#112 - the CUTESY Shit is UNDERMINING your GROWTH

Burnout
Written By Ellyn | Burnout Coach & Speaker
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Summary

SORRY NOT SORRY - but cutesy s***?! It's BS...and it's undermining your personal growth...

“Cute” doesn’t transform you. It doesn’t motivate you when you’re stuck. It doesn’t set your soul on fire...and it probably doesn’t feel authentic and true to you!!

And this kind of work? That shit has GOT to feel authentic...

And that's why in today's podcast, I'm calling BULLSHIT on all the cutesy shit we catch ourselves doing...and giving you practical tips for how to get CLEAR on the shit that's going to cut the crap and get to the CORE of who you want to be...

For show notes, head to coachellyn.com/podcast and, of course, if you have any questions or want to connect, head on over to @coachellyn on Instagram.

ACTION STEPS:

  • Simon Sinek’s Start With Why - The main example he uses is Apple and business. Their why is to disrupt the status quo. I felt like this catching, marketing-type phrase needed to be my why too.

  • My Original Why: “Take Back My Power”.

    • How it originated? It’s how it made me feel when it came to fitness. It was a cutesy phrase that I liked at the time.

    • How did I realize that something was wrong with this as my WHY? I realized that it didn’t resonate or motivate me when it came to my business, my goals, prioritizing my self-care, etc.

    • How I refined it? I thought of all these things that felt like didn’t fit or resonate with my old why. Things like: setting ambitious goals, my productivity, doing workouts that absolutely kick my ass, slogging up mountains and hiking, being an entrepreneur. I started journaling on why I do these things. Why do I push myself so hard? Why do I want to be a good daught, sister, aunt, etc? Why is it so important to me to seek out more in my life? Why is it so important to me to be my highest potential? Why is it so important to me to feel powerful? Why did that even resonate before?

      • What it led to? Realizing that it made me feel proud of myself and of how I was living my life.

      • BONUS - I could use that as a check-in for myself. I could ask myself: which option is going to make you proud? OR I could tell myself during a workout or when I was struggling through a tough hike I could say to myself: “Make yourself proud”

      • On Values…

        • Freedom is one of my values: But my old freedom value statement had cutesy shit like: “embracing fear”, “trust in and empowering myself…” It was too cutesy and didn’t actually represent what I think of when I think of freedom.

          • New value statement:

            • Started by taking stock of what I think of when I think of freedom - time, location, and financial freedom, hiking, traveling, choice, and opportunity

            • NEW Statement: Enriching my life through experiences that bring my joy and perspective

            • Belonging is another one of my values: My value statement was something like “pursuing authentic connection”…which just wasn’t a clear version of what I want when I think of belonging…

              • New value statement: Giving my full self to others - openly, vulnerably, + without fear

              • Bottom line…We get way too cutesy when we think about personal growth and personal clarity, and I think that’s too our detriment. What if we chose clarity, something that speaks our own language, and something that’s practical and straightforward.

              • CUTESY?! If it doesn’t resonate…if it doesn’t hit you in the heart…it DOESN’T WORK!

              • TAKEAWAY: Choose language that resonates. Don’t get caught up in using cutesy language that’s eloquent and flowery. Clarity and something that gets to the core and straight to your heart…because that’s more powerful!

RESOURCES IN THIS EPISODE:

TRANSCRIPT

(00:00):

Hey friends, and welcome back to the take back your life podcast. Y'all need to mentally prepare yourself today because I feel like I've got my sassy pants on. Actually scratch that. I know I've got my fancy pants on because this podcast is actually supposed to be something different this week. But I ended up getting very, very inspired writing an Instagram caption, kind of, not a lot of the that I'd been doing wrong when it came to my personal growth. And when I say things I'm doing wrong, I'm really talking about when it comes to creating my why. Like we're going to be talking about Simon Sinek and the whole concept of start with why a bit today.

(01:47):

But it also, when it came to talking about my values and all of the I was doing wrong when it came to my values and if you know me at all, this is a huge part of my coaching philosophy. This is something that I do with every single one of my one-on-one clients, every single one of my group clients. We talk about why we talk about values and it's so important to do so because this is like a driving force for you and your life. If you are somebody who feels you're underwhelmed by your life, you're under motivated and really struggled to show up. It may be because you don't have a strong enough why, or you don't have clear enough values. I've actually done podcasts previously about how to go about finding your values, which I'll link in the show notes. But this is the first time I've ever really talked about why.

(02:33):

And I'm going to be really, really getting into what people do wrong in this process. Why all this cutesy and some of the ways in which we approach approach this, aren't serving us. And I'm really, really excited to get into that with you guys. But speaking of one-on-one coaching and group coaching, I want to make sure you know, about all of the really, really awesome stuff that's coming up this month. I have so much stuff going on. I'm going to be a little bit of a run around like a chicken with Ted cutoff kind of thing this month. It is going to be crazy, but I'm so, so excited for it. And one of the first big announcements that I want to share with you is that I am accepting applications right now for one-on-one coaching. And this is a great opportunity. If you are someone who maybe has some big career questions, they're navigating a big one that I'm often helping people with is the whole notion of do I stay in my current job or in my current career path?

(03:30):

Or do I do something else? If you're feeling that calling for more or for different are really questioning whether you're in the right place. That's something that I love, love, love, helping people navigate through also. And this is a big one. If you are a high achiever and you feel like you are on a hamster wheel right now and have no clue how to get off of it, then I can totally totally help you if you fall into either of those two categories or you're just really looking to level up your clarity on who you are, if this whole conversation about values and why that we're going to be having today really resonates with you had to coach ellen.com/coaching again, that's coach E L L Y n.com/coaching. And go ahead and check things out. And if something seems like it's really jumping out at you, you're really feeling called to this, shoot me a message send in that application.

(04:23):

Or you can reach out to me on Instagram. I'm at coach Ellen on Instagram as well. And let's chat about this as a possibility for you. So that's the first big thing that I've got going on right now is opening up some one-on-one coaching spots. But the other big thing I want to make sure you know about, especially if you're one of the people that resonated with any of the previous podcasts on burnout and boundaries, which again, I'll link those in the show notes. If you don't know what I'm talking about, but you're curious, then there is going to be a workshop that's happening at the end of the month that I am so stoked to hook you up with and to loop you in on, this is a workshop that I'm doing actually with a former client and a bad-ass human in and of her own, right?

(05:05):

And even Nicole Hudson, she's from her newly formed company, simply Hudson co. Um, and we are coming together on August 27th of this month and doing a boundaries workshop. It's called building boundaries, protect your productivity because so much of what boundaries is about is productivity. It's about not burning ourselves out. And to do that, we've got to set boundaries and we are going to make this process crystal clear. We're going to be walking you through all of the potential obstacles, all the potential things that so many of us do wrong. When it comes to building boundaries, we are going to hook you up and show you all of the ins and outs to really create boundaries that serve you, that protect your productivity and that help you take back control of your life. So that's happening on August 27th. If you're curious and want to know more about it, again, feel free to reach out to me on Instagram or head on over to coach ellen.com/boundaries.

(05:58):

It's going to be the best place for you to get all the information, check out the deeds, but let me know, reach out to me on Instagram. If you've got any questions about either of those things, but with that, let's get into this juicy AAF topic. We are talking about ditching all of that cutesy and getting clear concrete and practical and your personal growth. And I want to tell you what inspired this. So I mentioned that this really came from an Instagram caption that I was writing and the really the first line of the Instagram caption, which the Instagram post comes out today on August 4th, it said, start with why it's a cute Ted talk title, Mr. Sinek. But if that it, you know, it's all cute and nice to say, start with why you need to have a why that motivates you, et cetera.

(06:42):

But what really inspired this is I was writing this caption is I realized that this cutesy-ness, we can take it a little bit too far. When I first started creating my, why I thought it needed to be this, you know, eloquent, very powerful thing that, you know, inspired people when they read it. And I ended up coming up with this why that, even though it sounds great, it sounds like a cute little marketing tagline, which maybe this is why I thought this way is because he was talking about, start with why from a very business perspective. You know, he was talking about if you're not familiar with it at all, um, "start with why" originated as a good, essentially a good way to do business. He mentioned this, um, oh God, I forget what I think it's called the golden circle. Um, but he describes in his Ted talk, Simon Sinek does, this notion of the golden circle and how so many companies, instead of starting with why they do what they do, they start with what they do, that they make TVs, or that they're a travel company or whatever, instead of talking about why they do it.

(07:46):

And the example that he really really hammered in this spot or in this Ted talk was about apple and how Apple's big thing has been about disrupting the status quo. And they create products that help people disrupt the status quo. And in watching this Ted talk and in hearing this, you know, disrupting the status quo is a cute little tagline. It's something that, you know, everybody can fill with their own perspective on what it means to disrupt the status quo. And so for a long time, that's how I approached creating my own personal. Why my own personal mantra or phrase or whatever that really motivated and empowered me in my life. And what I came up with years and years and years ago was take back my power. I worked out, I did all of these things to quote unquote, take back my power. And I started realizing in the last six months or so that that wasn't resonating the way it used to.

(08:48):

When I originally created it, maybe it did resonate and, you know, I created it like six years ago. So I honestly don't remember at this point when I created it, I felt powerful doing the certain activities that I associated with this why fitness in particular fitness made me feel powerful. And so I developed this whole notion of take back your power, take back your power. But lately I realized that when it came to building my business or when it came to creating more freedom in my life, or when it came to things like hiking, take back your power didn't resonate any more. And that's something I find to be really, really important when it comes to creating a personal, why a personal kind of mantra, if you will, that's really driving you in your life is it's got to be broadly applicable. It is impractical and frankly, a pain in the to feel like you have to create a why behind every single thing that you do.

(09:46):

And so I started journaling on this and I was really, really navigating this and figuring this out during my group program, my group mastermind that I launched the first round of this month. And sadly, we just wrapped up like a week ago. It was so bittersweet, oh my God, I'm probably going to do another round of it this fall, but still kind of navigating that and figuring that out. But anyways, during that mastermind, I started digging into this more for myself and realizing that take back your power, if it resonated before it wasn't resonating now. And it certainly wasn't resonating now in all of these different things that I was doing, hell yes, fitness still made me feel powerful, but powerful. Isn't how I would describe, you know, showing up in my business or waking up and really prioritizing me time powerful. Isn't the word that I would use to describe that.

(10:40):

And I started to realize that whole take back your power thing. It was just some cutesy phrase. I really adopted it because it sounded cute and catchy, and it wasn't really encapsulating truly what I felt when I showed up in my business or when I showed up and prioritize my like morning routine or when I prioritize my sleep, the way that I know that I needed to, or all of these little, very practical things that we kind of all need to do, especially if we're going to show up at our best, especially if we're going to show up and not burn ourselves out. All of these things that we do to, as I mentioned earlier, get ourselves off the hamster wheel of just being a high achiever for no reason. It just didn't resonate anymore. And so I started thinking about, okay, why do I do these things?

(11:34):

Why do I set ambitious goals? Why do I constantly feel the need to produce and to do, why do I thoroughly enjoy these pain in the, frankly, workouts. That absolutely destroy me when I'm doing that. Why do I slogging up mountains and going on hikes? Why do I enjoy being an entrepreneur? All of these facets of myself that take back your power, that former version of my quote, unquote personal, why no longer seem to apply to what was the driving force there? And I sat down and I journaled on it. I journaled on why do I do these things? Why do I do all of this stuff in my life? Why do I want to make, you know, be a good daughter? And why do I want to make my parents proud? Why do I want to be a good aunt or a good friend?

(12:34):

What's the motivation there. And ultimately the more I looked into it, the more I journaled on it, the more I realized that the driving force there, it wasn't around making others proud. It wasn't even about taking back my power. In fact, I asked myself, why do I want to take back my power? Why do I want to feel powerful? And I realized that all of these things were about making myself proud. I felt at my highest potential, like my best self, all of that stuff boiled down to me being really, really proud of myself, proud of when I showed up fully proud of when I put 110% into that workout, proud of the fact that I actually show up, showed up and shared and talked about my business. Those things made me proud. There were no regrets there and no regrets made me feel proud, pride, personal pride, not personal power.

(13:35):

Personal pride ended up being this clear concrete and very practical, personal Y that I could use to drive myself. And I really realized that I'd stumbled across the right. Why for myself, when mid workout, I could say, make yourself proud. Very succinctly, very clearly. Make yourself proud, not make yourself powerful. Make yourself proud where I could look at, oh, should I sit down in front of the TV and watch, you know, the next season of Westworld, which has been a binge of mine lately? Should I do that? Or should I work on my business? Well, what's going to make me more proud. It's served as a check-in point for myself that could help steer me back to the kind of person I wanted to be and to help provide me motivation. When I felt like I wasn't having any, when I wanted to just crash on the couch with a glass of wine or a bottle or whatever, no judgment, um, and watch Westworld.

(14:40):

I could use that to steer me back to being that highest potential version of myself, the version of myself that made myself proud. That's what I mean by the cutesy versus the clear concrete and practical. The stuff that actually, even if it's not the cutest slogan in the world, that helps you take some inspired freaking action. That's the difference. And all of those things that I mentioned in there, if you've never created your own personal, why all of those things that I mentioned in there are great ways to go about doing it. All of these things that you find yourself motivated to do, or even if you're not currently motivated, you previously found yourself motivated to do. Why do you do those things? Why do you want to be a good friend, a good, significant other, why do you want to be in good shape?

(15:27):

Why do you want to build this business or be the best you possibly can in your current corporate role? Why do you want that? You discover your personal, why by asking yourself why, however, the hell, many times it takes to get there. So sit down with a journal or if you're not a written processor, which I know there are many of us out there who aren't sit down with like the voice app on your phone or record something on your webcam. Not necessarily for anybody to see it, but just so you can have a conversation with yourself. Some of us are verbal processors and not written processors. So ask yourself why, see what you come up with. That's really step one to figuring out what your personal, why is. And then kind of the bonus aspect of that is that what I was talking about with turn it into a checkpoint for yourself, just like I did, like, is this making you proud?

(16:16):

What is going to be the option that makes you proud of yourself? Because every why can be turned into something like that to help you check in with yourself and to ask yourself whether you're living the best way you want to. The other version of this is around your values. The other version of this is very much about those values and what they mean to you. Whenever I do values work with my clients, I have them come up with their list of, I say three to six core values. I think if you get less than three, there's probably something that's missing. That's just my personal opinion. But I also think if you get more than six, I personally think five is a better cutoff, but if you get more than six, it's just like having too many goals or too many items on your to-do list, your effort gets diluted and you're not able to live according to your values as well.

(17:08):

But that's neither here nor there again, if you don't know your personal values, check back to that episode that I recorded previously again, head to coach ellen.com/podcast, to check out the show notes. And I'm going to link all of the stuff in the show notes for you. But anyways, if you know your values, the first time I created my values, I got way the hell too cutesy with what my values actually meant and what my value statements were and how I think of a value you statement is you can think of it kind of like a personal definition to what the value actually means to you. But the first time I did this, I had these really pretty sounding, but frankly, just not practical statements like I'm with had to work a little bit too much to figure out what the they meant, but I can give you some examples here.

(17:58):

So freedom is one of my values. And previously I used to have releasing fear while trusting in and empowering myself to live my life on my terms. I've always loved the notion of live my life on my terms, but what does it mean to release fear while trusting in and empowering myself? What does that mean? And so one day, again, during the context of my group coaching program, I sat down and I asked myself, what do I actually think of when I think of freedom? What do I actually think of in terms of how that relates to the kind of lifestyle I want for myself? And for me, my freedom value very, very much relates to the hiking and the travel component of my life. It very much relates to having financial freedom, location, freedom, time, freedom. That's what freedom means to me. So I decided, instead of all this cutesy, how about I just get really, really practical about what freedom means to me and what freedom means to me is it enriches my life, but I really want to make sure I captured that experiential component.

(19:09):

So I said, hell, let's just make it really straightforward and say enriching my life through experiences that bring me joy and perspective done so much more clear. We're talking about experiences. We're talking about things that bring you joy. And I liked perspective because part of the reason I love traveling is that you get perspectives on other cultures. And part of the reason I love hiking is I love the perspective of being up high and seeing a different view on the world, enriching my life through experiences that bring me joy and perspective as opposed to I might be hitting my microphone right now. So I'm sorry if it's making noise, um, as opposed to releasing fear while trusting and an empowering myself, it's so much more straightforward, so much more clear. Now let's look at another one. Belonging. Belonging is another one of my values. And what I had before was deeply pursuing authentic connection through vulnerability and intuitive awareness, not bad, but also kind of cutesy kind of almost overly flowery.

(20:09):

And I'll just be honest. I'm not an overly flowery person. So I don't know why I went down this route when I originally created my value statement. And so when I read it, this, what I came up with was giving my full self to others, openly vulnerably and without fear that's, you know, when I talked about pursuing authentic connection through vulnerability, what I meant there was, I don't want to do loop myself. I don't want to be anything less than who I am around the people I'm connecting with because that's what I feel true belonging is when I'm able to be fully myself to be open, to be vulnerable, to be almost fearless in a sense though, I don't necessarily think fearless is a thing. I think you'll always have fear, but it was just so much more clear, concrete and straightforward. I think so often in the personal growth space, we can get a little bit too cutesy, whether we're talking about I've really focused on talking about your why and your values and what your values mean to you in this podcast episode.

(21:14):

But we can, we can just get too fricking cutesy in the personal growth space, especially when we're talking about personal clarity and the things that we want in our life. When, what have we just sat down and asked ourselves, what does freedom mean to me? I have a client who would, I think she was part of the reason that this got inspired is for one of her values. Her value statement is never something that I would have come up with, but I almost loved how crystal clear it was. It was starting each day as a blank slate each new day with a blank slate for her. That's how she wanted to approach her life. And I think she was the first one that made me realize, holy, this does not have to be complicated and cutesy. It can just be practical and straightforward. And I found that, especially when we're talking about your why, especially when we're talking about your values and what they mean to you, cutesy, if it doesn't resonate, if it doesn't make you go, oh my God.

(22:16):

Yeah, yeah. That's what I want. I want to be completely and fully myself. I want prosperity because it makes me feel safe and secure. Screw the cutesy and fancy way to say that if you want safety and security, if that's why something's your value, just say you want safety and security because it's going to mean so much more and go straight to the heart so much more than the cutesy. Well, I think that's really the takeaway today is if you find yourself trying to come up with an affirmation, because some guru told you, you should, we're coming up with a value statement because Ellen told you, you should. I'll poke fun at myself too. If you're going to do that, make sure that you're not getting caught up in it being fancy. And it being cutesy, it being super eloquent. Just say what feels true to you.

(23:08):

If you're not a cutesy eloquent, you know, flowery person say what feels true to you, get clear, get to the core, get practical and come up with something that just goes straight to your heart in a clear, concise way, because that my friend is so much more meaningful in my opinion, so much more impactful. I look at my values now and when I see authenticity and it says, trusting my gut and my intuition right next to it, that's how I speak. Those are the words I use in my day to day life, not the flowery cutesy I used before. And when I see that, I know it's speaking directly to me and I want that for you too. So I feel like I rambled a bit today. In fact, I'm realizing I did this all in one take, which is something that has not happened in a while.

(23:58):

But the takeaway here is if you find yourself getting too cutesy with your personal growth, too fancy schmancy, screw it, get clear, get concrete, get practical and get to the core of what it is you want and what it is. You're trying to say, well, we're there talking about your why, whether we're talking about your values, whatever, because that my friend is going to be the that makes the difference. So that is all I have for you today. I hope you got something out of this. It may be a slightly different place than where you're at right now, but still, I hope that it resonated on some level with you. And if you've got any questions, you feel like you need any help with some of the stuff that we're talking about here. Please feel free to reach out, connect with me on Instagram at Coachella. I would love to hook you up and help you out with that. That's all I've got for today and I will talk to you.

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Ellyn | Burnout Coach & Speaker

Helping overwhelmed high-achieving women in business to work less and live more. Since 2017, I’ve become a burnout and stress management specialist and expert helping clients to create more sustainable routines, more supportive systems, and the clarity and fulfillment they want in their lives so that they can finally heal from their hustle and take back their lives. As a former research scientist myself, I bring a healthy dose of evidence-based strategies to the notion of burnout. I’m a certified coach, have multiple stress certifications, am a certified Hell Yes podcast guest, and am a Senior Contributor for Brainz Magazine. Hiya!

https://coachellyn.com
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