Welcome to the new manager podcast. I'm your host, Kim nickel. Hello and welcome. I'm glad you're here, and I hope you're doing well as we get started, I want to invite you to take a stretch. I'm going to take one to stretch my arms out, big look up with my chin, take a yawn, you know, sometimes we just forget to stretch to reach and especially if you are a human who experiences, any A kind of anxiety or stress, which I think is all of us. What tends to happen is in our
bodies. We contract we pull in, we start to slowly get a little rigid defied and one of the easiest ways to start to release that feeling both in your body, but also the like the emotion of the anxiety and the stress is to Simply stretch your arms out big Chin, lift the heart, just make yourself a little bit bigger and create a little bit of room for any of that stuck emotion and the tightness to soften, and to let go. And I wanted to share that with
you today as we get started, because I've been thinking a lot about the power of gentleness, the power of compassion and especially when you are a high achieving person. And you put a lot of pressure on yourself to achieve and then you find yourself in a situation that you haven't been in before managing people or managing a specific person with a different personality style or a different communication style.
There are so many times when putting more pressure on ourselves actually gets in the way of being able to do good work in a sustainable way by Well, I mean, without a lot of exhaustion and stress and anxiety because all of that, it's okay. In the moment from time to time, it's super normal, you're a human. We have emotions, we have Stress and Anxiety sometimes, but when the volume on those is turned up constantly. And we don't get any relief from that.
Then it is not sustainable. And we need to find a new approach A New Perspective. Elective and maybe a couple of tools and that can be something as simple as taking a moment to back away from the screen to stretch your arms out wide to take a deep breath. And just feel a little more grounded, a little more calm just through that very simple choice. And one of the clients that I've been working with recently wrote to me and had this beautiful
message that I wanted to share. With you as you're thinking about some of the challenges that you're facing and the way that you want to experience your work, your life and the way that you move through some of these things. So he wrote to me and he said that because of the coaching that we had done together, he says I am being more, assertive, less anxious and much more. Gentle in the past, I have been the hero and I prided myself on making things work and saving
the day. These shifts I have made are really subtle but I'm noticing a huge difference and I love that because it really I think highlights what a lot of us miss at first which is we think that being more assertive is a kind of hardening like I need to armor up and prepare for battle in order to be assertive and that's a very anxious thing and it takes To energy. But what's really cool?
And one of the things I love to help my clients with is how to find the path to be more assertive, but to do that with less anxiety and a lot more gentleness both towards yourself as well as the whole situation. Because once you're able to do that, then it doesn't become as scary any time. You find yourself needing to be assertive, it doesn't cost as much energy or time. Time you spend less time in avoidance and thinking, like, oh, what should I say?
And instead from this really grounded and peaceful place, you have the sense of clarity about. Okay, this is what I want to present or to share, or to ask and here's how I can do that in the most useful way. So we make things easier as opposed to harder and the It can be very subtle that they do have a really big effect, which I really like, you know, like, why not make it easy. So, that is where I wanted to start today and then on that same, like, on a related note.
So, if you're a person who tends to be hard on yourself, right? You hold yourself to a high standard, you feel like you can't fail. You've got really strong achieve. Moment drive that might be driven. Also by the thought of, I just need to work harder and my hard work will get it done. You know, I can't slack, I have to really be on it. Anything in that category of internal dialogue. If that's the attitude that you take towards yourself, number one, there's nothing wrong with that.
It's a very human thing and it can be successful in a lot of ways. But like, any purse, Active in any tool, it has its limits and so this next part is specifically for you when being hard on yourself stops working at some point, the harder you are on yourself. The harder, it is to get anything done because the weight of the pressure and the self-judgment and the self-doubt that Starts to come up. Like it just makes everything seem harder rather than actually moving things forward.
So, when you're in that situation, where you find that being hard on yourself is no longer working to get you to where you want to be go to compassion. Instead. And compassion, is that perspective of? I see that you are suffering and I desire to relieve and Is that suffering? It's the really gentle witness that says, I see you and I can see that this is hurting. I can see that this is hard. I can see that you're in struggle and my deepest desire is that you be free from that pain.
That struggle that challenge. It's such a loving way to regard yourself. And so don't be surprised if it feels weird. If you're not used to that, It might sound weird. You might think. No, I need to toughen up. I just need to try harder.
I need to do more research. If only I was smart enough, good enough had this kind of background, like, it's so easy for the mind to go into this kind of deficiency apology anxiety, Spin. And it might feel weird when you are very intentionally choosing to slow down that conversation and simply Look at yourself and say, oh, I see, this is the hard part of whatever it is that you're dealing with. And I really want you to be free of this pain and struggle and
challenge. I completely understand, it might feel weird if you're not used to directing that kind of attention and care towards yourself. But the reason it works and it becomes so effective is because when you Point The Compassion to yourself instead of being really hard. What happens is it stops you from fighting with yourself, it gets you out of this cycle of anxiety of self judgement and when we have a lot of anxiety and self-judgment we tend to then resist, we move away.
We Retreat into a source of comfort. It to feel better after we've just been like drinking out of the anxiety Fountain and then taking a self-judgment chaser, it just doesn't feel good. And then we think I need some comfort. I'm going to do something else. I'm going to scroll the internet. I'm going to watch a show. I'm going to eat something nice. Like, we look for ways to comfort ourselves from the anxiety and solve judgment that we've just been piling onto
ourselves. And that then creates avoidance we move away from the source of discomfort because we're you know, creating it in such a big way. So, you know, to say this again and make it even more simple, instead of being hard on yourself, go to compassion instead this gets you out of fighting yourself, it gets you out of that cycle of anxiety, of self judgement, I've retreating into Comfort or avoidance from the anxiety and self-judgment.
So compassion is the voice in you that internal voice. That says look I see you. I love you and here's what we're going to do now. So it's not a giving up. It's like this really sweet acceptance and there's a you can find a sense of gentle direction from that place of compassion.
So what happens then when you choose compassion Fashion is that instead of trying to push yourself or drag yourself which creates more resistance instead, it's like you take yourself by the hand with so much love with kindness and the deepest understanding, and you move forward. It's like, you take yourself by the hand, and you say, I see you. I know this is hard. I am with you. Let's do this together, and when you're Colonel voice sounds like that. It starts to soften the resistance.
It starts to lighten the heaviness, which then allows you the space and the freedom to move forward. And this is something I've just noticed. A lot of us are good at some times but we all have a place where we tend to push ourselves and be really hard thinking that that That is what we need in order to quote, unquote motivate us. But actually, what moves us forward is when we stop trying to push and drag and berate
ourselves. And instead, we hold ourselves with so much kindness, so much compassion, so much love for who we are, as a whole person as a human. And then from there, like, take yourself by the hand, I am with you, we can figure this out. Want to have that voice inside you to have as much air time as the very strict Stern. Taskmaster. I know, you have that voice in there. I think all of us do it comes pre-loaded when we arrive on the planet.
So for so many reasons, it often can be shouted over by that. You know you just got to toughen up and you've got to be strong and got to figure this out on your own you. No, I talked in the last episode about this, the hero Persona, and in our culture, especially here in the US, there's such a celebration of one idea of strength. Like, one idea of toughness, and what happens then is, we forget
this whole other domain. That is so powerful, and it is the power of gentleness, of compassion of kind. This right? Like you want to be able to access that just as easily as you're able to access the other stuff too. And that just means that it might take a little bit of practice and a willingness to feel a little discomfort, you know, because once you start to offer yourself that level of kindness and consideration, then
you might find. You've got some other emotions that you've been pushing away or dragging along. Yeah. And then we've got to make some room to feel some of those because, you know, it's like, locked up energy. If we don't feel it, it just stays kind of locked up in the suitcase in the basement. And that's not a great place for them. We want to bring it into the open, open it up.
Give it some breathing room so that we can kind of relax and soften and it just makes our quality of life better. It's kind of the bonus like yes, everything at work starts to feel easier. Also, in your life, you start to feel better, which I mean, it's pretty great, right? I get to see this stuff every day so I get the front row seat.
But my desire for you is that as you listen to this episode and you think about your own landscape like your own inner landscape of where you kind to yourself and where do you tend to Reach for the harsh tone. I want you to get curious and just notice where are you being hard? On yourself. Is there something going on? Is there a challenge or is there, you know a conversation you've been avoiding, or is there something going on in your work world? Where inside in your own self?
You are berating yourself and trying to push yourself along faster and just taking a generally harsh tone, Because that will be a good sign to ask. Okay. So what would it be like to bring a little more compassion? What would it be like to bring a little bit more kindness into this picture and see what happens as you start to shine. That gentle light of attention towards yourself in this way. And of course, if you want to do this, work with me, one-on-one,
it's amazing. I love seeing the way my clients. Take the concept, really get it on a deep level. When you show up to learn and to slow down, and to really address the things that are keeping you up at night, and kind of just moving in your head all the time, we can address that we can work it together and you'll learn how to do it on your own. Reliably sustainably with a lot of kindness. That's what I am here for.
So if that's you today, then go ahead to the show, notes to find the link to my calendar and let's talk soon. Alright. I hope you have a wonderful wonderful week. I will talk to you next time. Hey, before you go, if you like this podcast, leave A review, tell me why you listen and what has helped you? Thanks so much. I'll see you next time.