Why Your Strategy Isn’t Working

Welcome to Your Worthy Career, a podcast with me, Melissa Lawrence. I’m a career and life coach with all the corporate credit and talent development and organizational psychology. I help women like you get extraordinary results by being more you, not less. I won’t just help you have a career experience worthy of you, but I will help you build your self-worth to shift what you think is possible and take the action that will create the career you’ve always wanted, whether it’s more meaningful work you’re passionate about, making more money, getting to your next level, or being more effective as a leader. We are shattering the glass ceiling here, the one that exists for women at work and the one we put on ourselves with our doubt and inner critic. Each week, you will get practical teachings grounded in neuroscience and effective career development strategies. You’ll experience deep mindset shifts and the perfect amount of woo. So you can run your career with ease rather than your career running you. You were born for more, and I’m going to help you get there with maybe a few dance parties along the way. Your up-level begins now. 

Hello and welcome to this week’s episode of Your Worthy Career. I have been busy lately gearing up for the kickoff of Beyond the Ceiling. We have amazing women in pharma and biotech from Maryland, in California, Massachusetts, and Florida all over the place in this round. I cannot wait to get started and to see everything that they achieve over the next few months we have together. We are changing the industry and I get so emotional sometimes just thinking about the results that my clients get and just the ripple effect of them no longer doubting themselves, seeing their value, making more money, having more time with their families, healing family, generational issues just from the work they’re doing on themselves. It is so life-changing. And you get a taste of that on this podcast too, so you are included in this bucket. I’ve had so many people reach out and tell me just listening here gets them results. It’s so good. So today we’re going to talk about something that is really going to open up your eyes a bit and relieve some stress when you think that you’re doing all the right things and it’s just not working. But I want to warn you, you might not like what I have to say on this.

So before we dig in, I want you to approach this with an open mind. In my episode on receiving feedback, I talk about being curious. And when you’re offered feedback, one of the steps that I suggest is that you ask, how could this be true? Not to the person giving you the feedback, but to yourself just to let your brain explore any truth or any nuggets that might come from that feedback that you might want to address. It really opens up your brain. Because when we hear something we don’t like, it’s natural to be defensive, to be resistant, or just discard the information altogether. You can 100% discard what I’m going to say today, but that would waste your time here, right? What would be the point? Instead, when I share with you what I’m going to share with you, I want you to ask yourself, how could this be true? Here is why. Because if you are doing all of the right things and applying the best strategies and it just isn’t working, then what do you have to lose by hearing this perspective? This is likely what it is that you’re missing out on that’s going to help you get to that next level.

This is really a gift. All right, lots of heads up with this. Let’s just go ahead and dive in. Now, let’s say that you’re trying to find a new job. You’re scrolling on LinkedIn and Indeed, you’re putting in your applications, reviewing your resume, and tailoring it. You’re trying to get referrals and that you’re an exceptional performer with a great track record. But no bites, no traction on your job search. I’m going to share with you why. Now, let’s say also that maybe you’re trying to get promoted or you’ve had great performance reviews and you’ve asked your boss for that promotion to get to that next level, but it’s not really going anywhere. This applies to that as well. Or let’s say you have some really challenging colleagues who just don’t listen to you. You know what you’re talking about, right? You’ve done this before. You’ve had the experience. You’re trying to actually help them, but they just aren’t listening to you. You tried sharing all sorts of ways, but you’re just feeling dismissed. This applies there too. Now, when you’re trying to apply the best career strategies out there and you find that they just aren’t working, it’s likely because your thoughts and beliefs about yourself are rooted in doubt and insecurity.

I’m going to say that again. When you’re trying to apply the best career strategies when you think you’re doing all the right things and it’s just not working, it’s likely because your thoughts and beliefs about yourself are rooted in doubt and insecurity. Now, hear me out. This is something I learned a while back and it really changed things for me big time. Imagine that you’re a flower trying to grow your career, and the strategy that you’re using to help grow is water. You’re watering your flower. You can water your flower with the best strategy out there. But if your roots, the roots of your flower, what’s in the ground, what people don’t see, or could even be a blind spot that you have yourself, is doubt in yourself or your belonging, fear of making a mistake, analysis paralysis, overthinking, needing validation from others, and so on, then you can pour the best strategy water on your flower, but it isn’t going to grow as much as it could. Imagine then that you water your flower and the root, that foundation underneath, your inner thoughts and beliefs are confidence, conviction in your value, trust in yourself to handle anything and figure it out.

Then when you pour that strategy on, you’re going to grow stronger and more quickly. Sometimes the problem isn’t that you’re doing all the wrong things. Sometimes it’s that you are trying to mask your self-doubt or you have blind spots that are making your strategy ineffective. When I work with my clients, they get such amazing results because we have solid and innovative strategies that work specifically for women in pharma biotech, but we also clear up those roots. We make them strong. My strategy will get you results, but it won’t get the same results as when we do that roots work too. This is where you see my clients creating their own job descriptions, getting 50K sign-on bonuses, getting into their dream jobs, working less hours with higher pay. All of this is because they are approaching their career with a proven strategy that works for women in the industry with the work on cleaning up their foundation. It just changes everything and you never go back. It’s solving for the root cause. Ha-ha, that was a little bit of a pun. Rather than just the symptom. I’m sure you’ve been on a Kappa before where the Kappa was a Band-Aid and you thought the real solution could have been different and addressed the problem now and in the future?

That is what we do when you coach with me. This is what a good coach can get you. I was talking to someone recently and she was saying that she didn’t get a job that she applied for internally. The manager agreed to have a meeting with her and give her feedback at her request. That was a good approach. She did the right thing. She didn’t just settle with the rejection, she asked for a meeting. But because she felt she wasn’t being valued and she had some blind spots as we all do, she didn’t use that meeting the best she could. She spent the time getting defensive and frustrated that they didn’t see her value, and then drew a conclusion that the job was just lip service and not real growth and that the company doesn’t value development. I’ve had this conversation before. It sucks. It feels really awful. Here’s how what I’m saying applies to that. She did the right things. She wanted a new job for development and applied. She interviewed with her best foot forward. When she didn’t get the job, she asked for feedback, all good things. But because there is a likely source of needing to be validated and feel valued by others, which is often rooted in self-doubt and security and likely stemming from something a long time ago, she wasn’t able to show up to that call with CEO energy.

She was asking and responding instead of being curious and taking ownership. She wasn’t able to do that because she didn’t feel safe to. She didn’t feel valued. Her brain was trying to protect her. So when this is cleaned up and she sees the value she offers no matter what and doesn’t need that external validation, then she can approach a call like that differently. She would ask different questions and she would get out of it the insight she needed to get the job next time. It’s subtle and it’s hard because our brains don’t present this way. This is why having an external person to observe your thinking and strategy is so helpful. I can see things that you can’t because I’m not in your brain. Just like some of my clients will tell me that it’s so easy for them to give advice to other people, to know how to solve problems, or what they should do with their career, but they don’t know what to do for themselves, and it’s so frustrating. They’ll ask me, Why is it so easy for me to guide others, but I can’t guide myself? This is why. It’s the foundation.

It’s the roots. There is something deep, seated there that is making your judgment cloudy. Our brains are miraculous, but they can’t always be trusted. It’s why so many of us sit around asking ourselves why we can’t just do what we know we need to do, or why things aren’t working when we’re doing all of the things. There’s something deeper there. So clean up the roots and you will get more results with your strategy. I hope this gave you a whole new perspective to consider. And if you have been hitting a brick wall and doing all of the things, ask yourself is this why? Could this be contributing? And if you want to take the next step to see what it would look like to clean that up so you can really have the career that you want and see what you’re really capable of, reach out to me. Let’s have a conversation about coaching. All right, have an amazing week. 

The episode is over, but your next level is just beginning. If you’re ready to have the career that you really want, I invite you to schedule a coaching consultation to work with me, where you will identify a career path to your next step, build your confidence to tackle any career challenge, make more money and work and stress less with my proven process. Head over to www.yourworthycareer.com to get started.