This year I have embarked on an introspective energetic and spiritual journey. My coach this year is very unlike the business coaches I have had in the past, and the program in which I am immersed will strengthen my own ability to make intuitive, powerful decisions for my business, to consult with greater wisdom, and to live with a greater sense of peace.
It’s confronting work, to say the least. I have to deal with all my stuff, as any conscious leader does in order to prevent it from directing behaviors and actions, as it tends to do.
In the midst of this, things go haywire. It seems what can go wrong, does go wrong, as it’s showing me where my stuff has been hiding and taking control. It makes me realize just how many of my daily decisions are driven by trauma and beliefs I formed when I was not yet fully conscious. It makes me realize how not fully conscious I am.
About 8 years ago I wrote about a pattern I was recognizing in my clients, as my services officially expanded to include leadership coaching and the level at which I was working with my clients deepened significantly. I noticed that many of them had survived the recent recession by taking career opportunities that were out of alignment with what they really wanted and who they really were in order to survive and provide for their families. The dominant emotion that was driving these emotions was fear. However, at the same time they were making decisions from fear, my clients during that recession were making decisions and acting from desire, passion, and faith, creating alignment in their career that has led, in most cases, to years of career growth and happiness since then.
I see a pattern now forming among my clients now where they chose to chase opportunities that satisfied their egos, but not their souls. These jobs provided a standard of living that made them feel successful, and yet that success has begun to feel empty.
One of my own personal discoveries on this journey is that, because I felt insignificant, discredited, and powerless in making my own decisions, I chose my current path of being a self-employed expert who thrives on making a meaningful difference in the lives of my clients.
Certainly, that doesn’t sound all that bad, does it? However, I need to heal that trauma. It leads me to be very attached to the outcomes of my clients, which I only have so much influence over – admittedly, even with as much coaching mastery as I have acquired so far.
No, my choice in vocation 15 years ago was not a mistake, even if it was driven by a need from my ego to compensate for what I felt I was lacking in my power. However, when the world starts becoming more volatile, less predictable, and I witness suffering in others, it throws me into “savior” mode, where I have to make a difference, so I focus my attention on it, and it consumes my thoughts, my behaviors, and actions, and has a cost to my relationships and wellbeing. Also, it impacts my outcomes. The energy of needing and forcing and the frustration of not getting a handle on a situation turns all of my efforts into wasted endeavors with few to zero positive outcomes. Essentially, my energy is at odds with my mission.
Co-founding the C3 community with Lawrence as my partner shifted a lot of that, and was the catalyst of me delving into this journey. I realized that there are a lot more people than just me “on it,” whatever problem “it” was that day. I also realized that even the perception of the load being shared made me feel lighter. That lightness produced better results in my initiatives and my life. It disintegrates the inertia and resistance.
Now, I can make an empowered choice to stay in my vocation, and I do it because I love it and I’m damn good at it. A greater lightness in myself aids my clients much more, consciously and subconsciously. Results are coming easier for us both. If you read me regularly, you also know that this year I created the possibility that I can co-create other things in my life of a more passionate, fun nature. I played with my band last week and re-captured a part of myself that I had let slip away because of the heavy obligations of saving the world and my kids. I had forgotten how it felt to be in the flow like that – channeling the music, emanating it out, and receiving the love from the crowd back. I want more!
I am realizing more and more of my blocks and limiting beliefs, and seeing how they have been at cause for areas of my life where I feel stuck. Who knows how this work will shape my future.
I have worked with clients through the years who came to me because they wanted to achieve a particular goal, only to find that the goal was borne of a belief that no longer seemed valid.
As consciousness spreads, more and more people are rethinking their motivations and changing course to feel more aligned in their career and their lives. I have been amazed at how doing this work has attracted more of these people to me. There is data to support my personal observations, as well. Now with the benefit of retrospection and years’ more wisdom, many mature millennials are seeing how they made decisions for their lives based on “truths” that proved to be obsolete over time. Remember, this was the generation that started to shape “modern” workforce policies, some of which fizzled over time, as they were targeting young millennials who inevitably matured, while many remained, though haphazardly executed. Gen Z is sure to shape the workforce further, and my hope is that they will grab the opportunity they have, with the full support of their elders, to further influence people and planet-friendly policies, cultures, and operations.
My challenge to you is to figure out your why. Why are you where you are? Is there someplace else you’d be better off in the future? Is now the time for change – and, again, why?
Fascinate me. Please share your findings, if you can be so bold.
Karen Huller, author of Laser-sharp Career Focus: Pinpoint your Purpose and Passion in 30 Days (bit.ly/GetFocusIn30), is founder of Epic Careering, a 13-year-old leadership and career development firm specializing in executive branding and conscious culture, as well as JoMo Rising, LLC, a workflow gamification company that turns work into productive play.
While the bulk of her 20 years of professional experience has been within the recruiting and employment industry, her publications, presentations, and coaching also draw from experience in personal development, performance, broadcasting, marketing, and sales.
Karen was one of the first LinkedIn trainers and is known widely for her ability to identify and develop new trends in hiring and careering. She is a Certified Professional Résumé Writer, Certified Career Transition Consultant, and Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist with a Bachelor of Art in Communication Studies and Theater from Ursinus College and a minor in Creative Writing. Her blog was recognized as a top 100 career blog worldwide by Feedspot.
She is an Adjunct Professor in Cabrini University’s Communications Department and previously was an Adjunct Professor of Career Management and Professional Development at Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business She is also an Instructor for the Young Entrepreneurs Academy where some of her students won the 2018 national competition, were named America’s Next Top Young Entrepreneurs, and won the 2019 People’s Choice Award.