The Tough Message You Need to Hear

Ep: 156

Could the things you’re prioritizing in your life actually be keeping you stuck? If after a hard day at work, the first thing you think about is planning a big vacation, focusing on your upcoming home remodel, or buying a new car, then you might be trying to distract yourself from the real problem.

The key to living a more fulfilled life is knowing how to prioritize what you NEED in order to create the change you want. 

Today, Blake shares what it looks like when your priorities are misaligned with your goals. She explains how short-term distractions can keep you from discovering what will actually bring you long-term happiness, and she reveals the most common lies you tell yourself while putting time and energy into the wrong things.

You’ll hear the fundamental elements that might be keeping you from living the life you’ve always wanted. Learn whether or not your current priorities are keeping you stuck, and how you can start making better choices that will move you towards the life you want. Don’t wait until your breakdown moment to invest in a better future.

The only way to get different results is to take different actions.

What You’ll Learn:

  • The fundamental things that help or hinder us from getting what we want in life (0:42)
  • Four examples of priorities that are out of sequence with the life you want (1:44)
  • Knowing your ‘lead domino’; the thing that you need to fix to solve everything else (2:27)
  • A common mistake that career-driven women make when it comes to family (6:19)
  • Why your breakdown moment is never the right time to make a change (7:36)

Favorite Quotes:

  1. One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned in the last five years since leaving corporate America is that how we think about things, understand and process our emotions, and leverage our resources fundamentally are the things that either create what we want in life or keep us from getting it.
  2. If you look closely enough, you’ll likely find there are a lot of things you spent your money, time, or energy on, things that were trying to make you feel better, but ultimately weren’t the real solution to the problem.
  3. Until we’re no longer willing to tolerate what we’ve been doing, we’re going to continue to do it. The only way to get different results is to take different actions.

Start your complimentary, Personalized Career Fulfillment Plan here: https://thebridgetofulfillment.com/plan

Want free resources to set your job search up for success? You can get them here: https://thebridgetofulfillment.com/mistakes/

Transcript

Blake Schofield 0:03 My name is Blake Schofield, founder and CEO of Connections Illuminated, mom to three and former corporate executive who got tired of sacrificing my life for a comfortable paycheck. My mission is to change women’s perspectives about what is possible, empowering them with the tools to create greater impact at home and at work without sacrificing their health time family or income. This is The Bridge to Fulfillment. Is how you are prioritizing or thinking through things in your life actually part of what’s keeping you stuck? In my experience, the answer to that question is a resounding yes. One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned in the last five years since leaving corporate America is that how we think about things, understand and process our emotions, and leverage our resources fundamentally are the things that either create what we want in life, or keep us from getting it. So often, we think we’re being strategic and thoughtful, but we don’t see the blind spots that are the things keeping us trapped in patterns of being unhappy. Today, we’re going to dive a little bit deeper about something that might challenge your perspective. I hope you’ll follow with me and understand that when I share this with you, I share this with you from a place of having been exactly in these circumstances, or worked with so many women that were making these decisions, unconsciously, not even aware that their priorities were out of whack, that their fear was driving their decision making, and that they actually weren’t seeing things logically. They weren’t connecting the dots. They were saying they wanted one thing, but their actions and their priorities, were creating an entirely different outcome. So we’re going to talk about the big question, are your priorities out of whack or perhaps out of sequence with what you need to do to actually create the life you want?

Blake Schofield 1:55 Here are four examples of where I see this happening all the time. Number one, if you are unfulfilled in your career in life today, I want you to stop and ask yourself, what is the impact that’s having on my life? likely you are drained and missing energy at the end of the day, you are experiencing Sunday scaries, you find yourself no longer passionate and energized about the work you do. So you’re not excited to get up and go to work. Your health starts being impacted because you don’t feel good, and you’re not making time for yourself, and your relationships suffer as well. Ultimately, you’re leading a life that isn’t aligned with what you truly want. But instead of prioritizing the number one thing you need to fix, which is your unfulfilling career. And also is what I call your lead domino, the thing that will fix everything else. Instead, you find yourself focusing on planning a new trip, updating or renovating your house or moving into a new one, or maybe looking at a new car, etc. You find yourself focusing on things instead of actually focusing on the thing that will solve your problem. And here’s why fixing your problem is the lead Domino. Because when you are aligned, when you’re happy, then you’ll easily be able to spend your time, money and energy on the things that really matter. You’ll get joy from what really matters to you versus buying things or having experiences to make up for what’s lacking on a day to day basis.

Blake Schofield 3:30 In fact, I would venture to bet that if you look closely enough, you’ll likely find there are a lot of things you spent your money, time or energy on. Things that were trying to make you feel better, but ultimately weren’t the real solution to the problem. I’ll give you an example from my own personal life. You know, when I was in Minneapolis, it became clear to me, the both my husband and I just honestly couldn’t handle the winters anymore. I grew up as a southern girl not grew up in that cold weather. And after a number of years, we both got seasonal affective disorder. If you don’t know what that is, it’s basically depression from lack of vitamin C or D. So we bought what was called a happy light. And if you’ve never lived up North, where it’s cold and wintry for long periods of time, a happy light is basically how you get vitamin D, when there’s not a lot of sun. And like I said, it helps with depression or seasonal effectiveness disorder. And we literally had the happy light at our dinner table almost every single night. At one point I just finally said this is ridiculous. At the time though, what was I focusing on? I was focusing on where could we go on vacation to get away from the winter? What other activities or things could I do to fill up my time instead of focusing my energy on the very thing that would have solved the problem? Right, realigning my career so that we can move somewhere that was a better fit for us.

Blake Schofield 4:54 So often we focus on distractions instead of fixing the very thing that will give us relief or create what we want? So I’d like to challenge you to think about your life. How often have you been happy after buying something big or achieving something big? How long does that actually last? I would tell you, in my experience, likely not very long, you’ll be happy for a brief period of time, and then you’re back in the same circumstances again. So when I talk to women who are really unfulfilled, that lack of fulfillment is impacting all of the areas of their life. And they say, Well, you know, I want to invest in myself, but I need to make sure it’s in my budget. And then they start talking about fixing their house or going on vacation. And the question I always have to ask is, are those things actually going to solve your problem and make you happy? Are you prioritizing the wrong thing? Because guess what, if you’re fulfilled and happy in a career where you’re maximizing your value, then you’ll have more time to enjoy and take a vacation, you’ll actually be relaxed and enjoy that vacation. And when you come home from that vacation, you’ll be coming home to a life you want to live, instead of write this band aid, and then coming back and having all the problems that were still there there. Or being in a place where you’re actually increasing risk, because you’re in a situation that’s a dead end, or you’re heading towards what I call the break down moment.

Blake Schofield 6:18 Here’s a second example. Let’s say you fell out of whack or not, or like you’re not connecting with your kids, your husband in the way that you want. But you end up finding yourself devoting more and more time to work putting in more and more effort there. This is super common. Why do we do that? Because if you’re a career driven woman, you can win at work, you have a history of winning at work. And if you don’t know how to win at home, you start putting effort behind the very thing that you know, you’re going to win at the problem, though, you’re still left with a problem that isn’t being solved. And the more effort you put behind your job without addressing what’s going on at home, the more distance you are creating. So maybe this episode is really about priorities out of whack. But maybe it’s also about the lies, we tell ourselves, the avoidance that we’re using to put our energy and time into the wrong things. Here’s another example. Have you ever thought about quitting your job because you were that unhappy? I ran across this all the time, women who have gotten to a place in their careers that it is so bad that they’ve actually talked to their husbands or family about quitting just to get out to get more time to reduce stress, and then figure out another plan. When you’re at that place, you’re at what I call the breakdown moment. And it’s one of the biggest risks you can have. And here’s why when you reach this point, you are making decisions from a very emotional place. And it may very well end up costing you hundreds of 1000s of dollars over the course of your career. But that’s totally avoidable.

Blake Schofield 7:51 I’ve had so many women come to me at this stage thinking that they only have one option to get out. And yet, within just three to four weeks in my program feel drastically better even in the same environment or circumstances. Allowing them to protect their resources continue to make money and protect what they’ve worked so hard for their reputation, their career, their income, until they can build a bridge to the next thing. And they’re able to do this wall reducing stress, getting more time back in their day, and finally seeing light at the end of the tunnel. Yet, I’ve had women in this exact same situation, say that they need to see if investing in themselves is in their budget. And I’m like, wait, hold up. Wait, you were worried about other priorities like a vacation getting a new car, or renovating a house when you were literally willing to walk away from your entire year’s worth of salary, which clearly would have taken all of those priorities off of the table? Does that even make sense? And here’s what I want you to know, our brain when faced with fear or uncertainty, doesn’t use logic. And if we don’t stop to challenge the things that we’re thinking, we can very likely make very poor decisions. I don’t know if you know this, but the average time it takes to land a new job is 12 months, when you’re either unclear on what the right path is, and or if you work in a higher paying role. So when we’re so desperate, we’re willing to walk away from our career, what we’ve worked so hard for, but we’re not willing to invest our time, energy and money to actually solve that problem. To ensure that we’re protecting everything that we’ve worked so hard for, to ensure that we actually aren’t taking unnecessary risks, then we’re not seeing clearly.

Blake Schofield 9:36 And my fourth and final example, when you say the most important values are your family, your relationships, the memories you create and making a difference. And yet every day you get up and go to a job that doesn’t align a job where you’re working far more than you want a job where you feel like you’re not making the kind of difference you want to make and you’re not surrounded in a positive environment. That’s uplifting that you What to go to on a day to day basis? Right? Are you actually focusing on the things that move you forward to the life that you want? Or are you continuing to invest your time, your energy into a job, that’s actually taking you away from the very things that you prioritize and care most about? A couple of podcasts ago, I shared a quote from Virginia Satir, which is a quote my mentor Nick uses all the time, people prefer the certainty of misery, to the misery of uncertainty. So I’m going to ask you, are you making choices that are keeping you miserable, or you making choices that will move you towards the life you want, and the opportunities for you, even if you aren’t clear on what those are yet? Today was a tough topic in some respects. And I would say, if you’re feeling emotional about what I shared, if you’re feeling triggered by it, I want to challenge you to stop and understand number one, I’m coming at you from a place of compassion, from a place of having experienced exactly what you’re experiencing, but also from a place of honesty, a place of truth and a place of challenge. Until we’re no longer willing to tolerate what we’ve been doing, we’re going to continue to do it. The only way to get different results is to take different action. Until we stop and see that our actions are not aligned with our priorities, and we decide to fix it, nothing will improve. The power of changing your life lies within you. And there is so much more possibility for your life.

Blake Schofield 11:34 One of the biggest things that keeps us stuck is that we’re not sure if what we want is possible, or we don’t know how to get there. If you see yourself stuck in patterns of investing your time, energy and money, as well as your life into things that are creating what you want. It’s time to seek help. The only way to create change is to realize that you need to fix the very thing that’s out of whack in your life. I want to say this. Finally, if this message is speaking directly to you today, it’s not a coincidence. This is your wake up call. If you aren’t sure how to create change in your life, if what you want is even possible, or you don’t know the right next steps, I welcome you to go to our website, www.thebridgetofulfillment.com. And learn more about what we do then sign up for your own complimentary personalized career fulfillment plan, so that you can get clarity and the right next steps for your career in life. And make sure that the things you are prioritizing and the actions you are taking will create the life you want. As always, I greatly appreciate you being part of this community and the opportunity to be here and serve you. I hope that you have a great week ahead. Thanks for joining me today. Rather than hope the grass will be greener identify what the right next step is. We can help you do just that. Get clarity on where you are in your journey to career fulfillment, where you’re headed, optimal paths to get there, and the right next step to take. Start your complimentary personalized career fulfillment plan at www.thebridgetofulfillment.com/plan. Again, you can get your personalized career fulfillment plan at www.thebridgetofulfillment.com/plan. Thanks again for joining and have a great week ahead.