Feeling Like You’re Never Enough? Had Enough Of That? Here’s How To Stop That Feeling…

By Gina Calvano | Leave a Comment

My last blog post was all about the value of discovering what fills up your energy tank and learning to nurture yourself without judgement.

 

How’s that going for you?

 

Did you forget all about this because you are just too busy at your job and with your life?

 

Demands around us can be overwhelming for sure.  However believing you’re “too busy” is only a distraction from facing that you may have submitted to a false belief that you have to answer all these demands in an effort to prove your “enough-ness”.  You prove your “enough-ness” by demonstrating your ability to “juggle it all” flawlessly.

 

Let’s face it “juggle it all” simply means keeping other people happy – and we all know it’s impossible to keep everyone happy all the time.  What’s really behind this juggling is a fear that we aren’t “enough”.  The juggling distracts us from addressing and healing our sense of “not enough-ness”.  It’s our ego’s desperate quest for “please like me” which can only be experienced when everyone around us knight’s us by declaring “Hear ye, hear ye!  From this day forward let it be known that (insert your full and formal name here) is in fact, a true specimen of ‘enough’ – MORE than ‘enough’!”

 

But the ego is cruel…

 

…the fear it’s desires stem from will only accept approval in a Universal law defying manner.  It seeks approval from situations where approval is not possible due to the Universal law of like energy attracts like energy.  That means that you cannot experience what you don’t believe – so you can’t find yourself in situations where your efforts bring you a sense of peace, accomplishment, and rewards if you hold fear around being “enough”.  The truth is, holding a false belief that you are “not (worthy) enough” in any way can only put you in situations where you will continue to experience the very thing you fear.

 

Ever felt expected to perform impossible feats that stretch your knowledge/skills/abilities/values beyond their limits and only piss insatiable people off in the end no matter what you do?

 

Of course you have – we all have had held that fear of not being enough at one time or another.  We are vulnerable to it when there is a lot of what seems like turmoil happening around us – ESPECIALLY if our livelihood is attached to these situations in any way (i.e. at your job)!

 

Feeling Like You’re Never Enough?  Had Enough Of That?  Here’s How To Stop That Feeling…

 

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The real danger of not fitting in at work

By Gina Calvano | Leave a Comment

Do you perceive danger for not fitting in with the herd?  We all have felt this at one time or another within our families right?  Heck, there’s even a name for those who don’t follow the family status quo – they’re called the “black sheep” of the family.  At work we might call the one who marches to the beat of a different drummer “the innovator”, “the independent contributor”, or the “creative-types”.

 

“If a man loses pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.  Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured, or far away.”  Henry David Thoreau

 

Focusing on …

 

aptitude vs. attitude, motivation vs. intention, and effort vs. energy as explained in my last post…

 

… aligns you with exhaustion, cynicism and feeling like everything is an uphill battle because accomplishment is perceived as possible when you ignore or quiet a full exploration and understanding of who you are and what you actually have to effortlessly offer (and be valued for in return).  Consider two different equations:

 

Aptitude (what you can do)

+ Motivation (what you can gain or need to perform)

= Effort (hard work)

 

or

 

Attitude (what you believe about yourself and others)

+ Intention (what you believe others can gain as a result of your contributions)

= Energy (what you effortlessly give to others and attract for yourself in return)

 

Which formula have you habitually followed at work?

 

Have you settled for understanding what you can do/should do/what you believe others expect of you?  Have you focused on what YOU can get or what you need to perform – whining like a baby whenever you don’t get what you need to work hard?  Have you worked so hard that you are now exhausted, cynical and feeling like no matter what you accomplish it’s never enough?

 

Why would you settle for that?  I’ll tell you why.  Because you have falsely perceived danger in not fitting in with the status quo.

 

When we have fear about fitting in – we don’t fit in.  Thinking about fitting in from a place of fear puts all our eggs in the “what’s happening out there is what determines my fate” in here (in this workplace), basket.  Thinking about fitting in from fear still makes us seen as different, but not a good different like Prince, Lady Gaga, David Bowie, or any other admired person of your choice.  Those folks were well-admired and revered whether you like their music or not because they came to perceive the opposite of fear of fitting in – they perceived positively standing out.  Having their uniqueness fully discovered and offered in service to others is what got them celebrated in return.

 

In the workplace, fear of fitting in manifests into us being experienced by others as a performance problem.  That only leads to termination (a quick one if you’re lucky), or endless disabilities and bottomless pits in our stomaches when we think about work.

 

But that’s nothing – we can heal from all of that (granted we will probably only repeat the same pattern at another employer – but that’s another blog post).

 

Here’s the real danger of not fitting in at work…

 

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Got skills? Highly motivated? Working hard? Still not reaping the rewards you deserve? Of course you aren’t, here’s why…

By Gina Calvano | 2 Comments

“My success isn’t a result of arrogance – it’s a result of belief.”  Conor McGregor

 

Do you believe that success comes easily when you have some special talent or ability?  Do you believe that motivation is key?  Do you believe it is a by-product of hard work?  Early in my career, I believed those things.  Actually, I still believe success is possible with any of those things – it’s also exhausting, not fun, and can leave you vulnerable for feeling like you ultimately don’t matter anyway no matter how well you get paid.

 

In my many years as an HR executive I have witnessed countless people who were facing performance counseling become upset about not being valued because of…

 

  • what they could do (but of course, weren’t being utilized to their full ability)
  • they are self-motivated (“My boss pays no attention to me and still I get my work done”)
  • how hard they work (they felt they worked hard – why didn’t anyone else?)

 

“How dare other people not see all these wonderful things about me!” was the bubble fixated over their head while they were in their performance counseling meeting.

 

Often, what people fail to absorb is that what you do is never more important than how you impact others.  What you do will never give you power – only this will…

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Do dark times at work turn you into a zombie? Wake up, restore, and heal! Here’s how…

By Gina Calvano | Leave a Comment

Every damp, cold, dark morning, starting around 5AM – sometimes even earlier – millions of people turn into zombies and terrorize corporations and businesses everywhere!

 

You know!  You’ve been among them – they’re everywhere!

 

But…

 

…can you be sure you’re not one of them?  Dun, dun, dun….

 

We all go through dark times – especially with our jobs.  Whether you are tortured by the stress that comes with….

 

  • demands that you stay long into the night – alone in the office building – working to meet a deadline and sacrificing much needed sleep and down time to get it done
  • your brain getting zapped and melted down by aliens with lasers that come from their eyes and mouths – they try to reprogram your brain into doing your job exactly they way they think it should be done – your brain, talents, experience, and skills are no longer required-  just your blind compliance
  • the axe dropping down – yet another under-performing quarter that requires downsizings – it feels like death by a thousand cuts and you feel powerless to do anything about it
  • picking up the slack from under-performing co-workers who suck the life from you like a vampire – leaving you transformed into a crabby, cynical monster yourself

 

Here’s what’s even more scary than facing dark times like these at work…

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I love that this was said…

By Gina Calvano | Leave a Comment

“Everything seems to be exhausting me, no matter how much sleep or how much coffee I drink or how long I lie down, something inside me seems to have given up.  My soul is tired.”  Unknown

 

This quote has probably crossed the mind of every adult at some point in their working career.  It’s truly speaks to a fear that you may be tired beyond recovery.

 

That is never true – you can always bounce back.  Experiencing energy-depleting events and learning your boundaries and how to bounce back is how consciousness evolvement happens.

 

My last blog was all about becoming aware of events at work that are likely to exhaust anybody and the remedial action you can take to recover your vigor.  You might be surprised – not so much about what some of the contributors are to exhaustion – but about the remedies to recover.  You may be doing things that you usually enjoy but they could actually be keeping you down.  So put down the coffee and other self-medicating remedies and read my last blog…

Do you feel emotionally drained after your work day?  There is a way to get your energy back!

 

 

Do you feel emotionally drained after your work day? There is a way to get your energy back!

By Gina Calvano | Leave a Comment

Confession:  I slept a good part of the day away yesterday.

 

I’m battling my usual seasonal allergies plus I didn’t sleep well the night before. I thought “It’s understandable – I’ll take an allergy pill, a long nap and I’ll be fine.”  And I was – for the most part – I wasn’t 100% – but I was able to pull myself together, shower and enjoy a family dinner and birthday party later that afternoon.

 

This feeling reminded of how I would often feel this way when I worked in corporate earlier in my career.  The truth was, I felt this way pretty much every day AND I did not have confidence that anything could help me to rally and get productive or feel energetic.  Can you relate?

 

  • Do you feel tired before you go to work (even if you slept well the night before)?
  • Do you anticipate that you will be drained physically and emotionally by events that will surely come up at work each day?
  • Do you doubt you will have the energy to deal effectively with your work each day (no less accomplish a few goals)?
  • Even if you had the energy, do you doubt that your energy and efforts would make a difference?
  • Do you feel emotionally drained after your work day?

 

There is a way to get your energy back!

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Feeling tired, crabby, powerless – pretty much every day? You can recover – here’s how…

By Gina Calvano | 3 Comments

Do you experience any of the following pretty much every day?…

 

1.  exhaustion (mental, emotional and/or physical)

 

Do you experience depleted energy due to helplessness, futility or tiredness due to overwork?

 

2.  crabby 

 

Do you frequently have a negative or cynical attitude or loss of concern for something you have a responsibility for – this can include people you interact with fairly regularly?  Do you seek to remove yourself from these situations or people whenever you can?

 

3.  feeling powerless 

 

Do you feel incompetent, insufficient, discouraged or powerless to get done what you need to or want to accomplish?

 

Chronic exposure to any of these 3 experiences can unleash a case of burnout.

 

Burnout typically starts as a form of disengagement which may be triggered by perceived threatening situations, diminished returns on personally invested resources, enhanced demands, or lack of resources.  It can begin as mildly as developing a “wait-and-see attitude” towards aspects of your life – meaning you might hold back from investing too much time, effort or energy in something because you prefer to see how things “play out”.  But here’s what happens when we allow solutions outside of ourself to develop…

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Feeling tired of your job?

By Gina Calvano | Leave a Comment

Feeling tired of your job?  Maybe your feeling tired in general – and not just at work!  We all feel tired from time to time.  Sometimes, we just need more sleep or maybe we have been working out too hard or we are coming down with a cold or something or maybe there is a bigger health issue going on.  But sometimes many of us experience the general malaise of “tiredness” that seems to follow us one day after another no matter how much sleep we get.

 

It’s a feeling of tired that’s a mixture of a few key ingredients such as:

 

  • a handful of low energy (maybe you’re just not feelin’ that pep in your step)
  • a cup of powerlessness (every aspect of our life seems to constantly tug at us – especially our job, our house, our kids, our partners – all of them wanting more from us than we seem to have to give – and all of them tugging at us all at the same time!)
  • a dash of cynicism (you might think “I can’t give everyone what they want – and if I could they wouldn’t appreciate it – they’ll just be right back at me wanting the next thing”).
  • (maybe even) a pinch of bordem (every day looks the same – and yet we crave for something “exciting” to happen – but what?)

 

Mixed altogether – you might feel downright burned out – your spark is just gone.  How can you get it back?

 

Over the next several weeks I am going to share with you the signs that you may be on the path to experiencing burnout.  Plus I will offer you some food for thought, compelling questions and some exercises about what you can do to get on a path to recovering from burnout and even preventing another round of burnout in the future.

 

Here’s a hint about how to start overcoming one of the markers of burnout – exhaustion…

 

“The result of genuine devotion is inspiration, a word which properly understood is the opposite of fatigue.  To be fatigued is to be dis-spirited, but to be inspired is to be in the spirit.”  From A Course In Miracles

 

This quote offers the chance to think about not what inspires you – but what are you truly devoted to?  Devotion is a key path to inspiration (and to ascending from non-health related fatigue).  Devotion is defined as “profound dedication; consecration”  and “earnest attachment to a cause, person, etc.”  The cause and effect relationship is clear in this quote:

 

devotion ———->  inspiration

 

vs.

 

dis-spirited (to deprive of hope/enthusiasm or to discourage) ————-> fatigue

 

There may be things you may think you are devoted to but if a sense of inspiration is not experienced in return, are you truly devoted?  Inspiration is not something you need to seek – it is a by-product of your devotion (of your hope/enthusiasm – maybe – of your courage).  Another way to see devotion is to see it as honoring something.  So with this offered perspective…

 

Think about your job – what would honoring your job look like to you?