Episode 99: The Impact of Work Stress with Kelley Shields

Welcome to The Career Clarity Show, where we help you find a lucrative, soulful, and joyful career path for you!

So much of what we share on the show is about people sharing their own personal stories of career transformation but one of the things that often happens when we talk about these personal narratives is that it can be easy when you’re looking backwards to gloss over some of the messy middle. 

That includes some of the questions that prompted you to want to make a change in the first place.

For today’s episode of the Career Clarity Show, we’re gonna have a fabulous conversation about some of the factors that can allow for you to feel certainty that it is time to pull the emergency brake and start to make a pivot. One of the biggest factors that goes into this is the concept of work stress. I am delighted to invite back her fourth episode here, our Career Clarity Show certified coach Kelley Shields to share some wisdom around the impact of work stress.

Want to learn more about our strategic framework for successful career change? Download The Roadmap to Career Fulfillment ebook right here!

Show Notes:

• Career Clarity Coach Kelley Shields
• Editable career continuity planning worksheet
• Recession-Proofing Your Career webinar
• You can take Gretchen Rubin’s “type” quiz here.
• Episode 81: How to Overcome Shame with Kelley Shields
• Episode 37: You’re not undisciplined: Hacking Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies for career change with Career Clarity coach Kelley Shields
• Episode 19: Plan B: How to find a great career when plan A didn’t work. An interview with Kelley Shields
• Roadmap to a Fulfilling Career eBook

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Transcript:

Lisa Lewis Miller  0:04  

Welcome to the Career Clarity Show. If you want to create a career path you’ll love, you’re in the right place. I’m Lisa Lewis Miller, career change coach, published author and your host. And each week, we’ll bring you personal transformation stories, advice and insights from experts about how you can find a more fulfilling, soulful and joyful career. Welcome back to the Career Clarity Show. I’m Lisa Miller. And I am delighted as always that you’re back with us here today. And on today’s episode of the podcast, we’re going into a little bit of a different direction than we’ve done a lot of our past episodes, you know, so much of what we share on the show is about people sharing their own personal stories of career transformation, career change, career questions, career discernment. But one of the things that often happens when we talk about these stories and personal narratives is that sometimes it can be really easy when you’re looking backwards, to kind of gloss over some of the messy middle. And some of the questions and some of the things that prompted you to be looking and want to make a change in the first place, it can be really easy to just talk about being unhappy in a vacuum, like that’s, that’s it, that’s the be all end all. And I’m guessing for most of you listening, you know, it’s a little bit more complicated than that, you know that there are a lot of different factors that go into this question of, is it time to make a move? Can I salvage what I have at my current organization? Is this the best it’s going to be, you know, is this as good as it gets. And so, for today’s episode of the podcast, we’re gonna have a fabulous conversation about some of the factors that can allow for you to know and feel certainty that it is time to pull the emergency brake and start to make a pivot. One of the biggest factors that goes into this is the concept of work, stress, or distress. You know, when we think about work, and when we think about stress, stress seems like an inevitability, it seems like something that comes with any job, every job, it is what it is. But for any of you who have been in the working world more than a couple years, you know, that your stress level can fluctuate. Sometimes it can feel sustainable, sometimes it can feel like as I talked about in the TED talk, I’ll have to see I can remember who wrote the TED talk and put a link to it in the show notes, that sometimes a certain amount of stress is actually positive activation for your system, and allows your brain to click into a higher gear and allows for you to be achieving peak performance. But there’s a threshold where that stress goes from being helpful. And almost, I’m almost thinking about it as being nutritive like allowing you to perform better and show up as yourself into a space where it becomes overwhelmed, it becomes burnout, it becomes a burden, rather than a performance enhancing mechanism. And the concept of work stress for anybody listening, I’m sure it’s not a new one. But when we think about stress, oftentimes, we think about it through the lens of some sort of discrete numbers or metrics. It could be how many hours you’re working, or how many hours of meetings you were sitting in, or zoom meetings in this world, you know, every single day that prevent you from feeling like you can actually do your job. There are also some layers of work stress that come with uncertainty and fear, you know, worrying about what’s the revenue forecast for the organization, what kind of implications might that have on my team, my department, my own job security and safety. And there is certainly a layer of work stress that can be controlled by the specific environment that you’re in. There are some industries, that does tend to be higher stress environments, pressure cooker environments. And while I’m a big proponent of noticing where there are ebbs and flows within the industry, because some organizations take it upon themselves to really ruthlessly cultivate a culture that bucks some of the conventional norms of that industry. Some places like law, like finance, just tend to be these huge pressure cookers, even if you find the healthiest organization within those spaces.

Lisa Lewis Miller  4:43  

So when we think about work, stress, in terms of what you’re doing day to day, the ecosystem that you’re in, and the amount of uncertainty that you’re experiencing. Those are pretty common definitions of work stress. And that’s how today’s asked us to think about work stress as well. But I’m really excited to have today’s guest on to talk about a bigger, broader sense of work, stress, overwhelm, burnout, all the factors that go into feeling like we can perform and ask the question, is your job and the stress related to it, undermining your broader sense of health, mental health, physical health, emotional health? And if so, what can you do about it? So I am delighted to invite you back to the podcast for I think her fourth episode here, our Career Clarity Show certified coach Kelley shields. And let me also say before we dive in today, if you have not gotten to listen to any of the past episodes with Kelley Shields, I will link to them in the show notes from today. Kelley is a beloved member of our coaching team. And she has got such a fabulous perspective that she shared in previous episodes of the podcast about highly sensitive people, and about different assessments and how to use personality assessments and the information that you get out of them to better make decisions and your career in life. So I’m so excited to bring Kelley back on the podcast to bless us all with some knowledge and some nuggets of wisdom today. So Kelley, welcome back to the Career Clarity Show.

Kelley Shields  6:24  

Thank you so much for that enthusiastic introduction, Lisa, and I am delighted to be back here. I always love being on the Career Clarity Show. 

Lisa Lewis Miller  6:33  

Well, I am so glad that you recommended that we talk about work stress, and the ripple effects from it today. Because it’s for so many people, it just seems like a given like it is the way it is and there’s nothing you can do about it. And I love that, from your perspective and your own experience you’re interested in challenging and changing that belief system. So let’s start with kind of the basic one. One question here of why are we talking about work stress today? And why is it important to talk about work stress beyond just what you’re managing within the day to day reality of your current job and current situation?

Kelley Shields  7:21  

Yeah, thank you. Um, you know, because it is something that so many of us are experiencing, I do think it’s important to talk about stress is chronic stress is something that many of us face. And in our modern world, it’s just impacting us differently than it was really designed to, it’s not helping us free from predators, as I’m sure many listeners have heard. Instead, we are, you know, it’s the anxiety and stress responses getting triggered that used to be triggered by life threatening situations. But now it’s triggered by work deadlines, or your boss or something happening that you can’t just like run away and burn through the stress. So it builds up in our systems, and really has a huge impact on our physical and mental health.

Kelley Shields  8:11  

So I think that a lot of what’s written about work stress, though, takes a really narrow view, and it’s an important one. But it’s about you know, Oh, are you overworked? What’s your workload? How many hours are you having to work? Oh, what can you do to manage the stress of your job better? or worried about layoffs, worrying about losing your job writing that finding a job? Oh, that’s really legitimate. But it can then send some really unhelpful messages. I think that the idea of overwork, can get with turned into a badge of honor that, Oh, I’m working 50 6080 hours a week, and well, then I’m entitled to be stressed out. And, you know, I’m really working hard. But the converse message that goes corollary message, maybe that goes along with that as well, if you’re working 40 hours a week, you have nothing to be stressed about, which is just not true. And in the slightest, and I think that missing a bigger picture of what you know, really constitutes work stress that can have an impact on you is doing a disservice to people who are might be thinking, Oh, well, stress can’t be an issue that’s impacting me or I can’t really have work stress, I’m working regular hours, and I have a good job. And that’s just not the case. I think that one of the biggest things that gets not that is not talked about is that even even if you’re working 40 hours a week, even if you’re getting a steady paycheck, and poor career fit can cause just as much stress as some of those more commonly discussed, triggers.

Lisa Lewis Miller  9:52  

Yes, and it’s it’s invisible, compared to some of those really visible work stresses. You know, if you are wearing your badge of honor about I’m working 60 hours a week, because I’m so important, I’m so needed here, a lot of people externally can look at that and say, you know, you might be punching yourself a one way ticket to burn out Ville, USA. But when you’re working a job that doesn’t have any visible lifestyle impacts, because of the requirements, it can be tricky to to explain to other people, especially if you feel like you have people in your life, you have to rationalize or justify your work unhappiness or work stress too. And I mean, Kelly, we could probably do a whole episode sharing stories about how we see poor fit, work, stress show up in people, you know, I Oh, my gosh, I there’s an immediate person coming to mind for me, who had been a an educator in the world of high school math. And he’d streamline all of his systems, so that it was a very straightforward, low stress in air quotes, kind of a job because he didn’t have to do a ton of work, he created a lot of ways to make it really seamless and fluid. But he hated it. He was an introvert, and it took way too much extroverted energy for him to be in that space. He found a huge amount of emotional distress and activation around the way that he had to engage with the parents of the students, the way that he was engaging with the organization’s leadership and school leaders. And it would be really easy to have Look at his situation and say, Man, you’ve just got the cushiest teaching job in the world. But when you know that your work is incompatible with your personality, and how you’re wired or your strengths and gifts. I mean, my goodness, that was my situation. Back when I was in corporate too, I had moved from doing communications consulting, at a consulting firm, to going to an education tech, nonprofit, nonprofit, no education, tech startup. And I got there, and I had accepted this job, it was a huge pay raise, they’d created the job just for me, they’d never had anybody in this role before. It was all these things that looked incredible and glamorous on the outside. But the day to day of what they were asking me to do in the job, was so out of alignment, for fit for my strengths and gifts, that I was working maybe 45 or 50 hours a week. So nothing unreasonable, nothing crazy. But I was miserable, and felt like I had no no pathway out of it. So let’s talk about this career fit piece. If somebody’s listening to this, Kelley, and they’re thinking I career fit as a concept feels a little bit new or unfamiliar. How would you describe that?

Kelley Shields  12:59  

Yeah, thanks, Lisa. Those are such great examples that are really real life that people have really gone through and that we need to have more conversations about. But yeah, to expand on this idea of a career fit. A poor career fit is essentially a mismatch between what a person needs and what a career or job is demanding. And I actually really like to think about this in terms of the four pillars of Career Clarity Show, it gives us some concrete language to look at. So you know, when we’re talking about what we were talking about earlier, what’s more commonly discussed discussed about ours. uncertainty about you know, your job security not having enough paid time off or sick time or vacation days, that were they were talking about the lifestyle color, and that’s generally getting talked about in this space. But as you just discussed, yeah, your personality needs, what is the workplace demanding of you? And does it fit who you are what you need in order to thrive, just as you know, show up as your best as a person, let alone as an employee. Are you working every day in your natural and energizing strengths that are actually feeding you and actually giving you a chance to do something that you enjoy and that you can dig your teeth into and really bring your best self into? Or are you having to operate outside of those which is energy draining and not as enjoyable and not really ever feeding back into you. So day after day after day, something that’s you’re having to work harder at than someone else who does fit their natural strengths and what that’s doing to you. And it can even even your interest can be one depends on the person but there are people who really, really need their work to provide a sense of mission and purpose of meaning. And, you know, most of us don’t want just a job. Most of us do want some form of meaning, but there are people for whom there are some people come back to Davos from Important thing, and they really need that. And if they’re not getting that, again, it’s not feeding back into them. It’s draining them. And it’s creating this chronic stress every day that just keeps increasing and increasing and increasing year after year after year. And there’s actually even been research done on this. And it’s been in more in the personality pillar. But I found it fascinating that there have been, you know, scientific studies showing that, you know, for example, if a person thrives on interacting with other people, they’re in a profession where they’re stuck in an office all alone with a computer all day, little opportunity for contact with other people. That’s the kind of poor fit that can lead to burnout. Or someone who you can do this, both personality and strengths, someone’s promoted into a leadership role or management role leading a team, but they are somebody who does not like being the center of attention, or doesn’t want to be the final arbiter of decisions and be a leader. That’s just not what motivates them and energizes them, that’s also been shown to be a situation that can lead to burnout. And none of this happens overnight, or in a month, all of us can, all of us can work outside of your perfect situations for a little while. But these are, but that those those are the kinds of situations that are this idea of career fit and career fit mismatch mismatches. And those are really, really legitimate long term factors of chronic stress.

Lisa Lewis Miller  16:33  

I’m so glad that you’re bringing up that there’s data behind this because I think it can be really easy to find yourself in a career fit mismatch, and beat yourself up about it and make it a personal failing, play the shame blame game on yourself of like, well, I just need to work harder or try harder, I just need to learn that skill. I just need to I just need to, you know, going down that path of how do I rationalize myself out of how I feel? How do I bully myself into continuing to stay and try to make this feel good. And there’s research on this on the personality side, there’s a ton of research on this on the strength side, that if you’re working outside of your strengths, your energy and work, your fulfillment, and the the longevity and sustainability that you’ll have in a position are all hugely negatively impacted. But sometimes we can get into our own heads, and think that it’s just a personal failing. So being able to point at the data to say, Actually, there are studies on this, you are not alone, you are you are not a special snowflake, who is defective in a vacuum can be so, so helpful, just to contextualize and give yourself a little bit of understanding and gentleness. And so, one of the things that I love about this is that essentially what what you’re saying what the data is saying is that you can suffer from just as much work stress and distress in poor fit or career mismatch, as someone can who’s working 80 hours a week, or working in a high pressure environment or working with some of that other uncertainty that we talked about at the beginning of the conversation.

Kelley Shields  18:23  

Absolutely. And, you know, I think a lot of us suffer from comparison itis as well. And we look at someone else and like, Oh, well, you know, their situation seems so much worse. I’m not working 80 hours a week, I have no right to complain, everything is good. We also internalize that and use that to beat ourselves up and like what’s wrong with me not what’s not working about this situation? Just shifting that question. So many of us, I think, who are have been high achievers and expect to do well then find ourselves in these mismatched, poor fitting career situations. Go to what’s wrong with me, what am I doing wrong? Not Wait, what’s not working about the situation? What’s wrong with the situation?

Kelley Shields  19:11  

What not working for me? What is it not providing for me? So, yeah, and like, we’re really, really good at finding all sorts of ways to, you know, support that belief that Oh, I should be succeeding. And so we can look at other people go, Well, I don’t have that situation, or that person is doing really well. Well, you know, when you don’t know what’s going on, we just can’t do a one to one comparison and you don’t really ever know what’s going on with someone else. But yeah, this is just as important. And just as important to cause of stress that has an impact on you, as more commonly discussed overwork. I know that I’ve really struggled with that idea for a while because I live in the Washington DC area where A lot of people really do live to work. And it’s so common. I mean, it’s just commonly expected people talk about how many people are working 60 hours a week, 70 hours a week, 80 hours a week, which I will be clear, I have never done. And I’m really happy with that. But I remember, I’m a big fan of functional medicine for anyone out there who is also a fan of functional medicine. And that’s all about getting to the root causes of health issues, and not just treating the symptoms, but figuring out what’s the underlying cause? And what can we do? And how can we deal with that. And I remember going to see a new functional medicine practitioner A number of years ago, when I was having some health issues. And one of the things she brought up was, you know, oh, well, you know, what about work stress, like a lot of people in this area, you know, just you know, they’re working all the time, and they burn out, or they have so much stress, and they just burn out. And I was like, Well, I’m working a nine to five job, how can I possibly be burning out? How can I have work stress that counts, you’re talking about, like people who are like really working themselves into the ground. But you know, the truth is, that was my perception. And because of the conversations I was always hearing, I was experiencing just as much chronic stress or just as impactful chronic stress as someone who was overworking because chronic stress, chronic stress, and it all has kind of an impact on your body. And it can, you know, lead to lots of different kinds of health issues.

Lisa Lewis Miller  21:36  

I’m so glad you’re talking about this. I feel like there like six different directions I want to go in based on what you just shared. One, if anybody’s listening to this podcast without headphones in and you’re around, little humans consider pausing here for a second or popping some headphones in. But I back when I was looking at schools to go to it for my undergrad many moons ago. I remember, I was at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia, and doing their excepted student campus weekend. And I remember hearing somebody say that weekend, this phrase that comparative suffering is bullshit. It’s not like there’s some sort of secret Richter Scale of suffering and like, well, yours is only a 4.4 and this other person at a 7.2 like no, no suffering is suffering. And the lived physical experience of it is your truth, whether or not it’s easy to see externally. So I love that you’re highlighting that if there’s severe fit mismatch for you in your career, it might not be externally visible. And that doesn’t mean that it’s not important. Another thing that you said that I want to riff on for a second is that you contextualize that you live in work in the greater DC area, because I just had a conversation with a coaching client about that this week, that we are products of our environment, and products of our system. And I talked about this idea of being a fish in a fishbowl that your fishbowl and the water that you swim in is all the societal and cultural messaging that comes to you based on where you are. Right? It might be cultural messaging from your upbringing, that are related to things that are norms within your family or within your country of origin. The water that you’re sewing and can also be the specific micro culture of the city that you’re in. And I think about DC, and how the very first question anybody asks you in DC is, what do you do, and they don’t care where you’re from, they don’t care how you’re doing. It’s so transactional. And there are other cities in the United States that have similar types of norms. I think that the cultural norm in in New York is a little bit different, because in New York, there’s just an expectation that you’re going to be working from nine or 10 until six or seven at night, and then you’re going to go do your your happy hour networking. And you’re not going to get home until nine o’clock at night. And working out might be optional, because you live in a third floor walk up. And so the culture around New York is it’s just an expectation that you are working 6070 hours a week, because that’s it is what it is here. And you’re so privileged to get to live in New York that you should be grateful and glad to do that. And then I feel like in Silicon Valley, and in the Bay Area, it’s another different kind of cultural water that you’re swimming in. And it’s really important to recognize that, that you’re a fish and you’re not the water that you’re existing within the water. You are trying to survive and live and thrive within that fishbowl within that water, but that you are unique, you get to hold your own values and needs. And you get to decide how much of a buffer you have between yourself and the water. And I’ll finish up this sort of weird metaphor here by saying that when I moved from so I’ve lived in New York, I lived in DC, and I now live in Colorado. And one of the things that continues to boggle my mind about living in Colorado is that the water, the cultural water that professionals live in here is so different, because it’s a much smaller market. So it’s really all about who you know, and what doors they can open up for you in a way that’s just different from DC or New York. But the cultural norms around work hours are incredibly different here to people work eight to four, or nine to five, and they’re done. Like punch out clock out of the day you are finished. And that is such a fundamentally different cultural water to be in the expectation, no matter what organization you go to is more likely to be that you’re working 40 hours a week rather than 50 6070. has been sort of funky and weird to get used to. So it’s an interesting question. I think everybody should wrestle if you know, if you’re listening to this, give yourself a moment to try to identify what is the cultural water that you are swimming in and existing in within your family, within your friends within your industry and within your city? and

Lisa Lewis Miller  26:36  

How good does that feel for you? How well does that align with who you are and your values, because it is totally possible to exist in a high pressure, high cost of living city and do it in a healthy way. But a lot of people make the decision to relocate, and move and change their environment, because it’s just easier to exist in a different kind of cultural water sometimes. So I wanted to talk about that part. But I also want to come back to your functional medicine piece and bless you for being willing to be so forthcoming and share with folks what was going on and that you had as a credible practitioner who is looking at a very holistic idea of health for you. And I want to riff on that a little bit more. Because when we think about health, we all kind of know that stress is a factor into health. But it’s it is a way bigger factor and causation that I think we cognitively understand that we sort of cognitively like feel the consequences of

Kelley Shields  27:54  

100% I think what you’re describing about your the water that we’re swimming in, and in our cities, I feel like so many of us adapt to this expectation that we shouldn’t be stressed, and we shouldn’t be just handling stress, and that it’s normal, and it’s part of modern life. And, you know, we don’t really realize, wait, this is a huge impact on your health. And stress causes inflammation, which leads to disease and health issues. And it’s been estimated that 75 to 90% of diseases are stress related. Yeah, which is crazy. Um, this has a huge impact on all of us and what’s going on. So we’re not just talking about burnout mean, although that’s, you know, a big deal and legitimate and a health concern. But chronic long term stress can impact whether you develop heart disease, hypertension, depression, anxiety, diabetes, cancer, even autoimmune conditions. So because this is a huge deal, and it’s something that we really should not be embracing, as, again, a badge of honor, how stressed out and important we are. But trying to find, you know, recognizing that this has a detrimental impact on our physical body isn’t our mental health or physical health on how long we’re going to live the quality of that life. And, you know, recognizing we need to minimize the stress as best we can.

Lisa Lewis Miller  29:23  

Wow, I’m just sitting with that. Because as soon as I heard you talk through some of those different types of disease, an illness that are, are tied to stress. I don’t know about anybody else who’s listening, but my brain immediately went to who do I know? Who do I know who is suffering from one of these, one of these kinds of situations and illnesses right now, and not thinking about that from a judgmental way of like, Oh, they must not be handling their stress well, but thinking about it, just how prevalent it is. Like, wow, it’s not, obviously you’re not saying that if you just quit your job or you get rid of stress that you will manage to not get sick at all, and you’ll be the picture of perfect health, but just knowing that this is a risk factor that is attributed between 75 and 90%, of disease out there, and that everything that you name is so common. Right, it’s so all of those were things that people have heard of, right, you’re not talking about some sort of secret, one off odd, you know, unusual medical condition that only affects one in 100,000 people. These are really prevalent in our world.

Kelley Shields  30:45  

Absolutely. And yes, like none of us get, none of this is a Oh, judgment, condemnation, have you got this illness, you must have not managed your stress? Clearly not, we’re talking about risk factors, we’re talking about contributing factors. But what we generally talk about is, oh, live a healthy lifestyle, eat your vegetables, you should work out things like that. And, you know, we’re not talking about this culture that glorifies stress and being stressed out. Or conversely, that tells us that we don’t have any right to be stressed out. Because we’re not working all the time, we’re not in the super important job with the super high pressure situations or, you know, even that we’re not the single parent working three jobs just to put food on the table, which has its own, which has its own situation, um, and these things all really matter. And if you really want to get to the root cause, if you’re really concerned about your health and wellness, or even just the quality of this one precious life that you get, isn’t something that’s important to pay attention to you and be aware of debt. 

Lisa Lewis Miller  31:51  

Let me jump into say that if, if somebody’s listening to this, and you’re, you’re you’re feeling personally attacked, you’re feeling very seen by this of like, Well, okay, I didn’t realize this was stress. But I guess this is stress. I mean, Kelly, I think it brings up such an important question of, is it worth it? Is there a different way that you could be working that isn’t then putting yourself at risk for developing one of these kind of illnesses? So I’ll let you keep riffing here. But I just feel like that moment of introspection and reflection of does my life have to be this way? And would it be worth it? If this work stress ends up down the road contributing to my susceptibility for these other bigger physical health risk problems? That’s a really important question to be asking yourself.

Kelley Shields  32:44  

Exactly. And I think most of the point of this conversation is, you know, just increasing awareness of the different things that can lead to this kind of stress. And that it’s actually really matters, it really can have a big impact on your life. So you can ask those questions. And, you know, we spend so much time talking about things like, Oh, it’s about managing stress. And I love lots of these practices, I recommend them, I do them, but we talked about, um, you should practice gratitude, you should do yoga, you should meditate. They’re great. Everyone needs stress relief, we should all do those things. But you know, at some point, again, this kind of ties into the functional medicine question of, are we treating the symptoms, or we get into the underlying cause? It might be worth it to ask yourself the question of Wait a second, am I you know, it’s, you know, trying to hold on to this particular lifestyle, particular job, this particular career, and this undermining all those efforts? Is this actually really contributing in my situation to what’s going on with my health? Or even just creating a risk factor or risk that? Is that really worth it to me and just evaluating Wait a second, this is this external factor that, you know, it’s continuing to contribute to this problem? Maybe I need to like address that, not just try to manage the stress that it’s causing?

Lisa Lewis Miller  34:06  

Yeah, absolutely. I feel like gratitude, journaling, and yoga and meditation and going for walks in the sunshine are all wonderful, important things that we should all be integrating into our lives no matter what. But it’s really important to be self aware. And notice, if you’re using it as a band aid of crap is terrible in your current job, and you’re just trying to use this as like a band aid triage. Or if it’s actually serving the purpose in your life of just adding to your sense of holistic well being, and health and richness in a different way. That that self awareness and the discernment of Am I just avoiding dealing with the bigger problem through these things? Or are these things genuinely adding some additional richness and health and happiness into my life in a way that’s independent of and not affected by my job? is really important.

Kelley Shields  35:01  

Exactly. So much of this comes down to that process of self awareness and self discernment and realizing what’s going on in your particular life in your particular situation. And yet the band aid analogy is the right one here, it’s, you know, wait a second, am I just trying to Am I just tried to keep powering through the situation that I’m really unhappy in, and that I really hate is really terrible. And am I just using these tools? I’m scared to deal with it. Or I don’t want to deal with that, or I don’t know how to deal with that. Or, I mean, yeah, am I am I using these tools to improve my life and to deal with just you know, modern, modern life has a lot of stuff that we have to deal with every single day. And, you know, all of us meet these things. And now I want to go for a walk in the sunshine now that you brought that one up.

Lisa Lewis Miller  35:49  

I hope all of our listeners go and do that at some point today. It’s funny, as I’m hearing you talk about this, I’m not that much of a Monty Python fan. But I keep coming back to there’s this scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, where this knight is just getting attacked. And he talks about luck. It’s just a flesh wound, I’ll get better. Or, and and it’s, it’s that sense of cognitive dissonance and denial of like, hey, you’re, you’re bleeding out? Let’s take care of you. Let’s not put a bandaid on it. let’s address the underlying root cause. And, to that point, I’m curious if Kelly, if you were coaching somebody who was in this sense of deep stress, that doesn’t look like the sort of externalized stress we’ve talked about before in this conversation? What kind of tips or advice or support or encouragement would you give them? 

Kelley Shields  36:51  

Thanks. That’s a great lesson. And I never thought I would say this. But Monty Python is a great analogy here. So thanks for bringing it up. I think they’re the first thing I would want to talk to someone about is, you know, not to discount the impact that being unhappy at your job miserable at your job stressed at your job, that poor fit at your job could be having on you, and not to discount not to buy in to that cultural narrative, perhaps where you’re living that fishbowl water where you are that oh, this doesn’t look like this isn’t, this isn’t the same kind of stress, this isn’t as damaging or as important, like, it’s stress, and what let’s acknowledge that it’s important, and it has an impact. And then I would really encourage and help a client or a friend with some awareness practices. And just so often, in our society, we have been taught to just power through difficult situations, just suck up hard stuff, and just get done, get done what you need to get done. And we really praise that and view that as like, Oh, this is a superior way to be and live. And this is what you know, successful people do. And this is what you should do if you want to be a high performer. And that’s crap. Um, I think there are times when all of us, you know, not everything’s always easy, but all that’s doing is shutting down your feelings of shutting down your awareness of what is what’s going on in the situation. So I would, you know, invite the client or friend to be curious and really notice how they’re feeling through their work day, how they’re feeling at the end of the work day, when they didn’t have any energy when they leave or quit. When they leave work. What are they feeling? What are they? What are they doing at night? How are they feeling? How are their evenings going? How are their weekends going? Just really, how do they feel on Sundays? You know, as you get into Sunday afternoon and Sunday evening, you know, how are they feeling? Just really start paying attention to how you’re feeling at work, even like, keep a little notebook and jot down notes of it? Um, do you think there’s, there’s all sorts of different specific things you could do, but really, what it comes down to just being curious and really trying to tune in and sort of trying to tune out the discomfort. And then also, like, try to be again, another awareness tool, like so many of us, try to, like, think that there’s something wrong with us if we’re feeling stressed and unhappy. And, you know, instead, try to realize that, oh, wait a second.

Kelley Shields  39:31  

I’m feeling stressed and unhappy. Maybe that’s a signal that something’s wrong with this situation. And just being aware of that and trying to think of it in a new way. Maybe there is is just asking yourself the question, hmm, is there something wrong with the situation is there something about this situation that’s not working for me is the support career fit for me is the support job cut for me? You know, sometimes there are things that you can do within a job to make it better you make things better. But you know, sometimes you need to make a change. But you know, I’m like just starting to bring that awareness and that questioning and just really starting to pay attention and ask the questions about what’s going on in the situation. How am I reacting to the situation? And what’s the impact it’s having on me?

Lisa Lewis Miller  40:18  

Hmm, that awareness is so important. And for anybody who’s listening here, one of the reasons that I adore Kelly, and I’m so glad that she is a part of our team is because she’s able to take this beautiful, holistic approach to thinking about career. I mean, Kelly is just as good of a life coach, as she is as a career coach and being able to bridge the two with tactical practical options, like these awareness practices. It’s so beautiful, and it’s so helpful to start with these baby steps. Okay, what is feeling out of alignment? What’s out of whack? Without a saying what’s not right? Then start to reveal to yourself? How do I fix this? How do I make this better? Where do I go from here? So Kelly, I just, I broke the fourth wall there for a moment, I’ll come back to you here for a second just to say I’m so so glad that you’re equipping our listeners with easy to implement easy to execute observation practices, or you don’t have to fix everything at once. There’s nothing wrong with you. Let’s just start to notice what the factors are that are contributing to why you feel the way that you feel every day.

Kelley Shields  41:29  

Absolutely. And Thanks for pointing Yeah, I love that you brought brought up the Career Coach life coach bit because, you know, one of the things that is so important about our careers is that they’re not limited to our careers or careers or about, you know, that’s such a huge impact on our overall happiness and well being in our lives. Because we spend most of our waking time with work and work does a lot of great things for us. It enabled us to use our strengths and gifts and enables us to, you know, find purpose and meaning or to help people there’s there’s all sorts of benefits, and even simply just creating something, producing something, finishing something and being proud of the work you do. It’s something that feels really good and feeds us. And you know, when our careers or our work are, instead having a negative impact on our lives, and are causing us to drain our energy or causing us to, you know, want to just hold up and isolate on the couch with hours of Netflix and pints of Ben and Jerry’s, which I’m not knocking on occasion. But you know, like on an everyday basis, like if they’re getting the way of what, how we want to be living in our lives and thriving in our lives. It’s worth paying attention to and asking some questions about that just to start really getting some clarity and start understanding more about what’s going on. So you can make some choices for yourself and feel empowered to start thinking about what what do I want for my life? And what does that mean in terms of what I want for my career.

Lisa Lewis Miller  43:07  

Oh, I love that. What a perfect Mic drop moment for us to end today’s episode on. Kelly, thank you so much for coming on the Career Clarity Show as always. And for anybody who’s listening to this, who is thinking, I love Kelly’s energy, her vibe is incredible. This perspective totally resonates with me. If you’re interested in finding out more about working with Kelly as a coach, she is amazing. We are so proud to have her on the team. And you can check out the show notes for a link to both learn more about Kelly and her background and to apply to work with her if it feels like she could really support you in moving through your career mismatch and career misfit situation and stepping into a happier, healthier relationship with your work. So Kelly, thank you as always for coming on the show.

Kelley Shields  43:51  

Thanks, Lisa. It’s always great to be here.

Lisa Lewis Miller  44:00  

And that’s a wrap. Let us know what you thought about today’s episode. leave us a review on Apple podcasts. Because not only can your stars and words help us find great guests and topics to feature on future episodes. Your input also helps other people find the resources they need to discover the work that lights them up. And make sure to check out my book Career Clarity Show finally find the work that fits your values and lifestyle for the link to order it go to GetCareerClarity.com/book and don’t forget to get your other tools resources and helpful goodies at GetCareerClarity.com/podcast. Thanks again for joining us for the Career Clarity Show today. And remember, if you don’t love your work, we should talk because life is too short to be doing work that doesn’t light you up. Talk to you next time.