by (Aunt) Brandi
Ten months ago I started working with Amy Douglas, an amazing executive coach, to help identify what was holding me back from moving forward in my career. After conducting an evaluation that included over 15 coworkers' feedback, I realized that my most important values of connection, authenticity and presence were missing in my life because of my need for perfection, ambition and belonging.
I have always been an ambitious person so to hear that I needed to let go of ambition, which I thought perfection and belonging were necessary ingredients for, felt like I had just entered an alternate universe.
Ultimately, it made me feel overwhelmed by the changes to my mindset that were needed to move forward, and it left me doubting whether or not I was capable of making these changes. But it no longer felt like an option to hold onto ambition, perfection and belonging. As Amy said, those values served a purpose at one point in my life, but I no longer needed them.
After many coaching sessions with Amy, reading books about Outward Mindset, and listening to a lot of Brené Brown, I started to emerge from the feeling of being overwhelmed, and started going to a place of presence, connection and authenticity by using the phrases:
- Be here now.
- Lean into the discomfort.
- Purposeful, not perfect
A couple of these are phrases Amy shared with me and I am so incredibly grateful for her guidance. They may not be phrases I use forever, but right now, it’s how I want to be.
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