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Episode Description:

No matter how much we Type A+ people plan, sometimes life has other things in store for us. This week, on a more candid episode, Beth talks about her process for navigating uncertainty and moving forward when you can't necessarily see the destination in front of you. Whether you've just parted ways from a partner, "released your job," or your life has come to a crossroads, this is a great episode for you.

Links mentioned in the episode:

Podcast:

The Type A Plus Podcast Instagram

Host:

Beth Lawrence LinkedIn

Beth Lawrence & Company Instagram

Beth will be back each week, delivering bite-sized tips (15 minute episodes or less) on how to optimize your life and work.

Episode Transcript can be found below:

Hi everyone. Welcome back to the Type I Plus Podcast. This week I actually had different content planned and I had some unexpected things happen in my life, so I wanted to chat today about navigating uncertainty. It's part of the title of my ebook that I wrote during the pandemic. it's something I have had to do a lot as a millennial in the workplace, and frankly, it's something that all of us have had to do, especially in the last few years. Last week I decided to part ways with my full-time job. it was something, it was a place that I loved.

It was a place I had been working for a few years both on a client-contractor basis and full-time, and it just became not the right situation anymore. And though it was something that I initiated, it doesn't make it any easier and it doesn't make me any more certain as far as what the future holds.

So the first thing is to. Give yourself time and space to grieve and to mourn, whether that's the end of a relationship, the end of a friendship, the end of a business transaction, or something unexpected happening that changes the trajectory of your life in one way or another. Give yourself permission to feel all those uncomfortable feelings, to lay on the couch and not do anything, to cry, to scream, to grieve in whatever way makes sense for you.

Lean into the emotion of uncertainty and fear, and sometimes self-doubt. The second thing is trying to create time for yourself where you can express what you're feeling. So whether that's journaling, whether that's perhaps drawing a picture, whether that's writing, whether that's singing, music, whatever outlet you have, give yourself time to process those emotions and those feelings in a way that makes sense for you.

So giving yourself that time and space to process, giving yourself that time and space to grieve. I usually say at least give me, you know, over the weekend, maybe a four-day weekend to get over everything, to kind of see the sun through the clouds again, and then I come out of it. I typically journal.

I am someone who also, likes activity. I like to move my body. So that is a way that I honor myself during those times, I then clean my space. So this past Saturday, after this really hectic week, I took some time to clean my entire home. My husband was cleaning some things. I was cleaning some things, but it made me feel like I was wiping the slate clean and preparing for new and wonderful things to come into my life. I even actually said the place with Sage and played some cleansing music. It really made me feel better, especially during the full moon, the energy shifted for me.

The next thing is to try to use that fear as fuel. I remember my parents referencing something when I was young, feel the fear and go for it or feel the fear and do it anyway. And that is something that I really have taken with me throughout my life, especially when I have bouts of anxiety. I try to use that fear and that energy as momentum, I try to channel that energy into.

Something positive, one positive step, I always feel like I have to at least put one foot in front of the other toward a goal that comes with the notion of doing the thing that makes you afraid.

There was a time in my career when I told myself I am this year going to say yes, especially to things that terrify me. So anything that really makes me scared that makes me shake in my boots, so to speak, that I don't wanna do, I'm gonna say yes to that. And that was the year that I grew the most. It was the year that I built my personal brand more than I had probably ever before, and I think it really is just starting with that mindset.

I'm going to feel this. It's gonna be really uncomfortable. It's going to be terrible. It's going to move me internally in ways that I maybe am not have prepared for. But if I can harness that fear and use it as fuel to help me take that first step, that's where the magic happens, and that's where that resilience starts to build.

But if you don't give yourself that time to grieve and to mourn and to really process those feelings. A lot of the time, the situations that we find ourselves in that make us uncomfortable, keep coming up, They keep showing up in our lives to teach us a lesson, and until that lesson is learned, those types of situations will start to appear.

And that's that for this week. I hope that it helps you navigate through your own times of uncertainty. I hope it helps you find your voice and I hope that it helps you know that you are resilient and us Type A+ people like to be certain, we like to be in control of things, but the more that we let go, the more that we let be what should be.

The more we're going to grow and the more we're going to learn. And the more steps we can take toward that positive feature. I hope you have a great rest of your week.