Simple steps to go from overwhelmed and over giving to on FIRE
Nicola Skorko ??
Helping Women in Telecoms Get Promoted and Become Stand out Leaders, Whilst Staying True to Themselves | Trailblazer 5 Places Jan| DEI Report & Plan | Equity Workshop | 000's global client | English Channel Swimmer ??♀?
“To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom,” this was a quote attributed to Socrates and he was really clever right?
The past few years have been like no other. It’s been relentless, and women have been at the brunt of an ever-changing world of work and home.
With working from home, home schooling for months, being isolated from teams, not having to go to the office so not having work boundaries and trying to balance the firefighting needed in business along with long term strategy.
You’ve been going for so long, you’re fucking exhausted right now. Feeling so lost in the busyness of holding life together, you have no idea who you are.
From the hundreds of women, I’ve spoken to over the last few years there are many reasons why they feel overwhelmed and like they have lost their fire.
But the biggest reason, I see over and over is that you are over giving and have lost sense of who you are.
Giving away your:
Time
Love
Energy
To everyone else, at work and home so there’s nothing left for you.
Are you Self Sacrificing?
It almost gets to the point of self-sacrificing.
That you give so much, you completely lose any sense of who you are.
Thoughts about themselves and what they want comes after EVERYONE else. Indeed, one of my clients, even said to me that the cat comes first. WTF!
It’s all too easy to get swept up in the current of your day to day life. With so much on, you feel continually overwhelmed and like you’re not doing anything as well as you could.
It’s one thing to go with the flow and let life ease by, it’s another one to be swept away in a tide of juggling work and home. That old clash for women between work and home.
“I’ve lost myself and I don’t know who I am anymore. I love my children, my husband, and my family plus I have a great career. I should be happy, but I do nothing for me.”
^ This was from a conversation with a VIP client when we first started working together.
NOW she’s on the road to knowing herself, she knows her values and each week does something just for her she LOVES.
My Story
For me knowing myself has made the biggest change in my life.
I truly believe I only got to know myself in my 40’s. I let work take priority and like many women I was sacrificing and compromising myself to feel enough.
Why do I Believe Knowing Yourself is so Important?
1) Happiness.
You will be happier when you show up in the world as YOU, free of the need to change or be anyone else. Expressing your desires, moreover, will make it more likely that you get what you want.
2) Less inner conflict.
When you live life in alignment with your values, you will experience less inner conflict and live your life on purpose.
3) Better decision-making.
When you know yourself, you are able to make decisions that FEEL right for you. Choices about everything, from small decisions like what you want to have for dinner you to big decisions like which partner you’ll spend your life with. You’ll have more trust and self-belief in who you are.
4) Impact
Knowing yourself you will have more and more impact. In a world that needs women to drive feel good, positive change more than ever. Looking after you first, will mean you have more passion and energy. To be brave and lead positive change in the corporate world.
How do we reconnect with ourselves when we feel squeezed by all our obligations, responsibilities, and an overwhelming sense of drowning? We can’t wait for our children to grow up to get back to ourselves and start doing ‘our stuff’.
We can’t wait for the challenges to go away so we can have our life back.
领英推荐
Life is now, not when.
We cannot “let the perfect be the enemy of the good” (Voltaire) and wait for the stars to line up perfectly and the pigs’ fly.
My steps to STOP overgiving and make yourself a priority
?If you’re always on the go you have NO time to stop. If everyone else is first you’re likely to feel that you’re stuck in Groundhog Day and just to keep going. But if you’re struggling in an area of your life then keeping going WILL NOT work for you.
For example, if you’re overwhelmed at work as you keep saying yes to the. CEO’s superhuman demands, then keep going won’t work for you. The result = more overwhelm.
So, take some time, even 10 minutes over a cup of tea to stop and pause for breath. Let yourself be and just feel. We don’t solve our problems with the same thinking that created it, so let your brain come back to you and check in with how you are.
When we write down how we feel we get the opportunity to truly process how we feel and how we are, we get to see the truth and the lies.
We make the subconscious stories and feelings come to the surface so we can start to make sense of them. So, each day spend some time writing down how you feel.
I recommend the 5-minute journal for all my clients, if you can’t take 5 minutes a day for you there’s something wrong.
When we’re young we have no problem saying how we’re feeling and what we want. We only have to remember our Christmas lists, with so many demands on them to realise that we then asked for what our heart wanted.
YET as we grow up, we forget these passions, they get lost in a land of adulating, responsibility and time swallowed up in a busy life.
Pick one old passion and think about how you could bring it back into your life. I’ve recently started horse riding again and I LOVE, it’s time out in the country just for ME.
What are your values? Your values will bring you consistency and an anchor in a crazy world, no matter what is going you will always be able to come back to you.
So, for me, my values are love, freedom, and courage, the more I live my life by these the more I feel in alignment and know I’m living my life how I’m meant to. This is one of the BIGGEST things I help clients with, as it’s the core of who they are and finding them is like coming home.
Protect YOU time, with clear boundaries of what you are and not willing to accept. Honour time for you like you would a meeting with someone or an appointment. You don’t NOT go to the Dr as you’re too busy when you’ve booked an appointment!
And also set boundaries around your time and energy. The world is very decisive right now, there’s polarising opinions on social media. So chose what you want to see, shape your feed or you. So if you keep comparing yourself to a friend and you feel bad from it, stop their notifications.
You can choose what you want to see and protect your time and energy when it’s so needed.
If you’ve found this useful, I’d love you to share? And which from the list above will you start with? ?Message me here to let me know how you get on?– I would love to hear from you!
I have created space for 5 women in senior roles who want to spend 4 weeks getting clear, confident, and fired up ready to make some serious changes in their organisation.?So click here to book a call NOW if you want to lock in your life changing self-development.
If you found this useful please share, and here’s my Overwhelm to On Fire: The 5 Minute Head Clearing Checklist for Women in the Corporate World…?just click here to download your FREE copy!
Big love
Nic x
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