It is eight or so months after my not my dream moment and I'm still at it in the grind
It's my day off. I'm laying on the couch with my one-year-old curled up on me
and I'm just trying to relax and savor the moment. My baby girl is so serene and
peaceful, the complete opposite of how I'm feeling on the inside and I just want to
soak it all in. I want her to rub off on me. It's been an interesting period of juggling the joys and challenges and growth of being a first -time mom, alongside the demands of this job I opted into trying to perform, do a good job, and will my way to a better experience.
And something else that's also present is this budding, gnawing, expanding awareness brought on by my not-my-dream moment, that I was not okay with the way things are, but I'm still not quite sure what to do about it.
So I'm laying on the couch just starting to fall asleep when the phone rings.
I decided to take it because it's a dear, dear friend. This friend had a maybe
while we were in our graduate program and she loves fiercely and I knew she would
probably empathize with my experience a little bit and maybe offer some support. So
after some pleasantries, we got real. I couldn't hide the truth of how I was
feeling: depleted, sad, knowing I wasn't okay, but didn't know what action to take.
Now, this is a friend that does not mince her words. We all need one of those.
And she told me, "Natalie, you need to do something." I could feel her anger as she
laid out her two options. And not anger at me, but for me. Really desperately
wanting me to take action. So she said, "You got two options. One, if you have the
financial means to do so, just quit. Get out and quit, get some distance,
take a break, and then start to figure things out.
Option number two, if you can't do number one financially, come up with an exit strategy. Where can you land to bridge the gap while you figure out what's next?” As well-meaning as her advice was, I was not having it. I think I was somewhere else, not soaking it in, very much coming back in my mind to all the reasons. Anything she was gonna throw out just wasn't possible.
I can't leave. Who would hire me? I don't even really know what I want. No one will pay me what I'm making here. And the list goes on and on and on, this loop in my head. This internal dialogue is like happening.
And I'm so I want to go, but I have to stay. And as I got quiet in the midst
of my inner conflict and tension and dissonance, I started to almost hear this soft,
faint voice inside of me questioning. But is that the true?
Hi, I'm Natalie Domond, and welcome to Tipa Revolution: The Podcast.
At this moment in time, I am a new mother, a passionate and hard-working daughter
of immigrants who are burned out, ready for a new way, but feeling really stuck.
In this space, we explore the power of tipa, the practice of moving through
uncertainty, doubt, resistance, and overwhelm to more alignment,
inner peace and meaningful impact by taking one intentional step at a time…
Tipa tipa
This is Tipa Revolution, The Podcast, and season one is my story.
As I carried on with my day, the conversation with my friend stayed with me. I
felt her anger and fierce conviction that I needed to get out still with me.
But that loop was also going on in my head. All the very clear reasons I couldn't
leave, my questions of resistance. Who would hire me? I don't know what I want.
No one will pay me what I'm making here.
And as I slowly made my way upstairs to the laundry machine,
I heard the whispers of that voice. Again, the one that came out during the call.
But is that true? And I noticed this tension inside of me.
I want to be wrong. I want them to not be true. But there's something that feels
so safe about believing that these things are true.
I don't then have to make any changes. I'm just sort of good right here. I decided
in that moment to get curious. All right, if you're gonna be nagging,
Is that true? Let's see, is there any validity to what you got going on here? So
let's see if we can poke some holes.
So I'm telling myself I can't leave. And one of my first points of pushback is, Who
would hire me? Okay, who would hire me? Is that true?
Okay, I've got a rich network, 12 or so years of work experience, so many relationships, a beautiful web of relationships, that is my network. Might anyone I know know of an opportunity?
Okay, actually I still have a really close contact at the consulting and project
management firm. I used to work at a place which is very nearby.
Maybe they know something. Okay, okay, so I'll send her an email. So I hop on email,send her a note, let her know I'm exploring new opportunities, would love to
know if there's any for which she think I'd be a good fit and to keep me in
mind. So there you go. My job is done for the day.
Lo and behold, the next day I wake up to a text from this friend of mine who is
very excited because there is an opportunity that she thinks I would be a perfect
fit for and she said the project team that I would work with wants to know if I
could meet the next day. In shock and disbelief, I'm thinking, oh my goodness, What do I do with this? Is this possible?
So if I'm gonna have this meeting with the team, I need to be ready for it. But
that brings me to that second question of resistance. I don't know what I want. I
don't know what I want. And would anyone actually pay me the equivalent of what I'm
earning at my current job? Alright, so I asked my husband to watch my daughter
during, you know, nap time later that day, and take some time. I give myself some
space and time to think. I said, okay, we're gonna sit with this question. Is it
true that I don't know what I want? Okay, What do I want?
I want to be able to put my daughter to bed at night. I want to not feel like
such a stress ball when I'm around her and my husband. I want to have space to
think and spend quality time with my family. I want a schedule that works better
with my life. I want more flexibility.
Yeah, I want more flexibility. Okay, that is one thing that I want noted.
What else do I want? Okay, I want to feel good about my work,
I want to feel like I'm contributing, I'm bringing my skills, my talents, I'm
excited about what we're doing. And I also want to be in a supportive work
environment, one with kind people, a family friendly team, maybe even an occasional
warm hug. I also want to feel purposeful in my work, but maybe my sense of purpose isn't just achieved at work.
Maybe it also has to do with feeling more like myself and showing up in ways that
make me feel happy at home. Okay, I want a sense of purpose in that seems to be
expanding beyond just the impact I make at work, but also in other parts of my
life. Okay, got it. More flexibility, sense of purpose.
What else? All right, time to get real. I want to be able to pay for rent,
food, and my student loans. I want a chance to still save,
invest, and build our emergency fund. I want our needs to be met and I want to be
able to move toward greater financial freedom. Yeah, that is what I want.
Okay, greater financial freedom. All right, so I've got three things I'm pretty clear
on. More flexibility, a sense of purpose, and moving toward greater financial freedom.
Wow, I have some sense of what I want. So what does that mean for my call
tomorrow?
So I decided to sketch out what my task would be. What am I gonna come to the
conversation saying here are the terms on which I would want to take this work.
So in preparing for the call with these three criteria to guide me,
I was able to clearly articulate what it is that I wanted. I wanted to work max
30 hours a week and work from home. I wanted to sort of know the team that I was
gonna work with, make sure that they were kind people and supportive of my family
situation and would respect my boundaries and the sometimes unpredictable nature of
what could come up in my life.
And I wanted to make the equivalent of the daily rate that I was earning in my full-time job. Now, I knew that that would mean I would take home less, but if I was meeting all that criteria, right, paying rent, saving, paying my student loans, putting food on the table, then, Could that enough for now? And I landed on yes. So I am ready to go.
I have my criteria. I sort of know what I want. I'm ready to make an ask that
feels aligned with all of these areas that were important to me.
And I show up to the call the next day after preparing myself and I've got these
criteria listed and took some deep breaths and I made the requests.
I made the asks throughout the conversation and lo and behold my goodness they were
amenable to all of it. Turns out they were so excited to have me be part of the
team that they were willing to meet me where I wanted. I'd never experienced this
before. I have negotiation power. I was thrilled and in disbelief.
So, got off the call, couldn't believe, "Wow, what a difference in the last 48
hours from believing I couldn't leave to getting clear on what I wanted, finding an
opportunity and making the ask." So they ended up extending me the offer and that
they wanted me to start within a few weeks. And so now the ball was in my court.
This was awesome. All my arguments about why I couldn't leave were debunked.
And now I could leave. I have an exit strategy and I could resign.
Well, not quite. I may have debunked all my arguments about why I couldn't leave,
but I am still feeling this massive resistance. What is that about?
So I sit with this for a week and a week later, I'm on a call with another dear
friend, and I'm telling her that I am perplexed.
I have an offer to leave this situation that I am extremely unhappy in.
And I started sharing with her what was coming up in my mind.
And turns out that there was another onslaught of arguments about why I couldn't
leave. And these arguments sounded something like, who leaves a job like this,
the pay, the role. So many people want to get into a place like this. How can I
walk away from it? The opportunity, the upside, the unvested stock, the career
growth, prestige, a lot of things, a lot of fear.
So many reasons why leaving in my mind didn't make practical sense for all the
things that I had been solving for and optimizing for in my life and Then my
friend offered her point of view She said, Natalie, What if Instead of thinking about
all you're saying no to, you thought about all that you're saying yes to by leaving?
I was in the middle of opening the fridge. That's not me dead in my tracks It hit
me that shift in orientation I had been looking at everything. I was afraid of letting go
of the fear and With that question I turned toward the vision, the possibility, the hope, the future, and what came in my mind was I could be saying yes to a chance at finding
something better, carving out a new path for myself.
I could be saying yes to a chance at feeling like myself again, claiming my mental
and physical and spiritual health and well being, reconnecting with my daughter,
restoring my marriage, and I felt all of these things, the possibility of all of these things that I could be nurturing, pouring into, saying yes to, just broke things right open for me, and that was the moment that I felt myself overcome the resistance. After that conversation, I was clear. It was time to resign.
I planned the convo, drafted the letter, prepared myself, had my talking points, scheduled a time with my boss and came in one morning and I told him that I was leaving. And in that moment, I felt lighter.
I felt my shoulders widen. I felt my chin go up. I felt myself turning towards what felt like hope and sunshine. And then I had my last day. I am still celebrating that wildly significant moment.
The moment I overcame the massive resistance and claimed my ability to take action
and walk away from what was no longer serving me, turning my face towards the
sunshine and the new possibilities, but dang, it was not easy.
As I zoom out to reflect on the wisdom gleaned from this experience.
I want to explore the answers to two questions. One, Why was my resistance so massive? And two, What were the small steps or Tipas that helped me overcome it? But first, I wanted to recall the change formula that worked, for change that I introduced briefly in our last episode. As a reminder of what the change formula is, it is a fun way to think about how change happens.
It was not mine. It's a framework developed by some behavioral scientists in
the 1950s, 60s, and has been used in some adaptive form in a range of leadership
and personal development books. As a reminder, The change formula says that change
happens when the dissatisfaction with your current experience combined with the vision
of what you're moving towards, combined with your first steps. When those three,
the forces of those three combined are greater than the force of the resistance,
that's when change happened. So in thinking about my own experience, I had hit my
not my dream moment when I could no longer ignore my dissatisfaction, it was
palpable, it was visceral, it was intense, it was real.
And this was the awareness that started to nudge me toward change, but it wasn't enough to get me over the resistance hump. And this is because the resistance was layered and complex and
deeply tied to my identities, my lived experiences, and my survival strategies.
So for change to happen, my vision had to become clearer, the dissatisfaction also
had to get a little bit greater, and I needed viable first steps to feel safe
enough to move forward for the risk to be worth the anticipated reward.
So going into our question first, why was my resistance so massive? If I could go
back and talk to myself in that season, I'd say Natalie,
stop shaming and blaming and judging yourself. Of course you're resistant to making
change. It makes sense, you make sense. You worked so hard to get here,
you did your homework, you thought this was the right path, you thought this was
gonna be good for you, and walking away would be a massive departure from everything
you've known to keep you safe and, in air quotes,successful. I had spent years believing that anything worth having required struggle,self -sacrifice, and proving myself over and over and over again.
So as a woman, as a black woman, the daughter of immigrants,
as someone for whom financial insecurity was a very real part of my family's lived
experiences, the real and perceived risks of making a change were huge.
Walking away from the definite income at a time when I was the primary breadwinner
had 100k in student loans, leaving a position that would give me the status and
external validation that I yearned for. I was doing something that was perceived as
valuable and respected. The fear of what it could cost me or what I would lose if
I parted from the safe secure path was grounds for massive resistance and
here is what I also know now. Resistance isn't just something to dismiss or beat
ourselves up about. Resistance is rich with information and coming from very well
intentioned parts of us. For me, it was yelling, "Alert! Are you sure about this?
Are you sure this will keep us safe?" So that's why overcoming the resistance wasn't
about pushing through. It was about listening, discerning, and gently gathering what I
needed to take next step. So this takes us to the second piece of how I finally
overcame the mass of resistance. Tipa tipa or little by little moment by moment,
I started to amass what I needed to eventually overcome the resistance and find my
way forward. When I think about it, I believe there were three key things that
helped here. One, connecting with a loving community.
Two, accessing curiosity and compassion, dropping the judgment, showing myself the kindness. I'd offer someone I love. And three, clarity on my criteria, starting to cut through the noise of the shoulds and paying deep attention to what I truly wanted and needed. So in thinking about like these moments, these micromoments, these Tipas first, like loving community, a conversation with a friend who was loving and indignant.
She reinforced that I was not okay where I was
and planted a seed that helped me start to be curious.
Instead of resigned or judgmental, asking myself, "Is that true? that you have no
other options, that no one else will hire me. And as I started to access a bit
more curiosity and compassion, I started to become more courageous.
I started poking holes in the reasons I had for being stuck. And this led me to
reach out to a former colleague, and it turned into something. And then building on
the reinforcement from my community and the deeper curiosity and courage, I started
to get clear on my criteria, cutting through the noise of the fear. So what do I
actually want more flexibility, just enough purpose, like financial freedom or a path
towards financial freedom? And what do I need to feel safe enough to make a move?
And this gave way to what I've now called my minimum safety criteria.
This is the bare minimum that I needed in place for the change to feel doable.
So what arrangement would support the flexibility, purpose, and financial freedom in
terms of where I was working and my hours and all that sort of stuff. But I also
crunched the numbers. What did I need to bring in for us to have our most basic
needs met? How long of a gig did I need to feel okay leaving. In this case, it
was three months. And I incorporated all of this into my ask and into my
negotiation, knowing that this is what I needed to feel assured enough to make the
move. And the moment that I finally got over the hump, that phone conversation in
the kitchen with my friend, I had identified an op. I knew I was unhappy in this
situation.
And even with the opportunity and that clarity, the fear of what I might
lose from walking away was still so great. And the moment that changed everything
was when my friend asked me instead of thinking of what you're saying no to. What
if you thought about all that you're saying yes to?
And that question cracked something right open. And I had been so focused on what I
would lose by leaving that I hadn't really given space to consider what I stood to
gain. And that clarity, the chance of restoring my most precious relationships with
myself, my loved ones, my work, my life, that they could be nourishing,
fulfilling, peaceful, energizing, vibrant. Ones that I was proud of,
relationships that I was proud of, that's what provided the final shift,
the force that was needed to overcome the massive resistance.
And so I took my next big step after all those little ones, and I resigned and I
landed on my three-month consulting gig, which turned into another and another. And
this gave me the bridge I needed between the old way and the new world of
possibilities. And most importantly, it gave me the space I needed to reconnect with
myself. And that's what we'll start to explore in the next episode.
Now I want to turn it to you to invite you into your own reflection. Feel free to
pause and grab the guide associated with this episode or grab a journal, or you can
just pause and reflect and consider these questions. I have four questions for you.
One, where are you experiencing fear or resistance around a change that you want to
make?
How might it actually be helping for protecting you?
Third, in thinking about this change, where you have fear or resistance,
What happens when you ask yourself, What do I want to be saying 'yes' to,
and four, what is your minimum safety criteria?
What do you need to know or have in place to feel safe or assured enough to
through the reflection questions. You can find it, I'll link to it in the show
notes. If this episode spoke to you, I'd love to hear about it. If you know
someone who might appreciate this message, please share it with them.
Thank you again for continuing on this journey. And until next time, tipa, tipa.
