Are you asleep at the wheel?
Life is a journey….
Are you in control of your car? Do you feel you can accelerate or brake? Can you turn a corner or deviate from the navigation path? Or are you asleep at the wheel?
Several years ago I was sat in my Coach’s office. Surrounded by seven other professionals, I was taking part in a self development group coaching session focused around change. After the brief welcome, the facilitators began to explain the first task of the day. Each one of us would, in turn, have to go to the front of the group, stand at the already positioned lectern, and for two minutes talk about ourselves. As the task was being revealed, I felt the room cloud with nervous energy as thoughts turned to, “who’s going to go first?”…”are they going to pick me”….”what am I going to say” etc.
I don’t know about you, but I’m someone who is relatively comfortable with speaking in front of people. The thought of this, however, filled me with absolute dread. Terror actually.
To this day, it is still one of the hardest exercises that I have completed. I look back on it and think, “these people were complete strangers, they knew nothing about me other than what they had heard in the preceding ten or so minutes since we had walked through the office door, so why was it so hard?”
Now, it could have been because I hadn’t had time to prepare and rehearse. It could also have been that it is not a subject that I am used to talking about in front of people. In truth, however, it was because I had no real idea of who I was.
I had gone thirty-two years, not understanding who I was, thus no idea of how I’d really got to where I was, and no real idea of where I was heading next. Basically, I was asleep at the wheel!
That morning, as I faced into this realisation for the very first time, I felt torn: ashamed that I was out of control; and proud that I had achieved all that I had considering the lack of direction. When my turn to speak came, I took a deep breath, embraced my fear and started talking – doing my best to hide the extreme discomfort I was experiencing.
The first words that I uttered were about my work, where I live etc. About half way through this experience in, the facilitator interrupts me to ask, “and what about you Claire? Tell us about you? Not what you’ve done, or what you have experienced, or who you know, or the labels you attach to yourself. I want to know about Claire”.
Awkwardly, I restarted. It felt awful….talking about my perception of my attributes e.g. sense of humour, intelligence, ability to love; and also my need to learn, my love of the outdoors, my need to enjoy new experiences and repeat experiences. Just over 60 seconds in to the 2 minutes and I was done…words failed me….and fumbling for something to say, my thoughts were focused on, “what do these people think of me?”, “they probably think I’m a joke”, “I bet they are thinking, who does she think she is?”, and many other unhelpful statements.
I just wanted to be rescued.
Thankfully the facilitators stepped in. They thanked me for my contribution. They praised me for my bravery, and then they asked me to return to my seat. Whilst the event, and what I felt like public humiliation, was over, I was left contemplating the discomfort that I had just experienced and why it had been so mentally excruciating.
Equally reassuring, and rather eye-opening however, was the fact that I was not the only one. I was surrounded by successful people from all walks of life, yet all of us struggled to talk from that damn lectern, and speak honestly about ourselves as us.
It was clear that many of us could not distinguish who we are from what we do. We identified ourselves by our roles, our jobs, our relationships, our experiences, and in some cases our belief systems and, in the minority of cases, our values.
That day opened my eyes to a number of realisations:
- I am not the product of what I have done or experienced;
- I need to clarify who I am in a realistic and expansive way;
- Without understanding who I am, I cannot truly define my future path(s);
- I had been acting on what others wanted, rather than my own wants and needs;
- I am not limited by my role or family expectations, unless I choose to be; and most importantly,
- No other will judge me more than I judge myself.
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.”
~ STEVE JOBS
At this time I was a great believer in fate and I felt that I had very little influence on events and outcomes in my own life.
In truth, I was making excuses. I was a passenger in my own car. I was heading towards destinations that others told me to visit. I was afraid of grabbing the wheel and scared of what might happen if I put my foot on the accelerator or the brake.
So what did I do? Below is a list of the actions that I took in order to start (re)defining who I was. I challenge you to have a go:
- Write down what I thought my definition of myself was. Whilst this may be littered with labels, job roles, expectations, relationships, experiences and values etc, it is a helpful place to start.
- Learn to be kind to, and accepting of, myself. One of the first reactions to this sort of exercise is often negative self-talk. I took action to recognise and act on this. Overlaying a sense of realism to the thoughts, challenging the validity of these thoughts, and noting down the themes of these thoughts.
- Make a list of influencing factors. Influencing factors are personal values, and could also be expectations (either my own, or someone else’s imposed on me), limiting beliefs or experiences. Understand how these factors influence the definition you have written. For example:
- What I value, and why I value it, both influence my perception of who I am.
- I realised that I was incorporating in to my own definition others’ views of who I “should” be.
- I found that often I was using the past to define me and also drawing rather simplistic and very definitive conclusions on these situations: e.g. by failing at something once I was then badging myself as “a failure”, or by putting myself first in a certain situation in the past I was then labelling myself as “selfish”.
- Make a list of my positive attributes. A simple exercise, task yourself with writing a list of at least ten positive attributes. Note: whilst I say this is a simple exercise, you may find this uncomfortable because most people are better at self-critique than self-praise. If it makes it easier, try to think of yourself through the eyes of a close friend. Think about what they admire in you or how they would describe you.
- Enlist a couple of good friends to give me their perspectives. Depending on your level of self-reflection having external feedback is a great way to add to what you have written. I performed this by asking my friends to tell me what they appreciate in me, and what they admire.
- Reconsider the initial definition I wrote. Reviewing and reappraising this definition given the learnings and feedback from the exercises above.
Going through the above process was like learning to drive for the first time; I had a few bumpy rides, a few stalls, and one or two wrong turns.
- Bumps = actions which were difficult because it meant redefining or moving away from friendships/ relationships, or facing fears.
- Stalls = where my fear prevented me from moving forward and taking my own path, or a shift back to old ways/ habits.
If you, like me, struggle with defining yourself initially, then please realise that you are unlikely to get this “right” one the first attempt. I found that it takes time, self-reflection, and feedback. For me it continues to be an ongoing process. On occasion I still find myself at a destination wondering why, or how, I ended up there. Defining oneself is a continual process of (re)assessment and (re)adjustment because the contextual environment in which we live, and it’s many influencers, are ever evolving.
Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed this article please share this with your network and help someone gain an advantage from this process.