True To Yourself
Apr 28, 2022
What can change for you when you start being true to yourself?
I had a conversation with a woman recently who was turning down the opportunities of presenting to her organisation and widely in her community. She is seen as an inspiration and a leader in her community, but she wasn’t feeling this herself. After listening to my podcast episode about being a core-led woman, that day she had been asked to do a talk and her initial reaction was no I can’t do that. She then took 10 minutes and did a little happy dance and went back to them and said YES! This week she is delivering a talk to 1500 people on a stage and it’s the first time she has done a talk to that many people. A lightbulb went off and she thought she just needs to stop hiding.
YES! This is what happens when we are aligned with our core, we can’t hide anymore. I felt a similar way a long time ago, I was nervous to give talks about myself and what I do. I was nervous about posting on social media as I thought it would come across as big-headed. I was worried about sending emails to people and I was worried about doing this podcast. But when we are aligned with our core and we know that our work is important, then nothing can stop us.
Step into your core-led space.
Be true to yourself and start living a core-led life, you will then pave the way for others to do the same. When you live in this way, you are saying;
This is me.
This is what I stand for.
This is what is important to me.
This is why you need to hear about it.
We cannot keep doing the same thing and the old way of being. If we do, it will keep us in a place of burnout, guilt, anxiety and stress. We need to let go of all of these constraints and start living a core-led life.
It’s not always easy! Sometimes those leaps of coming out of our comfort zone can really be bloody terrifying. But you need to push yourself and keep going, because it’s that that will make all the difference. If who you are at the core is happy to stay where you are and do what you are doing, then do that. But if it’s not aligned with who you are at the core and you have a voice, you have a message and something to say, then now is the time to say it.
If you live in this way, it can cause a ripple of change in those around you. If it’s right for them, then they will want to live the same way.
I know the impact that this has on the people I work with and if just listening to 1 of my podcast episodes can make someone want to make a change and then encourage others to do the same; how bloody brilliant is that?
When you start leading from your core you have this inner power that says this is me, I want to be seen and there is now no going back. What I was doing before was not aligned to me, it is no longer serving me and others. Therefore anything that is out of alignment has to go.
I now live and lead in alignment with who I am at the core. If we all did this I believe we will then see a decrease in levels of burnout and mental health issues.
1 in 3 women are currently experiencing burnout.
Did the pandemic take a toll? Absolutely!
Did we all get the support we needed from our leaders and organisations? No!
I’ve spoken a lot about my mental health struggles and that I live with bipolar. Yes I live with bipolar, but I have minimised bipolar controlling my life. The ups and the downs are less so when I am in alignment with who I am at the core. This was always my why; to live an authentic life and just be true to myself. One of my values is integrity, for me integrity is genuinely doing the right thing even when no one’s looking.
I believe we can change the world of work.
I spent a very long time in my HR career trying to change the world of work from an HR perspective. During 2020 I had this realisation that HR aren’t the ones to solve this problem. I’ve spoken with HR professionals who have been struggling for 5, 10 years and have done nothing to change things, as they see themselves as just the HR person and they don’t want to drive the change. In a lot of cases sadly HR are the blockers, but I still think we can change the world of work. I advocate for women to step into alignment and into their power. In doing this, I can see the difference it makes to the organisations, to the women themselves and those around them. If we want to create a more equal, equitable and inclusive workplace, women have got to be living and leading a core-led life. Men will then do the same.
The change starts with us!
Ask yourself how can I be a part of the solution?
Another woman who messaged me had made some changes to her personal life. She had listened to my podcast for a few weeks and she made changes to the way she worked, her personal life, how she dressed and how she was speaking up in meetings. But the real pinnacle moment for her, was a conversation that she had in her household. She truly believed she would never have had this conversation if she hadn’t been listening to this podcast. She finally realised that she was in fact a core-led woman and was going to live a core-led life.
In 2018 I was on a team who went to Uganda on behalf of a charity called Hope for Justice which does all it can to end modern day slavery and trafficking. I went there to train the managers so that they could lead their teams in a much more effective way. I met 2 men on this trip and all 3 of us were responsible for co-facilitating these sessions throughout the week. We built such a strong bond and people would ask us how long we had been working together. We had just met! As we were delivering a module I said something and the next day one of the guys came up to me and thanked me for what I said. He said he will now change the way he listened to his wife and daughter. Later he thanked me again for changing the relationship with his wife and kids for the better. But I hadn’t done anything. He did the work and realised he was no longer in alignment and he made the changes.
We don’t realise sometimes that when we are true to ourselves, we create a ripple effect around us. So much positive change can happen and we can create ripples across the world.
A lot of women that come to me and want to work with me are either already burnt out or on the edge of burnout. So when we talk about living and leading from their core, they are still in this place of guilt and think that they can’t make changes. But I always say, if you can’t do it for yourself, think about the impact these changes will have on your kids, on your partner, on your team. When they start to make changes they then realise the difference it’s also making to themselves.
Think about what might happen if you DON’T start living and leading from your core.
Can you really allow for things to stay as they are?
Can you keep on going day by day in this state of burnout and high stress?
Can you afford to not live from your core?
Kelly
