The 4 Career Lessons Most Women Learn Too Late, According to an Executive Coach

The 4 Career Lessons Most Women Learn Too Late, According to an Executive Coach Ah, the hard way.Why do we so often force ourselves to endure the mental and emotional cross-fit that is learning lessons the hard way? You can tell your toddler notlage to jump off the coffee table but only after doing it, crash landing and two scraped knees and a busted lip later will she believe that jumping off the coffee table is a bad idea. You can hear your friends tell you that your love interest is bad news, but only after being subjected to those consequences yourself, do you choose to believe it.Well, the saatkorn goes for your career. Working with extremely successful professional women, some of these same hard-won truths continually surface in sayings like, I just wish I had learned this 10 years ago, or If only someone had told me.So, herbeie you go This is your golden ticket to skip the line for some of the most expensive, heart-wrenchingly challenging life lessons, thanks to the experience s of top-performing senior executives.1. You do not and cannot control what others think or feel.Thank god, am I right? Thank god you dont have to be accountable for how your mom thinks and feels. Or your babo. Or your unstable coworker. You dont have any control of your spouses emotions. Even your kids thoughts are not your responsibility.You want people to behave a certain way and you may even try to persuade them to think one way, but heres the lesson The only thing you can control is how you think. Your thoughts determine your entire experience of every single situation.One of my clients tells the story of having a really hostile boss in her middle management days. This boss had a reputation for corporate backstabbing and political coercion. My client saw examples of this behavior, but felt fortunate that they had maintained a relatively peaceful relationship... until one fateful day when in the presence of the boss leadership team, my clients reporting indicated risk within her project (read her boss was ultimately responsible). Once they were alone, the boss began berating my client. She hammered at every mistake my client had ever made and questioned every decision shed made on her reporting and the work that led up to it.Is it my clients responsibility for her boss feeling angry? No, certainly not. This example is powerful because the boss is so clearly the antagonist. You may even feel some degree of defensiveness for my client.Now, lets consider the alternative What if the boss was kind and supportive? What if my clients analysis was faulty? What if my client had insinuated or outright accused her boss of negligence? Would she be responsible for her boss feelings? No. Regardless of precipitating circumstances, each of us is only ever responsible for our own feelings.2. You should question your own assumptions.The moment you know something with certainty, you become a liability, said my client, a founder and CEO of a telehealth startup.Certainty, of a nything, is built on assumptions and assumptions are risks. Raw data, even when analyzed by experts, is subjected to assumptions and variables. If gravity, ladies and gentlemen, is a theory, then how can we expect that we can divine any absolutes in our own circumstances.In your career and life, look for instances when you say I know and ask yourself What about this do I believe is true? and, Why? This does take extra work but it saves you effort, heartache, money, and time in the long run. Check your assumptions by doing the followingWhen you assume people understand instructions, verify by asking them, Can you please just recap what you heard to make sure I didnt leave anything out?When you assume you know what expectations someone has of you, restate back to them, So what Im hearing is Is that right?When you think you have an interview locked up, ask your interviewer, What remaining questions do you have?When someone mentions a current darbietung you know about, dig in a little, Thats so interesting. I was reading about that too. Tell me more about what you heard.3. Plan strategically, then be invested in the process not the result.My clients are high-achieving professionals who come to me when theyre not getting results that they want or, alternatively, when they are getting results they dont want.Ive found that your results always prove your thinking.Once you tischset your intention and mindfully curate your own thinking, you will be able to do anything you set your mind to. The concept of mindfulness and clean-thinking is simple enough, but doing it can be hard.Here are the steps my clients learnSet your intention. What result do you want?What action do you need to take to get that result?What feeling do you need to fuel you to take that action?What thought can you believably think that will generate that feeling?Continue focusing your thoughts as you set about taking the strategic action.For example, my client wants to exercise so that she can lose we ight and feel better.Her desired result is to lose weight and feel better.She needs to take the action of adhering to her intake and exercise plan.To eat right and exercise, she wants to feel capable, prepared, successful.She chooses to focus on the following thoughts I am capable of making the choice to eat this food and I know how to exercise. Shes also reminding herself that This is the action I want to take.She made a strategic plan for exercising and eating right. She knows the math of doing these things will produce weight loss and the results she wants. All she has to do now is work the process by focusing her thoughts, which will fuel her emotions and drive her to take the planned action.4. Confidence is your willingness to feel any feeling.Confidence doesnt mean youre braver, smarter or better than anyone else. Confidence is not the absence of feeling afraid. And its not certainty that you will succeed.Confidence is when you feel insert the feeling you most dread anxious, f ear, embarrassed and you decide to do insert the action youre avoiding anyway. Its when you feel stage-fright and you decide to sing on stage anyway. Its when you feel unsure but you go on that first date anyway. Its when you feel afraid of rejection but apply to the new job posting anyway.Master coach instructor Brooke Camucksmuschenstillo says that Discomfort is the currency to your success. If you have a goal, you have a plan and doing the next step of that plan is uncomfortable (e.g. like exercising is uncomfortable, or asking for the sale is uncomfortable), doing the uncomfortable thing is the key to achieving what you want.--With a Masters degree in Clinical Psychology and eight years as a consultant in Fortune 500, 100 and 30 organizations, Tarah Keech is the life Founder and CEO of Burnout Survival, a life coach specializing in helping high-achieving professionals and teams prevent, heal and thrive after burnout amidst todays ever evolving and high-demand corporate culture. Get The Busy Professionals Quick-Start Guide to Burnout Prevention (The Smart Way) to learn how to stop the burnout spiral while still maintaining your hectic schedule here BurnoutSurvival.com.