Ep 8: Less Stress, More Success at Work for Introverts

Hello, my beautiful introvert friend. Welcome to episode number eight, where we are going to talk about work. Less stress and more success at work. How to be wildly successful. Why this topic? Well work is one of the places in our life where we feel a lot of stress and there are multiple reasons for this. Some of those reasons are specific to you as an introvert. So often people tell me that they feel anxiety at work, whether that is a being anxious around their communication and the way that they relate to their colleagues. Or anxiety around how they're performing and whether their work is good enough. Or even sometimes anxiety that actually isn't coming from stress in that workplace, but it's memories and past experiences of when they were in a toxic situation and you bringing that into the present work situation. Stress also shows up as a lot of pressure. How often have you felt like you need to be perfect. You need to put in the extra hours so that you can make sure to get all of the details, have all of the references right. Make sure that everything is in place. So there's no way to question your work. And everyone who received it will love it. There might be pressure to be more like an extrovert. A lot of our values around work, reflect the glorification of the extrovert ideal. And so when we don't see ourselves matching up with that, that can create the stress because we are not extroverts. So sometimes that creates a, we are not enough inner dialogue. And every work has its culture. In the United States, for example, we have a certain culture or normification of the way that work should look. And the way that you should either as an employee or an independent worker or an entrepreneur, the way that you should be working and the amount of hours, how much overtime you're putting in, how productive you are. And it ends up creating expectations and a kind of system that isn't right for everybody, not everyone is going to thrive working a nine to five. Not everyone is going to thrive doing even brainstorming with a whole bunch of people and being judged for your performance. And especially if you are neurodivergent, if you experience ADHD or chronic anxiety or depression, what you need to thrive at work is very different than someone who is at the top of their extrovert, type A a game. One isn't better than the other. But often we receive messages that one IS better than the other, and that creates a lot of stress. But this is not just the way work is. There's actually a lot that you can do about it. So if you're not happy at work, if you're feeling very stressed out at work, if you're not feeling wildly successful, this is an invitation for you to go on a journey to figure this out because. It's this very journey through the muck, through the stress, through the things that aren't working, where you will find what will work for you, as an introvert. This is a journey that you get to go on if you choose to take it. In this episode today, we are going to take a closer look at what makes work stressful specifically for introverts, what you can do about it, and I'm going to help you create your own definition of success and a strategy for it. A lot of what we're going to talk about today is based on my wildly successful at work for introverts strategy guide. This is a downloadable guide that will help you parse through what is happening in your life that's creating stress. What success means for you because you are definition will be different as an introvert, and the steps to create that success. You can download it on my website right now, if you want to have, as you listened to the podcast. And I will put it in the link to it in the show notes. And it's also, if you go to my website, there's a link at the very top. My website is heidijandel.com All right. Let's get started. What makes work stressful for introverts? I've already talked about some of the cultural expectations and pressures that you can feel. Along those same big picture lines. Our culture, our kind of world that we live in these days, our modern world, it is very, very stimulating and can be very dysregulating. In Ayurveda the traditional medicine from India, we say that it ha that our world is a Vata aggravating. It has a Vata imbalance, and this means that it tends to, to create more anxiety, overwhelm, worry, feelings of not being grounded. This excess stimulation has to be processed by your nervous system and your brain. So it's like just constantly feeding you things to process: information experiences. if you think about how much information you take in today as compared to someone just like you a hundred years ago you'll notice that we're asking ourselves, asking our systems to handle a much higher volume of information and I'm sure that there are some really interesting numbers out there, to compare. I don't have those right now, but I would imagine it, you know, is anywhere from a hundred or a thousand times more information that we process every day. Whatever it is. It's a lot. And in the workplace, if you work at an office, if you are an employee this can translate into being in a very busy environment, lots of people, lots of noise, lots of talking. There are often a lack of privacy and private spaces. Maybe you have a cubicle, but that doesn't really create a bubble that helps reduce stimulation to your nervous system. All of the over-scheduling and trying to get stuff done rushing around that creates agitation and stresses the system. And then trying to work in a way that doesn't work that well for you, like extrovert methods of being very assertive and talkative and engaging all of the time create stress for someone who doesn't operate that way without really needing a lot of energy behind it. That said we are not doomed to being anxious and stressed and overwhelmed because of our environment. You don't necessarily need to change the environment around you to change the effect that it has on you. Using self care practices, managing your time in a way that works for you instead of against you, creating strategies to get your work done, that play on your best characteristics and reduce the ways of working that drain you. There's quite a lot that you can do within your existing work to change your experience of it. And in the future, I'll do a podcast episode about that. So the next thing that makes work stressful is introvert's tendency to overthink alright, this is one of our best characteristics, our ability to analyze and think deeply and really reflect and understanda problem or the solution. But when we combine that with worry and doubt, often we can spend a huge amount of time overthinking our communication, conversation that we had with our boss and we're afterwards, we spend hours and hours mulling it over. What you should have said, talking to your partners, to your colleagues. Not only does that keep stress happening in your body, but it distracts you from doing your other work. It distracts you from being focused and fully present and engaging, and maybe even loving the work that you do. This often shows up as perfectionism. Of this intense analysis and detailedness to get things just right. Perfectionism is when the details that you are perfecting often really have very little impact on the overall project. So you spend quite a lot of time doing something that has very little return. And another side to this is being overly concerned with what other people think of what you say, how you communicate. How you work or a project that you did. And, you know, this is happening if you spend a lot of time imagining what they're going to say. And then you work to try to get them to say good things about you, right. You try to do your work to a level where no one will perceive a mistake. And that helps you feel good about yourself. So all of this ties into your own self-worth with in your job. When self doubt is showing up in your work, it'll often drive this overthinking perfectionism and people pleasing. Because you are trying to get things just right, so that you can feel good about your work. You've made your self-worth around your work, dependent upon how people are perceiving you in their opinions in the moment. And of course, that depends on whether they're having a good day or not. So you've really ended up placing the control over, over how you feel into the hands of everyone else around you. And that is disempowering. And that feels crappy, right? That is disempowering. And yet that is how so many of us learn how to work. This is definitely how I did it in my first business for over a decade. And I worked myself to the ground. It created a lot of resentment and burnout. Not just because I was overworking, but because I wasn't taking care of myself. And that's the other side of being stressed out at work is oftentimes the way that we handle it is that we tend to like go home and veg on the couch or we overwork, we work, work, work until we're exhausted. And then we have some wine or eat a bunch of cookies and then have trouble sleeping and then have trouble waking up, drink a bunch of coffee and then push through work again. And we create the wind up creating these unhealthy cycles that make work, feel like a drag. So if you're experiencing stress at work, if you're relating to any of this. The first thing is to hold yourself and your experience. Close your eyes, put your hands on your belly and your heart and say. Wow. This is hard. I see that you are struggling. Give yourself space to acknowledge this struggle. It's O K to be where you're at. It doesn't mean that you have done anything wrong. It doesn't mean you're in the wrong job. It just means that some of the things that you are doing, aren't working for you. And they might've worked before. It might've been great before, but as time goes on, you change. And the job changes the world changes, and it's only natural that the way you do things should adjust. And oftentimes you don't realize that until you feel stress. Stress is a sign that is blinking. It's like pay attention here. I need attention. I need love. When you give me love, you will create more of what you want. Work, it can be a means to an end. And that is amazing. That is wonderful. But work can also be an expression of who you are. It can be a place where you get to practice being the most elevated version of yourself, of being empowered and kind, and being your full self, listening to who you are as an introvert and advocating for yourself. Discovering what you need to thrive. Discovering how you're different and amazing. And building the way you work around that and letting other people know this is how I work best. So if you're feeling stressed at work and you want to feel wildly successful. What can you do about it? Well, the first thing is, is to lovingly question the status quo. And this starts internally. It starts with lovingly questioning the thoughts and opinions that you have and the feelings that you have. Because initially before you question it, you'll say things like my job is stressing me out. Like my job is making me stressed. In a statement like that, it indicates that you have no control over the situation. If you feeling self doubt, if you find that you are. If you find that you engage in perfectionism and people pleasing so, so common as sensitive introvert. Notice that question that why might I do that? Why might I care so much about what someone thinks of this email and the way that I phrase the sentence? Why do I think that is so important? Where does this concern come from? What is the impact of it? So often when we take a step back, we see that how we're showing up in work is patterns that we have, have had for a long time in our lives. And we have actually brought them into the work place, whether that is as an employee or as an entrepreneur, and we interpret everything from that lens. But when you can see that at the root if you have a story, like I'm not good enough. That that will affect how you show up. It will make you worry about the emails about the conversations, about the quality of the project. And so you will overthink, you will overdue. You will, you will be loyal to the detriment of your own wellbeing. And when it's like this over time, it burns you out. It creates an experience that you do not love. Even if at one point you loved the work. But your work is never going to fulfill your not enoughness. You can try, you can work yourself into the ground. You can please every single person. But that will never make the not enoughness go away. It will never change your interior story about yourself. Only you can do that. And that is a work that you can do no matter what job you're in. So why not do it now? When you learn how to care for yourself, whether it's your self worth, your self care, whatever you are seeing as your tendency when you spend the time to heal them then you tap into a greater sense of confidence and empowerment and self-worth. And when you feel that self-worth dent, then it's easier to ask things like, well, what do I need to thrive in work? What does my schedule need to look like? How many breaks do I need to have for how long? How long should I go on vacation? How much movement do I need? How much do I need to be in the office? What days work best for meetings? How can I support myself to do extrovert activities like present or pitch and afterwards take care of myself? As you answer those questions for yourself, then you can start creating the systems around you that support that. And if you are your own boss, it's a little bit easier, but even when you work for somebody, you can advocate for what you need. We are in a time in the world where people are listening, employers, aren't listening, use it, use your power to influence the workplace. Notice what your workplace is communicating to you about the values and expectations of work. Has anything been explicitly communicated? Like you need to work from eight to eight with a half an hour break. Right. Or has it been implied that you work from eight to five, but you see people working until eight most days and not taking a break? So noticing those things. And using your agency to advocate for what you want. Or to find a better fit for you to inform the changes that you need to make in where you work so that you can thrive because you're going to be working most of your life. You might as well try to create an experience that is going to not just be fulfilling on a professional level, but also support you as a whole human being. This doesn't have to be a big, like you against the man thing. It's just small communications because people around you are never going to know what you need, unless you tell them. Okay, let's talk about being wildly successful. And if you have your strategy guide, I've got mine right here. If you're joining on YouTube, you can see it. What this guide is, is a series of questions and we're going to just loosely go through them right now. That really helped you to determine what success means for you and how to translate that into your work. So the first step. Is to identify what success means. To you because we get messages about what success looks like right from the outside world. So that is very materialistic. That's having a lot of money and things, having power. Having influence, owning a building. But those might not be the things that make you happy. As an introvert, you might just want to feel calm and confident at work. You don't care about all the rest. You just want to have a place to belong. You want to work with people who love and understand you. You want to have a place where you can express yourself the way that you naturally do and serve the greater mission. Maybe you want recognition, maybe you do want to present and speak publicly and experience that. No judgment on anything. Maybe you want the, Ferrari. It just is so important to take some time to separate out our cultures measures of success from your own. Because if you are working towards someone else's idea of success, you are never going to be happy. Success, maybe it is being calm and confident at work. If you achieve that, what is the impact? What is the impact of being your version of wildly successful on your work? On your family? On your relationships, your dreams? What is the impact? Today. In one year, five year, 10 years? How different could your life be? If you are living your version of wild success. And then from there, when you feel wildly successful, use your amazing imagination. Like, what do you believe about yourself? What is different? You might believe I have something valuable to say. I know how to support myself to do my best work. I make courageous choices. I'm a leader in my industry in my own introvert way. I love my work. So those are our mindset. Those thoughts and ways of thinking. You can key into them now. And imagine if you thought that, how would you feel. If you were wildly successful, would you feel confident, calm, secure? Connected. Would you feel a sense of belonging of contribution? Of ease of joy of peace. And then from that place, staying connected to those feelings. Think about what you would need to do to create that vision of being wildly successful. Maybe you would need to learn how to feel less anxious. So that might look like. Taking yoga classes. Meditating daily, working with a coach. Taking a course taking a, an annual retreat. Maybe speaking is part of your vision of success. So then you would need to read books on speaking for introverts work with a coach, a voice coach. You would need to write a speech and then pitch it out. Or maybe right now you're so burned out that you can't think about any of that. So your first step would be to get out of burnout. And that might be take a sabbatical. It might be learn how to work differently. It might be get on some medication to support your ADHD. Don't hold back here, go wild or, or keep it big picture, whatever feels fun and inspiring. So your answers to these questions, to the strategy guide, use them every day or at least every week to help you plan what you're doing, help you plan your schedule, help you make decisions about what you want to devote your resources and time to. When you have a guide like this it's so, so helpful in informing not just the action steps, but the feelings and the way of thinking that you can cultivate to create what you desire, to create that vision of being wildly successful for you. This kind of work it doesn't really happen in less. We choose to do it. Unless we choose to get in the driver's seat of our own lives. Of our own feelings of our own time. And you really have so much. Ability to influence the way that you think and feel and what you create for yourself. All right. So if you haven't gotten this guide, please go to my website, download it, do it. And if you listen to this podcast episode before May 16th, you can sign up for a free workshop where we're going to do this together. We're going to go through each of these questions together. You can ask questions. You can get coaching and really we'll just be in a space where you can do it. Often that we print out a PDF and then we don't actually follow, like do it all. And then you don't experience the benefits. I want you to experience the benefits. I want you to be wildly successful at work. So sign up for that call. I will also leave the link for that in the show notes. Thank you for tuning in take care friends, and I will see you next time.