Welcome to the New Manager Podcast. I'm your host, Kim Nicoll. Hello and welcome. I'm glad you're here and I hope you're doing well. This episode is all about self-care and support. It's being released on Christmas Day. And so that might be a holiday that you celebrate that has a lot of meaning for you, or it might not be. It might not be something that has a lot of significance for you. Or you might be, you know, working for a company or in an organization that is affected by
that holiday. But maybe for you it doesn't carry a lot of weight. That's also totally OK. But it really brings to mind for me this idea of how do we bring an awareness of self-care and support into the workplace and specifically the question of what does it mean for me. And you're going to answer that question a little bit differently over the course of your career. You're going to answer that question a little bit differently even over the course of the year.
So if you have kids then self-care for you during the summer holiday or you know, or even during the winter holiday that might look different at that time of year than when the kids are in school. And the you know, the schedule of the household is a little bit more structured. But the reason I like this question and the importance of taking time to ask yourself what does self-care mean for me? What does that look like? And what about support?
What support do you have? What support do you wish you have? What support might be available if you ask for it? If you have the comfort and confidence to ask for support, what might happen then? I think it's important to remember that these questions are part of how we really maintain a connection to our humanity, our humanness, even as we are engaged in our work in our careers in the professional world.
And I think this matters. You know, one of the things that really struck me when I was in my legal career was this idea that, you know, if everyone who worked within our legal system, every lawyer, every law enforcement officer, every judge, every bailiff, every administrative personnel, every paralegal. If every single person who worked within our legal profession, if they had a little bit more self-care. If they had a little more self
compassion. If they felt a bit more supported and at ease in their life, there would be an effect. There would be a difference because so much of what happens in our world, not just in the legal profession but so much, depends upon the individual discretion that someone has. There's so much that rests within the decisions that you
make. And when we are depleted and exhausted and tired and overextended and kind of chronically, you know, like like underwater and behind, when we are operating in that way, that has a real effect, both in terms of your individual and very personal experience of your work and your life and your career, but also in the way that you're able to do your work in your life, in your career.
As a kind of a sweet example, I remember a few years ago, I went to this cafe in San Francisco. It was a really nice cafe. It was like very fancy. And I went and I sat down and they had all of these different kinds of coffee and they had very elaborate flavor profiles written out in the menu, you know, and I sat down and I'm looking at this menu and I'm trying to decide, you know, which bean I want, like which
kind of coffee I want. And the person who was came to take my order, you know, started chatting. I'm like, gosh, there's so many options. I'm not sure which one to choose. And you know, we were talking through it a little bit and finally I said, you know what? Why don't we do this? I, you know, I'm interested. I'm going to have a a coffee and you know, like choose whichever bean, whichever bean you like and and I'll try and guess which one it is.
Like that would be fun, like could we do that? And he said sure. So he went back and you know a few moments later he brings me out a coffee. And so I sip this coffee and I'm like, oh, this is really nice. And I look at the menu and I, you know, I'm reading the options and I'm really savoring this coffee. And I say, is it this one? And I point to this one, you know, description on the page and he says, yes, it is good
job. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, I guess the right one that was so much fun. Like, thank you so much, you know, for, for being willing to kind of play along with me. He's like, no problem. He goes away. And I'm, you know, reading a book and I'm enjoying my coffee and just kind of enjoying this really nice moment that we had. And a few moments later, he comes back and he brings me a little cookie on a plate.
And I look at this cookie and he says, well, you know, you won the game, so there should be a prize. So here's a cookie. And I was so moved by that because he didn't have to do that. My guess is that, you know, he had the discretion. Like he wasn't breaking a rule. It wasn't something that he was going to get in trouble for, but he had the discretion. He could simply decide to, you know, kind of comp me a cookie because he wanted to. And I thought that was so
thoughtful. And it was just this kind of reminder that as we move through our days, we have so much power to decide what's going to happen next based on how we're feeling, how we're seeing the situation. You know, if this person had been, you know, exhausted and not slept and just impatient and frustrated, I know he probably would not have wanted to go along. He probably would have rolled his eyes and just say, cannot this lady just pick a coffee?
You know, just tell me what you want and I'll get it for you. But he, he was able to and willing to engage with me in in a different way. And so when we think about our work life, who you are as a human and your ability to feel resourced and supported has a really big role to play in that. And you know, the the goal also is not to maintain a kind of static, steady equilibrium across all things.
Like think that life in the course of a year or in the course of many years, there will be highs and lows. There's a kind of friction and texture to being a human who works with other humans. And some days they're just going to be hard. And some days we'll ask more of you and you'll feel kind of stretched or fatigued. So the idea is not to kind of eliminate all challenge or discomfort, but it's more like if you know that there will be challenges along the way, then why not be supported?
And why not, you know, ensure that you're not going to get totally depleted? This was something that came up a lot earlier in my work in coaching and training because in the legal profession there are such high rates of burnout and other kinds of like substance abuse issues that happen in that
profession. Just because folks, you know, we, we don't always have the the coping, you know, the healthy coping strategies and professionally, the professional culture for a long time has been really, how do I want to say this? It's like alcohol has been a really present social and professional, you know, activity. And so it it was always so interesting to me to realize, you know, people who become lawyers are very intelligent people.
So it's not an an information or intelligence issue that's creating all of these really difficult outcomes. There's something here where collectively, like as a as a profession, we are deprioritizing and not valuing some aspect of self-care. Like there's something happening in the industry and in the environment and in all of these practices. And I think it would make a real difference if we introduced a bit more of the self-care and
support conversation. So this is something that has been, you know, very present in my work and in my life, you know, for over a decade now. And so for today, you know, what I want to invite you to consider is that you will support others better when you have support too. And the place to start with this is by simply noticing what support do you have almost make it like a game.
Can you identify 10 different ways that you are supported, that you have support and you can be as literal as there is ground beneath my feet? Like I am standing here and there is literally an entire planet beneath my feet supporting me. You can think of it as even, you know, like the chair, if you maybe you're sitting in a chair.
I'm sitting in a chair. I have support right now because I am sitting all of my weight into this chair and it is fully receiving and supporting me. Start looking for support. You can also think about invisible kinds of support. So you know, definitely, like you can think about the air that you're breathing. That's like an invisible form of support that you have available to you.
But you can also think about the other people who work behind the scenes to help you, You know, live and work and do all the things that you do, like thinking about what are the invisible kinds of support. I know it's there, but I don't necessarily see it. This also might include whatever dimension of spirituality that you have in your own self, a sense of unseen support, whether it's a sense of your ancestors.
This feeling that you have, ancestors that have your back, that are cheering you on, that are loving you unconditionally, that are, you know, rooting for you from the other side like that might be part of your sense of a support team. Or it might be, you know, some something else, some other quality or some other entity that might be the kind of
support that you have. You can also look to relationships in your life so the people that you trust, the people that you really know and feel have your back, who care about you, who want to see you do well. This might be family and friends. It might be colleagues. It could be a mentor. It could even be your neighbor. Sometimes we have really beautiful relationships with our neighbors, right? And I will say you can even include pets and your animal
friends too. You can have relationships with pets that really enhance your life, that let you feel more supported. It might be nature in general. Maybe for you when you are at the ocean, or when you are in a forest, or when you are simply in a garden. Maybe you feel a kind of support from the natural world, a sense of feeling connected, a part of something more than just you as an individual. So practice noticing all of the ways that you currently right now are supported.
Notice what that is and practice asking for even more support. This is something I often help my clients with because they're so self reliant and sometimes they've just had to be for a long time. And so the idea of asking for support feels really uncomfortable. Or there's sometimes there's a fear of if I ask for something, will that make me vulnerable in a bad way, will it make me appear greedy or ungrateful in a bad way?
And I really want to normalize. If it feels uncomfortable, that's OK. It probably just means you haven't had a lot of practice, and you probably have had a life experience where you were not encouraged to ask for more support, or where you simply observed the grown-ups around you and you might not have trusted them to be able to deliver more support. So for whatever reason, you just
haven't had a lot of practice. And so we want to start opening the possibility, right, to be thinking of what? If it's possible that more support is available if only you ask for it. And maybe it's something that you need to ask for more than once, or you need to ask for in a few different ways, but feeling comfortable, asking for more support rather than feeling guarded or kind of worried about it. So you might be asking for a
specific resource. You might be asking for support and help with a task you might be delegating, you know, to get more support. You might be asking for more time. Can we change this timeline? Sometimes asking for support is more about having someone to listen to you and knowing that they are not going to judge you and they are not going to give you unsolicited advice. And I really like to say, you know, have a therapist, have a
counselor because you want one. Don't wait until you need one, right? Like, don't wait until things are really, really bad. Like, have one because they're awesome, you know? And let yourself enjoy that support. Same with coaching. You know, have a coach because you want one. Don't wait until you feel like you're kind of painted in a corner and everything is so overwhelming and out of control and you're just like, OK, I really need one now.
No, just decide like I want to coach because I want to have more support in my leadership development, in the questions I have as a manager. I want more support and understanding, you know, my own strengths and potentials, better how to work with other kinds of humans and want more perspective on my work and my life and what's next and how that goes together. Like have a coach.
Coaches are great, so have support, practice, asking for it. It's really fun, you know, for me, because what I've noticed is that as my clients get more comfortable asking for things, they get more yeses to their requests, both because they're making requests more frequently and so they are able to get more yeses because they make more requests. But they also become more skillful at it. It's a communication skill.
Being able to ask for something, being able to request support and to receive it. Those are all skills, so you can get better at them as you go. And when you do it, think about it early and often is how you'll get better at it faster. If you wait until things are really at a breaking point, that's a really hard time to start practicing the skill of
asking for support. That's usually more when we get really impatient and we lash out and we think, you know, can't you tell I'm totally underwater here? Rather than waiting for things to get that heavy and that difficult, think earlier and more frequently about what is the support you might want, what might be available, how might you be able to ask for it And room know. Be as generous in asking for and receiving support as you are generous in your willingness to give it.
So that is what I wanted to share with you today. I hope that whatever your day and your week is like that you feel supported. That you feel connected to people and forces that really want for your well-being, that want to see you do well. And realizing for yourself that when there's a lot that is on you, when you are supporting a lot of others, you will do that better. When you include yourself, yourself care and you're having support as a human. So that is what I wanted to
share with you. Thank you so much for listening and if you want to work with me to go deeper on this, if you want to enjoy your work more, your life more, if you are looking to grow and develop your skills and perspective as a leader and a manager, then come work with me. You can work with me one-on-one or I have a group program coming up in February. So you will find information about both of those on my website, kimnickel.com or go
into the show notes. Get on the wait list for the group program or go to my website and you'll be able to book a consultation so we can talk more about what's going on and how I can help you. Thanks so much for listening. I will talk to you next time. When you're more effective at work, you're happier in your life. And when you're happier in your life, you're more effective at work. I can help. Go to my website, kimnickel.com and sign up for a coaching consult. It can get better.