Hello friends,
I’ve been thinking about how conditioning and context makes it difficult to see possibilities and alternatives for ourselves.
In the past 5 years, I’ve moved across 3 countries and 6 cities, thanks to covid-influenced career transitions. As I start relocating back home (for now), it feels slightly strange - stepping back into a time and place that seems unchanged, but has also moved on, and having to find my place in it again.
But it becomes obvious how much I was/am influenced by how I grew up, the people around me, social dynamics and pathways when it comes to work and a life that actually feeds and energizes my existence.
As I spend more time with my Dad after years of distance, I’m also acutely aware again of how family elicits reactions and responses that I’m often not proud of, while helping me sharpen who I would be proud to be, and what I would be proud to do.
Which leads us to today’s email below - but before that, a couple of things:
New programs
I’m putting together (i) a mini self-paced workshop, and (ii) a comprehensive 9-week coaching program, on finding your own unconditioned path, figuring out what really matters to you, and taking ownership of your possibilities at work and in life amidst uncertainty.
These are based on insights from:
Almost 70 hours of coaching professionals and executives on career and work-life questions
90 hours of executive coach training + 2 years of psychology training and research
Almost 15 years of working in the venture capital, startup, non-profit, public and private sectors
If you’re interested to find out more and get early access, drop me an email with “Yes please!” and you’ll be among the first to get more information and the chance to sign up once it’s ready.
Please also forward this with anybody who could be interested - I’d love to have more people find fulfilment and direction in work and life.
2. A newsletter break
It’s 6 months since One Small Thing started. I’ll be taking 2-3 weeks off to get some “housekeeping” in order and think about what OST looks like moving forward.
I’ll be back in your inboxes mid-June, but in the meantime if you’ve been reading this newsletter - a huge thank you for your support. Writing into the void is scary, and I’m glad that with you, I don’t have to.
My inbox is always open for feedback or reflections you’d like to share.
For those of you travelling during the summer break - bon voyage! Absence is supposed to make the heart grow fonder ;)
Part III: What is an unconditioned path?
As I plan the next phase for myself and Deliberate Humans, I noticed that most full-time executive coaches choose paths that aren’t for me. I don’t want to be a speaker, and I like 1-1 work because I get to put clients first, without employer conflict.
So I had to figure out - what is it that I actually want, if everything is possible?
And the answer kept changing as I started relocating back home.
It was a variation of a problem earlier in my career, which clients now often come to me with:
This path that others around me are taking doesn’t light me up, but
I don’t know what I want (yet)
I’m afraid if I leave this familiar terrain, I can’t find my own map
I can’t deal with the uncertainty or possibility that I have less value outside
What will others think if I fail?
Relocating home muddied waters, because the norms feel narrower. I had to ask:
Am I actually choosing this, or going with the default?
What are my defaults based on? - my previous life, social circles, family pressure, emotional fatigue, fears based in the future
How are my emotions affecting my reactions towards, or against something?
What kind of uncertainty and tradeoff will I accept?
How much of this is based on where I am now, versus where I might be in 5 years, 10 years?
Are we taking enough ownership?
Too often, we choose to cede control over our possibilities - we give social norms, our upbringing, our existing perspectives and others’ opinions too much weight over how we can manage a particular situation, or pathway.
Often, we don’t even realize it.
For instance:
defaulting to certainty over the possibility of joy
ceding control by taking paths that already exist, and thinking of jumping ship as the default solution to unfulfilment without exploring alternatives
holding assumptions about whether certain goals are desirable
forgetting that building confidence involves taking thoughtful risk
limiting our perspective and range of experiences, and hence forms of growth
Sometimes, it’s helpful to have some sort of fallback vision, even if you don’t pursue it, because it helps you define yourself.
3 considerations to start owning your possibilities
1. Choice requires awareness.
There is:
external awareness: having a sense of what’s outside your realm of experience
internal awareness: knowing what’s important to you independent of your environment
Morgan Housel has a great quote about our perception bubbles:
Your personal experiences make up maybe 0.00000001% of what’s happened in the world but maybe 80% of how you think the world works. People believe what they’ve seen happen exponentially more than what they read about has happened to other people, if they read about other people at all. We’re all biased to our own personal history.
This means, for instance, that if you think XX role is the most desirable because that’s the core of the company, or XX sector is the most exciting to be in, I can promise you that a whole lot of people really don’t care, and don’t know about that. They’re just living their lives.
This is liberating.
At the same time, it’s impossible and a waste of time to map all possibilities. That’s where internal awareness comes in.
IMPLICATIONS
Explore, reach out, speak to people, read about stuff beyond your current world
In the work context, you don’t have to quit your job because it doesn’t excite you each morning, but develop your curiosity. Corporate? Get to know some creatives. Teaching? Get to know some entrepreneurs or doctors.
Build your identity beyond work - too few people have hobbies or do things just for fun after they start working. Fun is important.
2. What’s your default pattern of action, and are you ceding control?
Do you tend to make decisions based on running away, or running towards?
What is your default action when faced with uncertainty?
Do you limit yourself to paths that are already carved out and waiting for you?
Who carved out those paths? Do they have your interests at heart?
Are the “should” voices in your head yours?
Importantly - do you want to change any of the above?
3. Updating our dreams to fit our current selves
We forget that in the process of doing, and dreaming, we change as well.
Sometimes this comes in the form of reaching a hard-fought goal, and then realizing it feels empty. A common default is to want MORE.
But perhaps it’s simply that you’re no longer the person who wanted that. And it’s OK.
It’s also ok to see the appeal of something you once wanted, and to find it comforting, but to let go of that and realize you’re someone else now.
Do I really want this, or is it easier to keep believing that I want this? ~ Sara Kuburic
Dreaming can be scary - pursuing an ideal, or a vision that you’ve built, means taking responsibility for that vision. And it can mean letting go of what you have now, before you have something else firm to hold on to.
It could be difficult. But it could also be amazing. If you only see one side of that spectrum of possibility, then try to spend time exploring the other side.
By the end of it, you’ll no longer be the person you were before. The scope of possibility could be much bigger. And then, wherever you are and wherever you end up, you take that with you.