Effortless Thursdays #49: The 3 Ds: antidotes to the loneliness of success
Dialogue, Define + Diversify
Have you noticed the more successful you are in your career the more lonely you feel?
Last week in Effortless Thursdays #48 I made a request for you to share:
what makes you feel lonely the more successful you become
what you do to overcome your loneliness
Thank you to those of you who shared your ideas with me.
This week, I want to pick up the thread and share with you my 3 Ds - three antidotes to the loneliness of success. No doubt there are more, and some other antidotes that work really well for you. If so, I’d love to hear from you so I can share your wisdom in a future edition.
Dialogue
At work, we can immerse ourselves in transactional conversations with our colleagues.
What is the deadline?
How do we ensure we don’t drop the ball with all the phases of the projects?
How do we achieve our targets?
They're a functional engagement with another human being, but devoid of what is in our hearts.
When we spend too long in transactional conversations, we feel malnourished. We lack motivation. We are easily bored. We’re even more easily frustrated.
Transactional conversations that get straight to the work leave out room for the serendipity in work.
As David Whyte, the renowned Irish poet known for his reflections on the human experience and natural world, has suggested, we need to have "courageous conversations".
Courageous conversations are ones that are heartfelt (courage comes from the old Norman French word, cœur, meaning heart).
Sometimes it takes courage to be open to what is in your heart and to allow yourself to voice it at work.
If you notice someone looking sad, ask them “You don’t look happy. Is there anything I/we can do?”
If you feel sad, share what you are feeling with your team: “I’m feeling low today, so I might not be able to be fully present.”
Starting a conversation with heart doesn’t require lots of time, but just enough to create a connection so that you are seen for who you are: not just a colleague, but a human being.
One of my friends,
, summed up the value of courageous conversations in a recent Tweet.
What heartfelt conversations are you starting along your path to success?
What light can you bring to yourself, and to those around you?
Define
"She's really successful!"
When we hear about someone's success, we often jump to the conclusion that this kind of success is about their work or their finances.
"She's really successful ... because she's now CEO at Company A"
"She's really successful ... because she's got a multi-millionaire"
It's especially true when we're surrounded by people who are on a career ladder. Being a lawyer - or a consultant or other professional - is similar: you rise through the ranks largely based on your experience and expertise.
When everyone around you is climbing the ladder, it's easy to climb the same ladder as them.
Our natural instinct in our hearts to feel belonging makes it harder for us to go against the grain:
"I wish I had had the courage to pursue my passion for acting"
But what if you’re climbing the wrong ladder for you?
So before you ditch the hard effort you’ve put in and throw your arms up in the air, take a moment to think about this:
"What is success for you?"
Answering this question will help you avoid getting to the end of your career and wondering what you are doing next.
It is possible to avoid the “What’s my purpose?”-crisis.
Janet - a fellow reader of Effortless Thursdays - shared her thoughts last week. Redefining her success allowed her to enrich her world with relationships.
Rather than being another casualty of a lack of purpose or following a path of success that doesn’t align with you, try this “Speak Your Success” exercise to help you define your success. 👇
1. You’re picking up the phone to call me in a year's time and you’ve achieved everything you wanted in work and at home - you’ve been really successful -. What would you say to me?
2. What does it feel like? What do you notice about your body language, about what you feel inside of you, inside of your heart?
Tips
1. Speak to me in the present tense (“I am…”) rather than the future (“I will be …”).
2. Focus on the “what”, not the “how” (you’ll be tempted to work out “how” and all sorts of obstacles will come up. You can do that later).
3. Speak out what you’re feeling, your emotions, your body language.
ps If you want to try this in real life, I invite you to message me. We can set aside 20 minutes to get crystal clear about your future success. I can guarantee it’ll be fun! I’ll reach out to the first five of you who get in touch to set up a call.
Diversify
We can often have a narrow definition of what success is for ourselves. Because we can spend so much time at work, our success can often be tethered to work or financial status.
But just like a financial adviser tells you to diversify your risk, what if you were to diversify your success? It was a wonderful thought shared by one of my fellow coaches, Lauren, in a recent conversation.
If you’re not content with your current definition of success or perhaps haven’t yet had the time or inclination to re-define your success, this approach might be (easier) for you. 👇
Ask yourself:
What are the areas in your life where you can bring diversity of success?
What areas in your life can you bring your strengths?
Lauren shared with me how she goes ice swimming in Stockholm every Saturday at 2 pm. I’ve done cold water swimming in the lakes in Helsinki and then going into a sauna, but I’ve not done “ice swimming” (yet).
So what kind of success does ice swimming offer Lauren?
The ability to create and deepen relationships
Noticing how she applies the same strengths ice swimming as she does at work
How her confidence grows
The deep heartfelt satisfaction of community and a sense of belonging.
Over to you!
How might you use the 3Ds - dialogue, define and diversify - to be successful?
ps If you’re an entrepreneur, a lawyer or another high-flying professional - who might be feeling lonely at the top - and want someone to help you connect your ideas in creative ways so you can build a healthy brain for a career that’s full of success and joy and feels effortless, get in touch and let’s have a conversation.
That’s it for this week!
As always, I appreciate your feedback on Effortless Thursdays.
If Effortless Thursdays resonated with you, I'd be grateful if you told just one friend to subscribe. They and you can always unsubscribe using the link below.
What did you think of this week’s edition? How can I make it more useful to you? Let me know in the comments, by email, on Twitter or on LinkedIn.
To your health and success!
Eric
