External Expectations is just one of the common obstacles that women face that holds us from creating a life that we love. In this episode, I am sharing the different types of external expectations that may be standing in your way.
I'm also sharing with you seven tips on how you can over come those external expectations. Be sure to listen in as I fully explain each of these expectations, as well as, learn 7 new ways to overcome them. 1. Societal Norms 2. Family Obligations 3. Career Expectations 4. Peer Pressure-yup that's still a thing at midlife
Want to know more about Empowering Women: Coffee & Connections? Join us virtually May 8th, click here to register. Join the Facebook Group
External Expectations is just one of the common obstacles that women face that holds us from creating a life that we love. In this episode, I am sharing the different types of external expectations that may be standing in your way.
I'm also sharing with you seven tips on how you can over come those external expectations. Be sure to listen in as I fully explain each of these expectations, as well as, learn 7 new ways to overcome them. 1. Societal Norms 2. Family Obligations 3. Career Expectations 4. Peer Pressure-yup that's still a thing at midlife
Want to know more about Empowering Women: Coffee & Connections? Join us virtually May 8th, click here to register. Join the Facebook Group
Thanks for listening. Follow me in Facebook and Instagram.
Speaker 1:
Hi, I am Christy Ballard-Fellaini. I am a certified life coach who found herself at 42, freshly divorced kids off to college, and having never dated in my adult life, I was starting in the middle. If you haven't yet hit start on your middle time in life, let's do it together. Let the journey begin. Hello, my friend, and welcome back to the podcast If this is your first time joining in. I am Christy Fellaini and I am a certified life coach.
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I absolutely love helping women to stop just existing in their lives. I love being able to, and having the knowledge and the skills to help them to make powerful decisions in their lives around any sort of lifestyle changes that they're going through, whether it be that they are going through empty nest, maybe they are going through a divorce after having been married for several years, or maybe they find themselves in a career change, maybe it's that they are no longer loving or feeling the joy and fulfillment from their current career. I also enjoy helping them make powerful decisions around the connections that they want to see inside their relationship, and we do all of this while simultaneously rediscovering the joy that they want to have in their lives. So if this sounds like you, or if this is someone that you know, someone that you love. Please share this podcast with them, because they will find themselves in amazing community. So I have a question for you today. I want to know have you ever considered yourself to be the creative type? Some may say yes and some may say no, because we often think about the creative types being people who are artistic, making things with paints, with crafts, maybe with their own hands, but the real truth is that we are all creative human beings. We are constantly creating in our lives by the decisions we make. So the way that you live your life, you create it. The home you live in, you create it. Your family and the family dynamics especially if you are a mom, you had a hand in creating your relationships. You create. You are actually a creator, even if you have never thought of yourself as being creative. So, even when you hold yourself back from doing, from achieving something that you actually want in your life, you are the one that is creating that resistance. You are actually creating, not having it.
Speaker 1:
We often like to blame our circumstances as to why we aren't creating, or maybe we blame other people in our lives, how they are or aren't showing up as to why we aren't creating what it is we want, but ultimately, it is you that has the power to create what you want, y'all. I firmly believe that if God has placed something on your heart, he truly means for you to go for it, especially if it's something that you just can't seem to shake the thought of, for instance, if you dream of what life would be like once you've accomplished that. I firmly believe that that is something that God has placed on your heart as something that he wants you to pursue and he wants to go after, and what he really really wants is for you to include him as a co-creator. He wants you to do this in co-creation with him. So over the last couple of weeks, you've heard me talk a lot about belief in yourself and creating new beliefs about yourself. So today, what I want to focus on is how external expectations can play a role in keeping us from creating the fulfillment and from creating the joy that we want in our lives. All right, are you ready for it?
Speaker 1:
So, when we think about external expectations, this actually could be the pressure that we feel to prioritize the needs of others, the needs and desires of everyone else in our life, whether it's societal expectations, whether it's family expectations, maybe it's cultural norms. Expectations, maybe it's cultural norms. These are the external pressures that make it challenging for us women to prioritize our own happiness and fulfillment. So I first want to talk to you about what some of those external expectations might be. All right, so maybe it's a societal norm. Okay, society often imposes certain expectation on women based off of age, off of gender, off of all sorts of demographics. There may be societal norms dictating how we should dress, how we should behave, how we should prioritize our time, and all of these can create pressures to have us to conform rather than to pursue our own desires and goals.
Speaker 1:
Now, when I thought about this societal norm, I thought about this lady that I follow on Facebook, and both her and I are runners and she is a few years older than me, but what I love about watching her and her posts is that at every single one, at the end of every single one of her posts, she always mentions the fact that she is 59 and fine and she is doing life at her own pace. So when I think about these societal norms and how we sometimes allow them to hold us back, I think about her and I think about how she is running her life at her own pace. So another external expectation that may be keeping us from creating the life that we want is these self-imposed family obligations. Okay, where we feel like we are obligated to prioritize the needs and wants of our family members, that we feel like we are still in support of our children even after they have left the nest. Maybe it's that you are supporting aging parents, or maybe it is that you are the one who has always managed the household responsibilities, and if this is you, I know that this can consume your time, consume your energy, and it often leaves you feeling like there is a little room for personal desires and for personal self-care.
Speaker 1:
Another trap that we get into when we think about external expectations is that maybe it is your career expectations, maybe it is that you are still in the workplace, and maybe it is that you feel pressure to prove yourself or to conform to traditional career paths, even when those paths don't align with what it is that you are actually interested in and what it is that you actually aspire to. Now, a lot of the clients that I work with this is where they find themselves trying to meet external expectations Oftentimes the women that I am working with find themselves in a position where they have to work in order to maintain their livelihood. They are still out in the workforce in order to maintain their livelihood, and some of the things that we have talked about is how they feel like they are unable to keep up with the pace in which their CFOs, their CEOs, are trying to keep them at, and so this is definitely one of those career expectations that can have us feeling like our career is no longer in alignment with what it is that we are actually interested in and what we actually want to be creating for ourselves in our lives, and so when I work with women like this, I teach them how to manage their own thinking around the expectations that are being presented to them. This next one is a fun one, because we often think about peer pressure as being something that we have surely overcome if we are living in midlife, if we are 45 and above, but it actually can be an external expectation that we are still participating in and that we are still dealing with. In fact, I just dealt with this peer pressure earlier this week, where a woman in one of my circles had imposed her opinion on something that I was doing and actually tried to impose it as being a fact, and so the way that I navigated that scenario is that I said that may be true, but, that may be true, but, and the but was followed up with what felt in alignment with what I was trying to create. That but came as what felt good to me in the overall goal that I was trying to accomplish.
Speaker 1:
And so peer pressure at midlife can look like the pressure from friends, from colleagues or social circles to conform to certain standards or certain lifestyles. This can include pressure to maintain a certain appearance, achieve specific milestones by a certain age, or adhere to societal norms around success and happiness. So, just to kind of bring it all around, the external expectations that I brought to you today, we're talking about social norms, we're talking about family obligations, we're talking about career expectations and, yes, even peer pressure at midlife. So all of these external expectations can still keep us from creating a life that feels in alignment with the joy that we actually want to be creating in our lives, and so, of course, it can make the thought of making powerful decisions around the lifestyle changes that we're going through feel very hard. Of course, succumbing to external expectations can make creating strong, loving relationships in our life feel very hard and, of course, succumbing to external expectations can definitely steal the joy that we were actually meant to have at this point in our lives. So today, my gift to you is seven things that you can do to start rethinking these external expectations and to start overcoming these external expectations. All right, you ready? Hopefully you grabbed a piece of paper and a pen. If not, if you're driving, tune back into this one and make sure that you get all seven, okay.
Speaker 1:
So, number one define your priorities. Take some time to sit down and write out what truly matters to you and what it is that you want to prioritize in your life. You can do this by clarifying your values and goals, and doing this can help you to establish boundaries and start making decisions that align with your own desires rather than those external pressures, okay. Number two set boundaries. Learn how to say no to commitments, to obligations or expectations that don't serve your best interest or don't align with your priorities. Setting boundaries can help you to protect your time, protect your energy and your resources, allowing you to focus on what it is that truly matters to you.
Speaker 1:
Number three and I know that this is a hard I work with, but you have got to start to develop your voice. And number three is to communicate assertively, which means clearly communicate your needs, clearly communicate your preferences and yes your boundaries, whether it's family members, friends, colleagues, society at large. Practice using your voice and be assertive when there is resistance and pushback from others, because I promise you, as you are beginning to develop your voice, to set your boundaries and to define your priorities, other people are going to push back. Once you start creating something new for yourself, you may find that other people may want you to stay the same, but asserting and communicating assertively what it is that you truly want to create in your life is going to help you escape and overcome those external expectations. Okay, number four surround yourself with supportive people. Surround yourself with people who respect and support your goals, your values and your aspirations.
Speaker 1:
Seek out friends and mentors or communities that encourage you to be true to yourself, that encourage you to pursue your dreams, to be free from judgment and criticism. So if you are not already in my group on Facebook, empowering Women's, coffee and Connections, reach out now and join us today. That group is such an amazing community of supportive women who are ready to up-level their lives, who are ready to escape these external expectations to create joy and love and life that they want in their life. Also, once a month, I hold a in-person group called Empowering Women's Coffee and Connection. So if you are local in Corpus Christi, texas, please reach out to me so that I can get you the exact location. In fact, for the month of May, because of my foot surgery, we are meeting virtually. So if you would love to just come and meet with us virtually this one time so that you can get a feel for what we talk about inside the group and how we support each other, I would encourage you to register. We are meeting on May, the 8th, at 9 am, so hopefully this podcast gets to you before then. I'll also post a link inside the show notes if that is something that you feel like would help you to start asserting your voice, to surround yourself with supportive people, to start setting boundaries and start defining your priorities. All of these things help you to overcome those external expectations. Okay, so surround yourself with supportive people.
Speaker 1:
Number six this one is a big one Practice self care, prioritize self care, self-care, prioritize activities that nourish you physically, mentally and emotionally. Taking care of yourself can help you to build resilience, can help you to maintain your perspective of where it is that you want to go, can help you to navigate those external pressures even more effectively when you are feeling nurtured, when you are taking care of your physical and mental and emotional well-being. And then, number seven seek professional support. If external expectations are significantly impacting your well-being and your happiness, consider seeking the support from either a therapist, a counselor or a coach, because professional support can provide you with the guidance that you need, can help you see from a different perspective, it can help you with coping strategies to navigate challenging situations and empower you to live your life on your own terms. Okay, so again, real quick. Number one define your priorities. Number two set boundaries. Number three communicate assertively. Number four surround yourself with supportive people. Number five practice self-care.
Speaker 1:
Number seven seek professional support and, above all, get in a habit of celebrating your achievements. Celebrate all of your achievements, no matter how small, no matter how big. Acknowledge the progress that you are making towards living a life that is in alignment with who it is that you want to be during this season of your life, that is in alignment with the joy that you want to create for yourself that is in alignment with all of the things that you aspire to creating in your life at this time, celebrate all of your achievements. So, by implementing these tips and these strategies, you will gradually begin to overcome the external expectations that hold you back from creating the life that you actually want yourself, that hold you back from creating the life that you actually want yourself. What it actually does is to help you reclaim agency over your lives and allows you to pursue your passions, to fulfill your potential and to create a life that brings you joy and fulfillment. And what I hope to do is to encourage you to embrace your individuality, to pursue your passion and to assert your autonomy, to help you to break free from external pressures and to create a life that aligns with your authentic self.
Speaker 1:
If this is your mission as well, please make sure to share this podcast with other women that you can think of in your lives who need to hear this message. There are three different ways that you can support them. Share with them the podcast, share with them my Facebook group Encouraging Women, coffee and Connections, and have them follow me on my social media platforms. I am on Facebook. Also on Instagram. You can also connect with me through my website, also on Instagram. You can also connect with me through my website, christyfallainicoachingcom.
Speaker 1:
All of these I will put a link into the show notes for you to share out today, because I enjoy having you inside my community and I look forward to us together empowering other women to live a life that they are fully creating. So until next time, I will talk to you soon. Who is your life coach? I would love the opportunity to work with you as you are rediscovering the woman you were meant to be. Visit christyballardfelainicom for more information on how we can work together to ignite that passionate, enthusiastic woman who may have been tucked away for some time. Let's start in the middle together. Thank you.