Are you being authentic in your life? Brene Brown said that “authenticity is a practice and you choose it every day.” I like to believe that all leaders are doing the best that they can to show up authentically. They may not even realize that they aren’t already showing up that way. What if they put a focus on being the person that they really are, instead of the person that everyone else wants them to be? This is easy…
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Can people easily tell if you are being authentic? They may not be able to tell right away, but they will be looking for signs that your words and your actions are matching consistently. Basically, they want to see if you are being honest and transparent when you talk to them. There will only be trust when they see that those things are in alignment over time. There are other ways that authenticity in a person is also measured. Do…
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Focusing on avoidance this month has been very enlightening for me. It has given me the opportunity to look at the things on my own to do list that are continuing to get pushed off. I will share the three categories these things fall into for me and see if these resonate for you too. The first category is “I don’t really want to do it, but it needs to get done.” These are things like making doctor and dentist…
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Avoidance has been showing up for many of my clients over the last few weeks. Some examples of this are struggling with conversations that need to occur with their team or a big decision about letting someone go. Obviously all of these things are hard things to face. What is always interesting is that when I ask them if avoidance is showing up anywhere else in their life, there is always a big yes! They start naming things in their…
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Trying out new things for the first time is scary and uncomfortable. I was listening to a podcast yesterday. The author talked about her fear of surfing. Her niece asked if they could take surfing lessons together. She was beyond scared and looked for any excuse that she could find to get out of actually putting the surfboard in the water. Luckily her instructor wasn’t going to let her off the hook that easily. I am guessing the instructor sees…
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What do you do when it is time to have the tough conversation? There are two common approaches to use. The direct approach will bring both parties together to get everything out on the table and address the situation head on. The second approach is to put off the conversation for as long as possible. Avoidance may seem like the easier route when you don’t want to have the tough conversation, but it is just putting off the inevitable. This…
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People-pleasers want everyone to like them and they don’t want to risk not being a part of the group. They will withhold their own voice and opinion if they feel that what they have to say isn’t good enough compared to others. They are constantly seeking the approval of others and struggle to stand out. This habit is so ingrained, that they don’t even realize that it is showing up in all parts of their lives and relationships. It can…
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Allison was a good student, followed in her mother’s footsteps for her career and married someone just like her father. She rarely tells her children no and buys them things that they want, but they don’t really need. Her friends are involved in lots of activities and because she doesn’t want to feel left out, she joins in with them. Allison is so busy trying to be what everyone else thinks she should be, that she doesn’t even realize that…
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If you listened to the stories that are going on inside the head of a people-pleaser you would hear an assortment of messages focused on being liked and wanting to belong. In an article titled, 21 Tips to Stop Being a People-Pleaser by Margarita Tartakovsky M.S. she shares the things that you can do to stop people pleasing and the ways to address it with others from a NJ social psychologist. Susan Newman, PhD. who is a social psychologist and…
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When you put everyone else’s needs before your own, there may not be much time or energy left for you. You may start out doing this with the best of intentions because you care about other people and want to help them. However, at some point this want becomes a need for you. Instead of doing it because you want to, it becomes the way for you to belong to a group and play a role that causes you to…
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