of being criticized.
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This resulted in a lot of overwork, wasting time and energy that I
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could have spent better elsewhere.
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And a lot of people fall into this, whether they have ADHD or
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not, it's just that avoidance of wanting to face that criticism.
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So the downside of perfectionism is that it creates a lot of rigidity and
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anxiety and frustration for people, and people don't like working for a
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perfectionist because they feel that they can never be successful no matter
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how hard they work, and that can lead them to doubting themselves, or it
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can lead to resignation or becoming resentful, and no one wants that.
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It's also hard to gain followership when you're a perfectionist.
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And so high turnover is also one sign of this habit and action.
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Our third habit is overvaluing expertise.
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This is where we think we need more expertise than we actually do.
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Often women will continue to get more and more education in an
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attempt to prove their worth.
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This happens a lot with professionals who pursue certification after certification
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and an attempt to feel confident.
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I know I felt the draw when I first started coaching for sure.
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Yes, I needed a certain amount of training and specialties, but it is tempting to
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hide behind the learning and not step out and hone my craft by doing, which is
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what I ultimately pushed myself to do.
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In the corporate world, this can look like getting more degrees and certifications.
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It can also show up as this feeling of needing to have someone else's
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opinion or data or research to back up your ideas even when
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you're the expert on the subject.
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When I was researching for my program, I heard from men that
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they saw women bringing a lot of backup data, which in their view
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made them actually less credible.
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And I know from talking to women as well as my own experience that
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women are doing this because they don't feel they get the credibility
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that they deserve on their own.
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So you can see that there's a line between too much backup and not
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enough that we have to navigate.
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So start watching for the three helpful habits in your life today.
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Watch for when people pleasing, perfectionism, and overvaluing expertise
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show up and see what it is that you're doing and how you're feeling at the time.
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This could be an indicator for you that something is potentially keeping you stuck
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in a busyness trap by working too much.
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And so you can start to investigate the root causes and then you can begin to
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create new habits and responses instead.
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It can be hard to let go of these longstanding habits.
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And because they're socially reinforced and that's why I think it's important
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for us to take a look at the downsides of busyness and how it's getting in our way.
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Not helping us.
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So imagine for a moment, four quadrants.
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We have the career, relationships, health, and refueling.
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Now let's think about what happens when we emphasize one quadrant or another.
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Often I work with women who have a career quadrant that's
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taking over everything else.
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It might look like 80 percent of the diagram and the exercise that I have
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them do is to think about what is suffering as a result of the career
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quadrant getting too much attention.
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How are their relationships suffering?
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How is their health suffering?
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And how is their refueling suffering?
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About this time they tell me they're surprised that refueling
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has its own quadrant and I tell them, yes, it's that important.
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I mentioned in a previous episode that I had one job where
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I regularly got home at 11 p.
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m.
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to an unhappy husband.
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While he wanted to be supportive of my career, he couldn't help but feel a
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little neglected when he spent so much time alone in a city that we had moved to
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for my job, so we had few relationships.
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So you can see that my overemphasis on my career was
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taking a toll on my relationship.
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It also had a toll on my health because I gained some weight from
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the lack of being able to work out and be able to eat healthy.
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And in the refueling category, we did take a lot of time on the weekends to
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explore our surroundings, but I certainly wasn't sleeping well, which had a
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negative effect on my moods, making me a little snippier than I like to be.
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So doing this exercise can help give you the motivation that you
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need to want to make changes.
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It's one thing to say, Oh, I shouldn't work so late to yourself.
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But it's another thing to really take a look at the things that are
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suffering because of those work hours and then decide whether it's worth
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it to take that extra project on.
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And sometimes it's our relationships or our health that are starting to eat
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away at our ability to work at our best.
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So this can include family obligations as well.
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So once you see the real ramifications of the things that you're responsible
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for, it can get much easier to start setting boundaries about what
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you do and what you don't want.
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After going through this process, one client realized that she was spending
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20 hours a week at soccer practice.
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So she organized a carpool to, and was able to cook dinner two
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nights a week and felt that she was supporting her family's nutrition
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in a way that she could be proud of.
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And this made a really big difference for her.
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So now you've hopefully identified some things that you want to let go of
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by thinking through these quadrants.
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The next step is to develop a plan of how to let go of these things.
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So it's likely that you're doing these things that they're on your plate because
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you feel that they're important for you to be doing them and not others.
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It can feel a little scary to let go of the things that you believe
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are so critical to your success.
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So a good place to start is look at the places where you
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feel either fear or anger.
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These two emotions will often lead us to wanting to control things more tightly.
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When we see and name these charged emotions, they can lose their power.
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Journaling can be a really helpful way to identify the areas in your
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life where fear and anger are present and then help you release them.
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A lot of times women feel pressured to control these emotions because it can
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be hard for us to express them freely.
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But when we control one thing in our lives, we control everything in our lives.
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So there can be a lot of spillover into our work when we do this.
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So I always advise people to identify a couple of small things to start with.
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It's better to always take small steps and experiment a little bit with
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letting go as you get started here.
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So can you embrace striving for excellence instead of perfect?
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Maybe you can delegate one small thing.
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Can you take a chance that someone will not be happy with you about a minor thing?
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These are all great baby steps to take on your way to letting go of more.
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So now that you're ready to let go of it, it's now time to discern what
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author Greg McKeown calls the vital few.
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These are the things that are truly important to you in your life.
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So when you first start thinking about what is your vital few, you may have a
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lot of things on your list, but over time you can hone it down to just a few items.
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So Mckeown advises us to ask ourselves if it's a hell yes, when
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we're deciding on our vital few.
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And if it's not a hell yes, it's a no.
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I like to also have people ask themselves how committed they are to this thing.
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So, if it's not a 9 or 10 on the commitment scale, then it's a no.
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And that means if it's a 7 or an 8, it's a no.
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And sometimes people are really shocked to realize this, but it only means that
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this just isn't the right time for this thing right now and perhaps you need
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to wait for a different season in your life for this to come up the scale.
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When you can understand what your vital view really is, then you can start to
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focus on these things that truly matter.
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And that will then tell you what your trivial many is.
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So your trivial many is basically everything else that isn't your vital few.
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So these are the things that are actually getting in the way of you
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being successful because these are sucking up your time and your energy
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and giving you back little in return.
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And you want to actually avoid these things at all costs.
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Of course, life is made up of lots of these types of things, and
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some of them might be unavoidable.
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My mind goes to expense reports.
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So, if we can't get rid of these things completely off of our plate, then we
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can devise systems to get them done quickly and off our minds right away.
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Embracing the concept of the vital few and the trivial many constitutes
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a big mindset shift for most people.
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If you've been working from a to do list and trying to check off as much as you
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can each day, this will create a whole new way for you to start determining
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where you can have the most impact.
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Then you can set about working on those items instead of what has bubbled up
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to the top or who's the loudest voice.
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It will help you to get out of your inbox and create time for you to work
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on your most meaningful deep work that needs your attention and focus.
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So how are you going to make a shift like this?
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One of the best ways to do this kind of planning is on
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a personal strategy retreat.
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A personal strategy retreat is a time that you take to create a plan for how you're
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going to make your vital few a reality.
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I've created a step by step process that our clients go through, which
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is usually one of the most impactful parts of our leadership program.
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Our clients take two full days to spend alone and unplugged and listen
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to those quiet voices inside that often get drowned out in daily life.
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This allows them to create a plan that's truly fulfilling for them because
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they are considering all of their four quadrants and how they really want to
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organize their life deep down inside.
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So everyone comes back with a new perspective and a few ahas that
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shift how they set their goals.
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They also come back with a plan for how they're going to
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achieve each goal that they set.
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The cadence for a personal strategy retreat is to do a 2 day retreat
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once per year and then take quarterly retreats, which only take 2 to 3 hours.
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That gives you a time to check in and see how you're doing.
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I have clients that have been doing their retreats for years and have even extended
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their time alone to 4 or even 7 days.
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One client incorporated it into the downtime during a week long yoga retreat.
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Now think about what getting away to think strategically
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about your life could do for you.
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At the end of each episode, I like to give you three shifts that you
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can make today to get started.
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The first shift that for you to start with is to watch for the three unhelpful
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habits showing up in your life.
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I guarantee that you've got one or all of them happening.
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If you're anything like the rest of us.
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So that's the people pleasing, the perfectionism, and
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the overvaluing expertise.
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Your second shift is to start thinking about the implications
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of busyness in your life.
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Ask yourself what is suffering as a result of doing too much in any of our quadrants.
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And as a reminder, their quadrants are career relationships,
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health, and refueling.
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And the third shift is to think about letting go of control in one small way.
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What's one thing that you could leave to others that will have little impact?
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This is a great place to start.
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You know, these three unhelpful habits lose their control over us
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when you can name it and claim it.
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So what is one helpful habit that you can claim today?
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Let us know in the comments if you're watching on YouTube and if
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you're listening to the podcast, let somebody else know in your life
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what one unhelpful habit is and let that lose control over you.
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If you'd like to stay out of the traps that I found myself in, and then you're
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going to want to check out my private podcast where I go through the seven
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step process that we use with our clients to get them on their path to promotion.
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I'll also share client success stories so that you can hear from other women
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who have had the same situations and same ambitions that you have
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because I think that you too would like to stop overworking so much and
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have more success at the same time.
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So if you're a female leader who wants to make bigger impact by leading at a
15:36
higher level in your career, subscribe either on YouTube or wherever you
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listen to your favorite podcasts.
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I'm on a mission to help more women succeed in leadership so
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our world gets the benefit of what women bring to leadership.
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And if that's aligned with you, I'd love to have you be part of this
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community and tune into more episodes on women's leadership that will
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support more success for us all.
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See you in the next episode.
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If you're ready to fully lean into your feminine leadership and get promoted
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from director to vice president and beyond, hit that subscribe button so
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you'll get all the episodes to come and check out the recommended video here
16:11
to see how women are rising up without playing by the old rules that built these
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male dominated industries and systems.