When You Follow The Achievement Formula For Life And Still Feel Lost

At my 5th grade daughter’s Parent Teacher Conference, we discussed her report card. Her grounded, wise teacher held up the card and cautioned us—"Please make sure she knows she’s thriving and this isn’t the only proof. Do your best to reinforce success is not about this."

In our household, we’ve always focused on kindness, empathy, curiosity, and a hunger for learning—and frankly, both our girls could recite the Garrett TED Talk on the importance of effort word for word. But when the mirage of validation stares you down in the form of a lineup of high marks—it’s difficult to take a measured approach to praise.

The achievement seduction is real.

It’s the belief that if I get the grades, win the awards, get into the schools, land the good on paper jobs—I’m guaranteed a successful life. A happy life.

To be clear, I know that academic effort, striving and persistence toward goals are important variables in moving through childhood into an adulthood where both happiness and financial health are possibilities. But these things do not make up the full picture and they do not provide guarantees. Our maniacal focus on achievement is out of proportion to what it can offer—leaving many of us in perfectionism, anxiety and a desperation for validation, promotions and external praise. At the same time, those who focus on accolades are often out of touch with what drives them outside of our society’s formula for success.

When I support women mid-career, they hit this identity-shifting moment. After a lifetime of striving toward things that seemed important, they realize that these aren’t the things that are important to them. Acknowledging the dissonance to anyone feels like a failure and an unimaginable risk. There’s no roadmap for doing life outside the formula.

The first step out of these woods is compassion for that young person, who dutifully followed the rules and diligently worked to get to this place. Who wouldn’t want the life you were promised? You were expecting certainty where it never truly existed, and now the idea of taking a path where uncertainty is known can be terrifying. This process of uncovering how you want to live your life requires courage and patience. A simultaneous quieting of the noise of others’ expectations and a deep listening to your intuition that you’ve become skilled at silencing.

From there you can find pride and momentum in both the weaving together of those moments that ignited you throughout your life and the relentless exploration of things you’ve always hungered to learn and do. My clients who move down this path build their own companies and create new roles at organizations they admire by writing job descriptions around their strengths. They finally give themselves permission to pursue their creative projects and they unapologetically show up in their lives as the people they are, rather than those others wanted them to be. Once you are free from whatever your 5th grade report card said about you, the university you did or didn’t get into and the title you’re supposed to have by your age, you regain control of your choices and your life.

The Benefits Of Prioritizing Your Creativity

Lately, I’ve been tucking in my nearly eleven-year-old daughter at her set (early!) bedtime, only to see her pop out of her room an hour later with an energized grin.

"Can I read you the poem I just wrote? It’s three pages. I’m really proud of it."

Then, she weaves her words—descriptive and dark—connected by metaphor and hope. Leaving me wondering—uhm—what happened at school today?

I ask what inspired her to write this thoughtful and expressive piece and she reminds me of something I know, but also something I allow my rigid adult brain to resist.

"Mom, when I write a poem, I have the idea and then I just sit down and it comes out. I don’t even think about it."

After highlighting some details that stood out to me in her work and watching her smile grow, I thought, "Profound. I want that."

While I do feel those moments of flow with my writing—there’s often that editing voice I’m quieting as I go. I’m skilled at navigating that voice in my reserved weekly three-hour block—and most days, I wish that time didn’t have to end. Yet, I would be lying if I said it was always a flow or that each time I truly let go.

Even as I work through shifting my presence in my writing practice, for the past two plus years I’ve proudly made my creativity a priority in my business and my life, and that commitment has transformed who I am.

I schedule out writing time on my calendar a month in advance.

I guard that time with my life, not accepting any sessions, meetings or phone calls. OK, so I do look at emails and texts, but this is a work in progress, people!

During those hours, I gift myself the chance to observe the world, to make sense of it, to be raw and human. It’s a time to simultaneously be imperfect and whole.

And what I receive in return is immeasurable.

Energy.

Points of connection with people in my life and those I’ve never met. A playground to make mistakes. A place of joy where it’s safe to practice letting go, a lesson I then bring to areas of my life where I continue to indulge my fears.

I’m reminded of creativity’s impact on who we are as humans when I bear witness to my child’s ability to go deep in a quiet place, to be a vessel and to listen without thinking. When I see who she’s becoming, the confidence she’s building and her knowledge of self that is a direct result of her practice, I am moved by what’s possible for both of our lives and the life we share together.

What To Do When Your Boss Doesn't Support You

When I coach job search and career transition clients, they define their non-negotiables for their next roles. Nine times out of ten, a top variable is: a leader who supports me. We then clarify what that means to them. 

It often sounds like someone who:

1. Pushes them beyond what they believe are their capabilities. 
2. Offers visibility with senior leaders and a chance to shine for their own work. 
3. Backs them up when they are taking unpopular points of view. 
4. Allows them space to take risks and to make mistakes. 
5. Truly listens to their needs for flexibility and does their best to advocate for those parameters. 
6. Thinks about them and nurtures them as whole people with long careers, rather than just employees fulfilling on current needs and projects. 

It’s no mystery why this need comes up as one of the most important desires in a new role. When you don’t have the support of your boss, your job can be hard in ways that have nothing to do with the content or tasks of your actual role. It can range from annoying to the dreaded…unbearable. 

When you’re in this situation and do not yet have an exit plan that is signed, sealed and delivered, there are several strategies that can help to get you through it:

1. Own up to your part in the relationship
Like it or not, this is not all about your manager. Who are you being in the face of these challenges? Is this situation bringing out a side of you that you don’t like or respect? It makes sense that you would act this way under stress, but when you note your behavior and own up to it—even if it’s simply to yourself, you can begin to learn how to handle this difficult time with strength, resilience and confidence. 

2. Find other advocates in the organization
Your direct manager is not the only one who can offer you support in your role. Who are the other leaders with whom you’ve worked on projects and those who have championed your work in the past? Meet with them, take them out for coffee, stay positive and be clear on how they may be able to help. Perhaps they can offer you opportunities to work on projects with their teams, make introductions for new roles or give you feedback that may be able to provide a path to a more effective relationship with your manager. 

3. Contain it
If you feel awful in the moments you have contact with your unsupportive boss, why would you extend the time period you feel that pain ten-fold by talking about your boss and his or her actions—All. Day. Long. Shut it down. Venting is not helping you feel better and it’s not helping anyone else help you. Your continued focus on this other person and what he or she is doing to you and your career is the equivalent of you handing over your power on a silver platter. I will remind you of one of my coaching mantras: The person responsible for your career is you. 

4. Prioritize energy and forward movement
If you have decided that the only way out of this toxic environment is to leave your role or your organization, focus your energy there. If you spend all of your hours outside of the office either rehashing the things that drove you bananas during the day or working your butt off on tasks that are not mission critical in an effort to get in your leader’s good graces, you will have no time to focus on your search or the networking conversations that will bring you momentum. Do a truly good job in your role, but evaluate whether now is the time to take on extra volunteer office work or committees. Make the space for you to focus on your priority. The more traction you get in your search, the more power and confidence you will feel in the relationship with your manager—which will inevitably change the dynamic. 

If you feel guilt about the relationship not working or leaving because of it—that is absolutely normal and expected. Know that you can always reframe the scenario when you lead with your curiosity. What can I learn from this moment and this person? How might everyone involved—including me—be better off if I moved on? If you’ve analyzed your role in this relationship, then you also know that this challenge is not all about you either—it is about a bad fit. Reminding yourself of this message often will be critical to your moving forward with confidence, knowing that you did all you could do. Your talents will be supported elsewhere by a leader who sees you for who you are and is energized by what you can create, together. 

The Paradox Of Being A Feminist Mom In A Culture That's Not

A few weeks ago, I was cozying up with our seven-year-old on the couch and without warning she blurted out, “I really wish women could propose to men.”

“They can! They do! And women propose to other women. And some people decide to simply be in love and not get married at all.” I sharply responded, my feet firmly planted on my soapbox. But as the words left my mouth, I was already in a well of shame. How does she not know this is possible? And why at her age is she focused on proposals? What an antiquated custom for my modern daughter to be pondering on a Saturday afternoon. While I would love to blame Fuller House, I scolded myself. Bad feminist mom!

As I emerged from my spiral, I decided to use this cringe-worthy moment as a way to dive into it with her. “What brought this up for you?”

“Well, I don’t want to wait around for someone to propose to me. I just want to do it myself.”

Phew. All is not lost. She’s questioning a custom I thought was law growing up and actively participated in as part of my own rite of passage.

It reminds me of how far I’ve come in the past 15 years—and also brings to light the nuanced approach to parenting one must take when the landmines that live within our own muscle memory are reinforced by all of the media and messages around us.

It’s why—in our home—we talk about bodies being strong and healthy and capable of impressive swimming and soccer feats.

It’s why I am always kind and positive about my own body in front of the girls which has offered a wonderful side-benefit of taking in those messages and believing them. In the process, I have healed years of body shame passed down by multiple generations of the women in my family.

It’s why I held my tongue in criticizing women not wearing makeup on the red carpet when watching the Academy Awards with my daughters. My gut instinct was to go there. The years of beauty programming and messaging are in me at a cellular level, but my girls are helping me notice the hypocrisy in those moments.

It’s why my husband does most of the cooking and I handle the finances—even though I initially handed over all financial responsibility to him when we got married. I wanted somebody to save me from dealing with something this hard, something our culture deems out of my realm and I finally realized that I was that person.

It’s why I don’t tell my girls, “You can be anything you want to be.” as I was told. That was not true then and it is not a foregone conclusion now. I tweak the message to acknowledge our reality. “I hope you can be anything you want to be, and we will fight together to bring down the barriers and the customs that diminish our power—and the biases even we ourselves have accepted as truth—to improve your odds.”

I’m learning that in order to be the feminist parent I want to be, I must have compassion for myself as I challenge the biases I carry with me. I can model my questioning for my daughters who will also inevitably internalize many of the biases of our culture. My hope for them is that they will also have the confidence to challenge gender norms and what’s possible for us—while our culture makes incremental shifts toward a bigger change.