Welcome to the new manager podcast.
I'm your host, Kim nickel. Hello and welcome.
I'm glad you're here. And I hope you're doing well.
I was talking with a friend, the other day.
We hadn't been in touch. In gosh, maybe a year or two.
So there was a lot to catch up on and he was telling me that
he's started a new business. It's going really well, and he's
afraid that it's going to be so successful.
For that, he will become trapped in it.
And I thought this was such a great topic and such a great
reminder to bring here to the podcast because this fear of
success, the thought, oh, no, things are going great.
What do I do? Comes up a lot.
I see it. When a client gets a new job or
gets a promotion and first, it's the excitement.
Yes. I got this new job.
I got Got this promotion and then the feeling of oh, no the
anxiety Creeps in. It also comes up when you apply
for something that you want. And then you get it.
Maybe it's a grad school. You apply to a bunch of
programs. You get into your favorite top
programs. Oh, no, what do I do or you
apply to speak at a conference? And your proposal is accepted?
And then you start to freak out. Oh, no!
Things are going great. What do I do?
Now? I'm going to have to show up and
deliver on this. So This overall Dynamic.
I wanted to break down and hopefully bring some
understanding to why is this happening?
Because you might be thinking, I got what I wanted.
So why do I feel this way? And what we're really saying
here is, I thought it would feel It I thought that when I got
that promotion, I would feel different.
When I got the new job. I would feel different or I got
approval for this request. I thought that it would feel
different. I wasn't expecting to feel this
way. And the reason why we do is
because even when something good happens, it's still something
new. There's still a thought of I've
never done this before. And that sense of the unknown,
or the uncertainty can spark anxiety.
When you're doing something new, or when you're doing something
that you're really excited about.
You can also have this feeling from, you know, what?
If I mess up the fear of failure, flares up, you might
think, am I up? To the task.
Sometimes we feel totally confident on the way there, and
then when we get there, all the insecurities bubbles up, am I up
to the task now that I've successfully gained this
position or this role? That's when the Imposter
syndrome can flare up. Oh, I really fooled them.
I made them all believe that. I was competent and capable and
could totally handle this. And now that I'm here, I'm
freaking out a little bit. Bit because what if I was wrong?
And now I feel all this pressure and I'm realizing that this is
new and I start to feel scared. It also comes up when you start
to become very successful because it can bring along this
thought that being successful means giving up something I care
about. So with my friend, for example,
who was at the brink of this new business, and this new success
and his Fear that it's going to trap him and it's going to take
all of his time. He won't have as much freedom to
do other kinds of things. I see this to, with some of my
clients, the fear of. Well, if I get promoted, or if I
take a higher level role, that will mean more work and I'm
already working a lot, as it is. I don't know that I want to do
all that work because it will mean giving up.
My free time, it will mean giving up the friendships that I
have with my colleagues at work. If now, I become their manager
or it will mean giving up time with my family or time with my
friends. There's a feeling of anxiety or
fear that flares up. When we think being successful
means. I'll have to give up something I
care about. And if you are like a
first-generation immigrant, Door have an immigrant experience as
part of your life experience. Sometimes the way that shows up
is this fear, or this like this feeling of guilt, this feeling
of, you know, my parents have it had it so much harder, and they
work so hard. And now I'm doing better.
And I'm making good, you know, quote unquote, good money and a
feeling of guilt. Like I'm having this nice
comfortable life. My parents had to work so hard
and had to sacrifice so much. And there can be this really
interesting. Guilt kind of feeling almost
like a survivor's guilt, like you survived.
This really difficult situation. And so you've been able to live
a life that maybe wasn't available to people that you
love. like to your family to your parents, so there can be a
feeling of guilt, even when things go well, and sometimes
that fear of doing well or that, you know, unexpected sense of
oh, no, things are going great when we think about family or
the community that we came from, it can feel like when you
succeed it can feel like you are distancing yourself from your
family from your roots from your The it might feel like
disloyalty. Am I abandoning them?
Am I leaving them? Because I am growing in a new
way and in a way that they didn't, so I just want to share
all of this because it makes a lot of sense when we slow down
and really investigate. Where are these feelings coming
from the feeling of anxiety, or worry, or guilt or fear or the
Security that flares up when you step into a new stage of your
life and your career, and things are actually going great.
All of that is normal. So be gentle with yourself.
Don't judge yourself too harshly for that to really normal thing.
So, the solution to this is twofold, one is you want to
recognize that you're going to need an identity update.
You want to update your internal.
And so who you are, we can over identify with the stage of life
and career that you're in or over identify with a particular
problem or the the difficult characteristic that you're
facing. So for example, at the beginning
of your career, you're a beginner and when you over
identify with being a beginner, you say, yes to everything.
You diminish, your own knowledge and perspective because you
think I'm just a beginner. So I have to say yes to
everything. I'm just a beginner.
So other people know more than I do.
You bring a lot of uncertainty and insecurity into how you
think of yourself. Well, 10 years later.
You're not a beginner anymore. Even if you have changed careers
or have made a big pivot in your Channel path, you're not a
beginner at life at being a human at being a professional
adult person in the world. You do have perspective and
worldview and knowledge. That is valuable.
Even if you are new to a company or new to an industry, you're
not the same kind of beginner that you were, you know, 10
years ago. And that means that you might be
saying, yes to everything and Overwhelming and overburdening
yourself. When you don't need to, you
might be at the stage where it's time to start saying no to
things and letting go of things and realizing you don't have to
say yes to everything. So you've over identified with
your stage in your life and career and you forgotten to
update that. So that's what we work on.
The other thing that can happen is we over identify with the
problem or the problematic circumstance that Facing with
and for a lot of us early in our career.
It's around money, you know, first career may not make a lot
of money but no problem. You're Scrappy, you're
resourceful. You work hard.
You can figure it out and all of those qualities are great.
But when you don't update your internal sense of identity, then
you live with more money as though you had very A little of
it. And so, what that means is, we
can either go into hoarding or we can go into continuous fear.
Like it'll all go away or it's not enough.
And you don't learn this skill of thinking strategically in
weighs about money that you you couldn't before because you
didn't have to. And when we're in the work
context, this becomes really important because you can over
index on being Rappy. And that can turn into taking on
too much both for yourself and for your team because it never
occurs to you. That you could ask for
additional resources, whether that's budget or head count or
time. You're not used to asking for
things because you're so identified with there isn't
enough and I can't ask for things.
So I'll just make do So, what we want to do is we want to
decouple these great qualities of being Scrappy and resourceful
and capable, but we want to bring that to this new awareness
of your you're not solving for the same problem anymore.
And I think what happens with a lot of us is that we become so
good at adapting to the challenging circumstances that
way face, especially Early in life and early in our career
that it becomes second nature and we approach everything with
that same problem, solving skill set.
Even when the problems are the challenges change.
So that is one of the things that you want to pay attention
to. As are you over identifying with
a problem set. Are you over identifying with a
stage? And is it time to update your
internal? It's and perspective because
that will shift how you think about things.
And then instead of feeling the anxiety and the worry and the
guilt and the insecurity. You can Orient yourself more
accurately to where you are. So if we take a step back and
look at the collection of emotions that come up around.
Oh no, things are going great. What do I do?
Anxiety? Worry guilt.
Fear insecurity, we can kind of sum all of that up as feeling
unsafe. I feel unsafe, even though
things are going great because my mind keeps thinking about how
things could go wrong, how I could mess up, how I could be a
disappointment, how? Maybe I'm actually not, you
know. Cut out for this.
Maybe they were right. Whoever they are.
The people that give you these thoughts inside your head.
So the core of it is this sense of unsafety.
And so, what we want to do then is to create a feeling of safety
inside yourself. We want to create this awareness
that it is safe to be successful.
We want to explore. Why is it so Eve for you to be
successful and it helps a lot when we slow down and really
articulate. What is the underlying thought
and the underlying worry and fear because that's what is
creating, that sense of unease. And that feeling of unsafety.
We really want to get some clarity around that whether it's
the feeling that I feel like I will lose connection to my
family. If I am successful because they
have not been, they have struggled or they have been
successful but it took so much work and they worked so hard for
so long just to get you know, to a level that I've already
surpassed and I feel like I don't fit in with them.
They won't really understand me and I feel like I'm somehow
being disloyal. How can we honor that
perspective? And then question it and find
how is it true that you are safe?
And you are still a part of this family.
You are still connected deeply to your roots for me.
You know, when I did my big career change my big here,
career shift like 10 years ago. I really had to face that and on
one level it seemed kind of silly, right?
Like I was thinking about my ancestors and how hard they
worked and how hard their lives were.
Were and it really changed when I realized if I think about my
ancestors and actually have both sides.
So my ancestors in the Philippines and also my
ancestors in the Midwest and all of the harsh conditions that
they've dealt with as farmers. And this sense of the, for me,
it was this kind of guilt of I have this kind of cushy
corporate job and I, my kind of being wasteful and throwing it
all. Way by taking a very different
career pivot and that was so heavy on me.
It felt so heavy and it felt it felt so like anxiety and guilty,
and shaming and self judging like the ancestors in.
Both. My family lines are hard working
people and they worked hard and had difficult lives.
And who am I now to kind of throw away this cushy life.
That you know, that they think that they couldn't have like
they worked so hard to give me this and I'm going to throw it
away. That's how I was thinking about
it and even talking to you about it.
Now, I can feel the emotion. I can feel myself start to
shrink and I can even feel, you know, that little tingling
feeling and in that in my eyes, as I think about that and what
really changed things for me. Was one.
I really sat with that question. And I kind of felt into it and I
thought about it and I thought, you know what?
I think, if my ancestors if all of my ancestors, have the
ability to watch me here in this job that I don't want anymore.
They are watching me in a career that I don't want anymore.
I don't think they're cheering for me to stay like I think the
role of every Elder is to look upon the incoming generation
with so much love and so much encouragement.
And to cheer you on to really believe that, like, we are at
your back. We are cheering for you.
We didn't work so hard so that you could like throw your life
away into a career that doesn't fit anymore.
It That one time it doesn't anymore.
We didn't work so hard so that you would kind of sit in misery
and cultivate resentment and regret like, that is not what
it's about. And so when I was able to see
things from a different perspective and really feel like
I'm not defying my past. I'm not disregarding or
disrespecting my family line. I'm actually doing what they
did, which was Make courageous choices from Love from
determination because we are like, hard-working people and
that can be true even in a contemporary and modern, you
know, living situation. And it's such an incredible
feeling that feeling of relief that feeling where it's not a
burden. But instead it's this, beautiful
stable, Rich ground that you are springing up.
From. So when you create a sense of
safety inside yourself, when you start to understand, why do I
feel afraid that things are going?
Well. Am I afraid, it'll all go away.
Am I afraid that they can't last?
Am I afraid that I'll be cast out?
Like am I afraid that I'll mess up in a way that you know, will
not be recoverable? And I know my identity.
She is one who is, who is one who doesn't make mistakes?
And so I'm afraid of making a mistake.
Like we want to really understand kind of what are the
layers to the the unease fulness and one additional thought it
doesn't happen. You know, it doesn't have to be
about your ancestors and this kind of Deep thing.
It might be, but it also can be something as simple as I'm.
So used to feeling in Hustle mode and anxiety that I never
practiced. Feeling content like it can be
that simple. It's kind of like you have this
emotional momentum. And when you drive your
achievement with anxiety, Then when you get achievement, you
still have the anxiety. Like it doesn't magically go
away because you got that thing you had been going after.
You have to intentionally and purposefully practice feeling
content. 10th feeling safe, feeling proud, feeling really
satisfied, feeling excited for what's next.
You have to practice that. At least, as much as you
practice the anxiety, the insecure, the worry the guilt
and the fear. It's kind of like, you know, if
you think about training your body, you can't just train the
front muscles of your body. You have to train the back ones
to, you know, the extensors and the hamstrings.
And the glutes, like you can't just train your quads.
You have to also train your calves.
That's how we create a sense of balance.
Otherwise, the strongest muscle will always want to do the work
and we'll pull you into using it and it works, really?
Similarly with emotions, the emotions you practice the most,
the thoughts, you practice the most.
Those are the ones who are most available and ready, and you'll
tend to use them more. So, it might simply be a
question of balance and what are you?
Practicing? And what is it time to kind of
cross train and practice you up? And so, that is what I wanted to
share with you today. If things are going great.
And you're thinking, oh no, what now things are going great.
You are in good company. That is normal.
If you are not there yet. I can almost assure you that
that will happen because you are a human and humans.
Uncomfortable around change, we fall into patterns.
We have all kinds of, you know, layers of feelings, and beliefs,
and emotions that are active under the surface, that we don't
always realize. So I wanted to share this with
you. I know you are going to do great
things with it, and thank you so much for listening.
I'll see you next time. Bye.
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. Kim nickel.com and sign up for a
coaching consult. It can get better.