78 The Myth of the Perfect Job

Welcome to the Great Leader, Great Mom Podcast, where we trade in mom guilt and burnout for calm, courage, and a whole lot more joy. I'm your host, Liz Jolly, engineer, turned life coach, mom of three, and founder of the School of Courage. Here we talk about leading. at work and at home without losing your sanity, your sense of humor, or yourself. Because being both a great leader and a great mom, it's not about doing it right. It's about being courageous. And if you're ready to drop the guilt and grow your courage, You're in the right place. Welcome. This is episode 78, The Myth of the Perfect Job. Maybe you've said this before. If my boss were different, I'd love my job You know the story. Your manager doesn't appreciate you, doesn't communicate clearly, doesn't seem to notice how hard you're working. Are you with me? You tell yourself, I'm doing everything right, but they make this miserable. I wish I had my old boss. Or I wish I had that other boss over there. I can't believe this one is in the role So you start to believe the problem is them. You pull back a little from how you show up at work. You stop offering new ideas. You start showing up halfway, quietly thinking, why should I give a hundred percent when it just doesn't matter anyway? But here's the thing, your boss isn't the reason you're unhappy at work. The real problem is that you've handed over all your emotional power to how someone else behaves. You've made their approval the gatekeeper of your value. And that is the myth Believing that if your boss just managed better, communicated better, or led more effectively, you would be recognized more. You'd finally feel good in your job. But when you make your boss responsible for how you feel, you step into the role of the victim. When I realize this in my own life, It stopped me in my tracks. I did not want to be the victim. So I wanted to learn as quick as possible how to shift out of the victim role and become the creator of my life, my story going forward. My value. When we become a victim in anything in our life, we stop showing up as us, the capable, creative, powerful version of us that can bring value anywhere, under any leader in any role. And that's the truth. It's not about finding the right boss or going back to your old boss that you liked better. It's about deciding how you show up as your best self, no matter who's managing you. And when I have a boss or someone around me that challenges me and makes me feel like a victim, I call that my next curriculum in life. How can I learn how to show up in a way that brings value no matter what? Bring on the tough course curriculum. So let's walk through some stories that I've heard from different people I've coached. Because I think we've all had that boss, the one that criticizes everything, the one who takes credit for your work, who never lets you speak in the meetings of the slides you made. the one who forgets to say thank you for working a weekend or for pulling a ten hour day on your day off. One example is you stay up late to finish a project and the next morning your boss points out a typo instead of saying thank you. Your stomach drops, you think, why do I even bother? You quietly decide to not push so hard next time. And you think about, I need a different job. I need a different boss. This isn't working out for me. He doesn't appreciate me. There's another scenario where you present an idea in a meeting and your boss shuts it down in thirty seconds flat without even actually hearing what you said. You walk away thinking, I need a different boss, I need a different job. They don't value me. The last scenario I'll share is you notice other people getting promoted around you They're getting praise. They're getting all the recognition. And your mind spirals and says, I must be invisible. They'll never see what I bring to the table. This isn't working. And before you know it, you're shrinking at work. You're resentful, you're tired, you're disconnected, you're super angry at your boss and you're blaming them. And if you're convinced that if your boss would change, everything would feel better, it's not true. That is a myth It might make it easier to believe that you would feel better, but here's the truth most people never realize. You are not suffering because of your boss. You're miserable because you've stopped showing up as your full valuable self. When you tie your energy, your creativity, and your confidence to someone else's behavior, you hand them control of your experience We need to get to the point where we can be in any job with any boss and we know the value you bring. And sometimes That boss you have isn't gonna directly see your value. They're not gonna like whatever it is you bring. But this is your chance to know who you are and what you want to bring to the table, despite what Your boss thinks. When you tie your energy, creativity, and confidence to someone else's behavior, especially your boss, you've handed them control of how you experience your day, of your value. And we don't want that. Because sometimes people are wrong about us. And that's not us being a courageous leader. That's just showing up at work and surviving. And we're here for so much more Another facet of this myth is if I loved my job, I would feel better about myself. And so many of us believe that our happiness depends on the work we do or the people we work for. We think if I could just find the perfect job, then I'd finally feel valued and fulfilled. But the truth is, no job can give you what you don't already believe about yourself. Cause if we don't love ourselves, we're never gonna love ourselves in any job. When we shift from loving our job to loving ourselves in any job and knowing our value and how we contribute no matter what the job is, that's the moment when we're free. We're no longer a victim Cause when you don't love yourself, you're always searching for the next thing that may help you like yourself more. But it really isn't out there. And yet we find ourselves always trying to find the right job, get to the right weight Find the perfect dress, find the perfect boyfriend, the husband, the house, the car, all the things around us that we're trying to solve for how we feel because we crave feeling better. And that's not the way it works. I feel like in my life now I can literally do any job and add value no matter what and love it and feel so great about myself. Why? Because my job does not determine if I'm happy or feeling valued. Put me in any role and I can figure out all kinds of things. I know I can contribute and I'm confident in my value. And there may be people who won't see it, and that's okay. And I want every single one of you to get to this place where you see the same value in yourself no matter what. So here's questions to ask yourself. To really get to the point where you know your value comes from within you, not other people. On a scale of 0 to 100%, how much of your value are you offering in your current role every single day? And most people will admit that they're operating at like 50%. Why? Because they're waiting for someone else to notice them first, but your value doesn't come from recognition compensation or a title. Your value is who you are and how you show up, regardless of whether anyone sees it. And when you stop waiting for permission to contribute at a hundred percent, everything changes You step into your ownership, your creativity, your confidence, and there is so much freedom. So show for you, not for their approval. Get to 100% value every single day, no matter what The second thing you can do is a bit of reflection on thinking about your relationship with you. Take a moment and look in the mirror and really look in the mirror. What emotions come up when you see yourself? Do you like the person looking back at you? Do you feel proud of her? Or do you start to criticize and feel a lot of shame about what you see? So often we try to earn our self-love through our achievement. And we think once I get the promotion, once I hit the goal, then I'll feel good about myself. Then I can look in the mirror and be super proud. But that's the trap. You can't act your way into worthiness because worthiness was never missing. It's just buried under all the layers of self-judgment. And we are 100% worthy. And the people who really embrace that They know their worthiness and they're in any role adding value. Your relationship with your job mirrors your relationship with you. And if you're critical and harsh and never satisfied with your progress You'll experience the same thing at work, in any job. When you start genuinely to love yourself, to like yourself. your work transforms not because the job changed or your boss changed but because you did. So I had a client and we'll call her Lisa and she was a mid-level manager and she told me once, I hate my job My boss micromanages, my team doesn't respect me, I'm not making an impact. And when I asked her how much of her value she was offering at work, she laughed. Well maybe 40%. Like why should I give more if no one cares So we flip to the question, what if she decided to show up as her best self? Not for the approval, but because that's who she wanted to be in her life. That's who would make herself proud Three months later, the same boss, the same team, same job, completely different experience. Because she stopped waiting for validation and started showing up as the person she wanted to be, adding value no matter what That's what real courage looks like in our lives. To find the freedom, let's separate your behavior from their behavior. What if you could be the light in any job? No matter who your boss is, no matter how your peers behave, everyone around you will still be who they are because let's face it, people never change They're gonna act the way they act, they're gonna say the crazy things they say. But the moment we can separate out their behavior from our behavior, we get take our power back. And that is the most courageous step we can do in our lives. You get to decide who you want to be, how you want to show up, and how you define success. And that's how you fall in love, not with a job, but with yourself So here's my courage challenge for you today. Instead of asking, do I love my job? Ask yourself, do I love how I show up in my job? And what value will I bring to this role no matter who's looking? What does good look like for you in the role you're in right now? Because those questions shift everything. You don't need the perfect boss or the perfect company. You need to bring your full amazing self to work. The job doesn't define your worth. You do. If you want to know more and you want to sign up for free coaching with me, go to lizjolly. com booknow. And I'd love to connect with you. May you all have an incredible week, and I'll see you next time. Bye everybody.