A WOUNDED CHILD CAN’T RUN A MARKETING DEPARTMENT

I found Corporate Life a struggle. I was ambitious and I wanted to succeed but the higher up I climbed, the more anxious and uncomfortable I got.

So, when I found myself in a Leadership role, things really started to spiral. I didn’t know how to disagree with anyone, I assumed EVERYONE else knew better than me. I had absolutely no boundaries and often took on too much work or allowed others to walk all over me. I felt weird and awkward around anyone senior. I struggled to make decisions and needed constant reassurance. I was incredibly effected by what other people said.

Not a great look for the Head of Marketing, right?!

I’d become an expert in masking how I felt on the inside and mirroring other people’s behaviours to make it ‘look’ like I was calm and under control. But under the surface, I carried around a feeling of constant impending doom.

I put it down to lack of knowledge, being introverted and bad luck. But actually what was really going on was my wounded inner child was calling all the shots.

EVERY Leader I have coached through confidence issues at work have bought some baggage from their childhood into their working life. I’m not an expert in trauma, but I am an expert in undoing the unhelpful thoughts, behaviours and responses created by trauma. And this is the magical bit, when you work with a compassionate, heart-centred professional to help you undo all of this, it’s not as hard and complicated as you think. BUT if you don’t get a handle on it, you won’t last in your leadership role or you will burn yourself out. FACT.

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How do you get a handle on it?

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Back then, I had absolutely no self-awareness. I blamed everything outside of me for how I felt. I thought moving jobs would ‘fix’ me. I thought my partner would ‘fix’ me. I thought my children would ‘fix’ me. I thought moving 200 miles to live somewhere else would ‘fix’ me. I thought changing careers would ‘fix’ me. But after the initial excitement of doing something new, I always felt angry, sad, alone and not good enough.

Actually what I needed to do was go inside of myself and nurture my core psychological roots. There is quite a bit to understand about your psychological roots, that’s why I would highly advise working with a Coach if this post is resonating. But, essentially everything links back to these 3 things, they all need to be working in harmony and if you’ve had some childhood trauma (however big or small) these roots will need some tender, loving care.

Social anxiety (how much you care about what other people think)

Self-esteem (what you think about yourself

Emotional control (how much things outside of your control effect you)

When you have had trauma in your life, had to deal with adversity or raised by emotionally immature parents, your core psychological roots create all sorts of issues in your life, which you take into work with you as well.

Every single confidence issue you have at work, can be tracked back to one of these 3 things and they all connect to each other. If you have low self-esteem, you have high social anxiety and your emotions are controlled by everything outside of you. If you have high self-esteem, you have low social anxiety and you are in full control of your emotions.

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SELF-ESTEEM

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Self-esteem is basically how you evaluate yourself. It’s not about having a positive opinion of yourself, it’s about accepting yourself fully for every part of you. It’s about having a REALISTIC opinion of yourself. It’s about being compassionate with yourself and understanding that you’re not perfect and it’s okay to make mistakes. Low self-esteem can be devastating for your career and many of us don’t even know we have low self-esteem. Contrary to popular belief, you can absolutely climb the career ladder with low-self esteem but it’s going to feel really difficult.

Low self-esteem at work looks like this:

??Doing anything you possibly can to avoid making mistakes

??Looking for reassurance and validation all the time

??Doubting yourself and your abilities

??Striving to be the best of the best

??Over-working to ‘prove’ yourself

??Struggling to make decisions / constantly second guessing yourself

??Spending a long time checking your work to make sure it’s perfect

??Having unrealistic expectations of yourself

??Never feeling like you’re good enough

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SOCIAL ANXIETY

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A lot of people think social anxiety is feeling anxious in social situations and it is, but it actually it stems from a fear of judgement or being seen in a negative light by someone else. So you can feel socially anxious in all sorts of situations, especially things like work meetings, discussions with your Manager or conversing with your team.

This goes hand in hand with low self-esteem because if you have a low opinion of yourself, you seek out approval and validation outside of you to ‘top-up’ your depleted self-esteem. So, it becomes VERY important to you what others think of you.

When you have social anxiety you make decisions based on what is ‘expected’ of you rather than what is best for you. You can never truly be yourself because you are always changing and adapting yourself to get others approval.

Social anxiety at work looks like this:

??Lots of fear and anxiety around meetings

??People pleasing

??Taking on too much work because you don’t know how to say no

??Feeling weird and awkward around authority figures

??Doing whatever you can to avoid criticism

??Avoiding confrontations or tricky conversations

??Struggling to answer questions on the spot

??Blushing or stuttering when meeting new people

??Putting up with things that you don’t agree with or make you feel uncomfortable

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EXTERNAL EMOTIONAL CONTROL

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This is when things outside of you control your emotions and your experiences. This makes you feel powerless as other people are in control of how you feel. You can see how this links to self-esteem and social anxiety as you are always trying to control what other people think about you (which you don’t have control of).

When you have external emotional control, you blame how you feel on your external world, you look outside of you for the answer to your problems. You wait for external sources to improve your life. This creates a lot of stress and anxiety because you don’t feel like you’re in control of your life.

External emotional control at work looks like:

??If you do a good job at work, land a promotion or smash an interview, you don’t take responsibility for it and put it down to luck or fate or the universe

??You never feel good enough because you don’t internalise your positive qualities

??You aren’t in control of your emotions because you are really effected by other people’s actions and words

??You job hop hoping that a new job will fix how you feel inside

??You feel de-motivated and challenges can feel impossible to bounce back from

Have you been reading this, nodding your head and you recognise that your psychological roots needs some tender loving care? In the hands of a great coach with heaps of experience coaching Leaders through this (as well as lived experience) you could very quickly get your core psychological roots working in harmony.

This wouldn’t just skyrocket your confidence at work and rapidly let go of people pleasing, self sacrifice, over-giving and accepting less so that you can courageously catapult your career as an empowered leader.

For example…

I worked with a Sales Director that spent her evenings completely pre-occupied about work, unable to think about anything else, she was in a constant state of anxiety and her confidence was rock bottom. By the end of my 4 week coaching program she said “Going through this course has opened my eyes and allowed me to finally and quickly, suddenly find so much satisfaction in what I have and who I am…and there has been some unexpected benefits too, the absolute best one being finding a new lease of life in my marriage.”

If you are ready to nurture your roots and reach the highest heights of unstoppable confidence, I would love to invite you to BOOK A FREE SUPER CHARGE SESSION where we will go through your roadmap to becoming an Empowered Leader.

You will be able to take away your PERSONALISED SUPERCHARGE YOUR CONFIDENCE PLAN from the call and I will also advise you on your best coaching options moving forward and which parts of your psychological roots need the most attention right now.

If you book your call before 16th February, I am offering a ￡500 discount on my 1-on-1, 4 week VIP Intensive – “THE BRAVE ASCENSION”. Click here to book a call.

Also, just so you know - I am going to be putting my prices up substantially next month, so now is the time to get booked in.

Naomi x

p.s. here are some nice things my clients have said about my coaching