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What if the problem isn’t your job, but the version of yourself you had to become to succeed in it? Corporate jobs don’t trap us because they’re evil. They trap us because they slowly teach us to disconnect from ourselves. If you're in corporate America and your life looks successful on paper but feels empty in practice, you’re not alone.
This podcast is a space for the quiet questions you don’t say out loud at work. We explore the inner side of change: the fear of starting over, self-sabotage, the trap of external expectations, imposter syndrome, and the unsettling moment when you realize someone else’s definition of success isn't enough for you.
This isn’t about quitting your job overnight or chasing money, but asking what feels right for you and finding clarity before making your next move. We deliver actionable strategies for complex career transitions. From managing ADHD-related overwhelm at work to overcoming the disconnect of the corporate grind.
You’re not broken. You’ve just outgrown the life you built.
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Hello and welcome back to— oh, sorry. Welcome
back to Working Towards Our Purpose. This is episode
87, and in today's episode, we are going to
talk about how to stop ignoring your needs. And
giving yourself the permission. So before we get into
today's episode, let's just take a moment and check in with ourselves,
slow down, and see how we're feeling.
Alrighty, hopefully you got a second to do that. And
for me, episode back. I
suffered from the flu last week, so I was unable to
record an episode. So we skipped a week and
a little bit of the brain fog, I guess, is still here as per the
intro. But yeah, I was super sick
and was down bedridden for probably like 5 days.
And I was trying hard to get a podcast recorded, but I just was not
able to do it. And I haven't been sick like that for a really
long time. So it was an interesting experience
and gets you to think, you know, every time
you're like stuck and you can't do anything, at least for me,
it always brings up like these questions about your life and
like, you know, are you doing the things that you want to be doing?
You know, when you finally get better, you have like this almost, well, at least
this time I had this renewed lease on life and I was like, wow, I'm
so grateful to be healthy.
So yeah, kind of led to this episode today about kind of
checking in with yourself and seeing if you're ignoring
some needs maybe, or not giving yourself the permission to do something
that you want to do. And yeah, just how
you're spending your time. So So
yeah, for me personally, I guess, I
was thinking about what I'm doing for work and what I
want to be doing ideally and just some
questions and some thoughts of some new paths.
I have this interest now in live sound and doing
more musical things, even if they're not my own music or creating music or
being creative. So yeah, that's something that
I'm thinking about. And then one thing that like really
came up was I just realized that like I
always have this want to play drums and I never really
do. And I have this desire to like sit down and play drums and
want to get good at them. And, you know, I know how to drum and
I've drummed before, but I don't really consider myself a drummer. And
I would love to like sit down and I could just like play
for a year and like learn techniques and like get really good at it.
And I asked myself like, well, why are you not doing that? Like if you
have that desire, maybe you should do something about it.
And you know, the course of the past 5 years have been sort of an
evolution of me doing that, like making choice after choice after
choice to try to get more closer to like an authentic life that
I want to live. But yeah, but that's one thing that's left behind. It's like,
well, why don't I play drums more?. So that's also something I'll be pursuing a
little bit more because it's something that's fun to me. It's this fun
thing. I think about it and I'm like, oh, that'd be fun. I want to
do it, but I don't really let myself do
it. So yeah, that brings me to this story that's kind of
related, but I thought it would be helpful to
share. So I've been watching hockey ever since the
last Stanley Cup Finals and been really getting into it
and I chose a team. My favorite team is the Minnesota Wild.
And they had some traded players recently. And I was
watching the game the other day, the last game they played. And they just acquired
this new player, Bobby Brink, who is this kid who grew up in Minnesota, like
watching the Minnesota Wild. And now he's on this team that
he dreamed of as a kid. And in the first home game that he
played, he scored a goal. And It's just this really cool kind
of moment. I've never really been into sports, so kind of new to
the whole team sport thing. But they interviewed him
afterwards and the announcer was asking some really good questions, or
the interviewer. And he was like, what would you tell, like, what's
one piece of advice you would tell to some
Minnesota girls and boys and people who want to play hockey?
What's like a piece of advice that you would give to them? And his advice
was like, go have fun, like play hockey with your friends, have fun. Like
that's where you'll learn and you'll learn how to like play hockey better. You'll
want to play better because it's fun and it's something you're enjoying. So like
keep it fun was his piece of advice.
And yeah, I thought that that was like really important because I think that that's
like such a crucial ingredient into what we do is
like having it be fun because when something's fun, you
just, like, you want to dive into it more. You want to learn it. Like,
it's how I was able to learn anything musical because I
just had this, like, desire to do it. Which brings me back
to the idea of playing drums again.
So, so yeah, two questions kind of came, getting a little bit back
on track. Two questions came from, from this flu that I
had that can maybe help you identify if there's like some sort of
need or desire or want that you have that maybe you're
ignoring. And it could be, you know, small, small little thing like me wanting to
play drums, or it could be like a major career change and like
something you've been desiring maybe your whole life. But so the first
one is, is there something that feels fun but feels like
you can't do it? And that for me was like
kind of almost the drums. Like I, make excuses like, oh, I live in an
apartment, I can't do it. But you know, there's ways around
that. So is there something that's like, that you know you like doing, but
you just give yourself the excuse like, oh, maybe I'm too old
or I live in the wrong place or whatever. Is there
something that feels fun that you don't
do? So that's the first question. And then the second question
is sort of a bigger one, I guess. And it's
just more of an overarching, like, is your life working for you?
And that's kind of the question that came to me, like, as
I was just like having all this time to think
sick, was like, is my life working for me?
And that sounds like a dramatic question, I guess. And it is, but
it also doesn't have to be. Like, I
think There's— I think there's
always a romanticized version of, like I
was talking about the hockey player Brink, getting
to the destination of playing for the Minnesota Wild. But
your life's not really a destination.
That's almost kind of romanticized because it looks like he started somewhere and then
got somewhere. But I think we, over the course of our life, constantly have
to evolve and check in with ourselves to see if our life is going in
the direction that we want. And even with him, you don't play in
the NHL forever. So when he starts getting older
towards retirement, he has to re-ask himself, what do I do
now? And what do I want to do now? So I think that constantly
asking yourself, is your life working for you? It's a good
question. Um, so, you know, that could be like in your career, like a big
thing, like, is your job working for you? Do you need to get a new
job? Do you need to switch careers? Do you want to go do something
else? Um, maybe a hobby, like, do you have hobbies that give
you fulfillment and, uh, fun and
enjoyment? Um, maybe like a business. Is your business working for you?
Or your friends, even the people that you surround yourself with, your
community. Is that working for you? Are you
getting kind of what you want out of it? So yeah,
just these two kind of questions of trying to see
if you're kind of hindering yourself from something.
And I think kind of
the, I don't want to say answer,
but I guess for lack of a better term, if there is
something that, that like you're wanting to do and you're not doing
it, well, like, why aren't you doing it? You know, maybe, maybe there's a good
reason, but at least for me, I know that a lot of times it's
just been me not like really giving myself the permission to do
it and not letting myself do it because I'll make
an excuse or I'll say, you know, this reason's valid, so I
can't do it. And sometimes there is a valid reason to not do something that
you want to do. But I think more often than
not, it's an excuse that we tell ourselves we can't do
it. And perhaps that comes from outside influence,
like, you know, my boss wouldn't want me to do this, or my partner,
or my parents, or society. And I
think that's been the case for me, like for a lot of the choices that
I've made. Thinking about when I was leaving my corporate job, I would
think like, oh, I can't do that. What are my coworkers going to think? I
don't have everything figured out. What are they going to— what are my parents going
to think? And at the end of the
day, in order to actually make that change and to do something, you have to
give yourself the permission. And I think that that
is kind of the conclusion that I've
come to with thinking about these
pivots in life and these little adjustments and
readjustments. And yeah, if there's something that you wanted to
go and work towards and chase after, you have to be
the one to decide to do it and to give yourself the permission to do
it. Because one thing that came up
recently in conversation with I can't remember who, um,
was that like somebody said something to me, it was like, as an
adult, that's the cool part of being an adult, you get to make the choices,
you know? And I think at least, at least me, I sometimes take that for
granted. Like I sometimes forget that
like you really have agency over your life and you
can choose to do what you want to do. And I think we touched on
that in the last episode a little bit. Um, but yeah, that's, that's kind of
the cool part of being an adult. You don't have to listen
to, you know, an older figure. And
yeah, you get to do the thing that like, that you're
desiring and that you need.
So, yeah, to conclude this episode, I
think maybe this question I could leave you with is that,
is there something that you've been wanting to do
and and you're not doing it, and how can you do that? And how can
you give
yourself some space? How can you create some space to do that
thing? Whether it's 5 minutes a day or 1 day a week or something on
the weekend, a couple hours, how can you give yourself the space to do that
thing that you've been desiring, even if it doesn't make any sense, even if
it seems like just a whim or whatever? If you've been thinking
about it long enough, I think that's the thing that, you know, what I'm trying
to articulate is like, if you've been thinking about something long enough and you've
been like fantasizing it and like thinking about it, like you might as well
try it because you're just going to be resentful if you
don't. And whether that resentment comes out in yourself or on somebody
else, it's not worth it. Like just try the thing that you've been thinking about
and that you want to do. And, you back to my small
silly example, like playing drums, it's like I've been thinking about that for a while
since I've sold my drum kit, which was
probably like 8 years ago at this point. And it's like I've been thinking about
doing that. So just stop wasting the energy thinking about it and put
that energy into doing it, you know, and put your energy into figuring out how
you can do it. So yeah,
that's my
conclusion or point that I think that I wanna make this
week. Yeah. So, so ask yourself those things
and thanks for bearing with me this episode. I feel like I'm a little bit
still brain fogged, but maybe just in my head or a
little rusty. But hopefully this episode was helpful and hopefully
it caused you to ask yourself some questions. If you enjoyed the episode
and you have a friend who you think it might be helpful for, please share
it. It's really helpful for me. And if you have a hard time
with your inner critic, as always, I have a free guide to help you soften
your inner critic in the link of every— in the show notes of
every podcast. And yeah, that's all I got for you
this week. Hopefully you're having a good week so far, and
I will see you on another episode real soon. Take care.