Achieving Guilt-Free Success in Career and Relationships

Ever felt torn between the pursuit of a successful career and the nurturing of your relationships? We've all been there. On this episode of Unbound Ambitions, we tackle the burdensome feeling of guilt that often arises when juggling our professional aspirations and personal commitments.

We unpack the complexities surrounding three types of guilt - career-related, relationship-related, and personal-related. Together, we'll unravel how to manage workplace stress, set clear boundaries, and prevent burnout without compromising your relationships or career trajectory.

Get ready to find out the hidden reasons behind our actions and choices that often leave us feeling guilty. I guide you on a journey to find balance, prioritize self-care, and embrace imperfections.

So, tune in to Unbound Ambitions, and let's embark on this transformational journey together. Remember, you’re not alone on this path towards achieving guilt-free success.

Enjoy.

I want to invite you to a conversation with me. You can book your complimentary spot here.

Enjoy the Show?

• Don't miss an episode; follow on Spotify and subscribe via Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, or RSS.
• Leave me a review on Apple Podcasts.
• Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok.
  
  
  

Transcript

Penelope: 0:00

Welcome to Unbound Ambitions. My name is Pinelo Pimiglienidi and this is a podcast for success-driven women. I work with women who want to excel in their careers and relationships without struggle or sacrifice. I go to the heart of the problem and I'm not afraid to challenge my clients to face the truth. What I know about success and connection is that both require a new way of doing things. I coach Unbound Ambitions. Life doesn't have to be either or. When you change your perspective, your whole world will shift. It can happen easily, and this podcast is about helping you unbound yourself from limiting perspectives. Welcome to another episode of Unbound Ambitions.

Penelope: 1:06

Today I'm going to talk about guilt and how to navigate the personal and professional crossroads without having to experience guilt all the time. Co-cochanel once said guilt is perhaps the most painful companion of death, and for many that is indeed a heavy burden, and I would like to explore firstly what I call the why phenomenon of guilt. Why do we tend to feel so much guilt around the fact that we love what we do and we want to do it more, and at the same time, we want the time with our family, with our friends, with our man in our lives, and we feel so torn between the two worlds. If I have to guess, there might have been a moment in your life when you might have felt guilty, and this is what I would like to talk about today, to dive deeper today. So let's start by unpacking the guilt we feel, and there are three different kinds of guilt. There is guilt around career, career-related guilt, there is relationship-related guilt and personal-related guilt.

Penelope: 2:41

Let's start with career-related guilt first. This means that we feel guilty when we don't spend enough time at home. With our demanding roles often comes the inevitable requirement of working long hours, attending out-of-hours meetings or traveling frequently for business, and this often means that by being away from home and missing out on the everyday activities, we feel guilty. As a financial consultant, sarah often finds her days stretching into late nights. Anyone familiar with this. Even when she's home, her mind is preoccupied with work, making her feel as if she's physically present but mentally absent. She feels guilt about not being there for her children's bedtime stories or to share her day and learn about her partner's day, and this is when we don't spend enough time at home. Another form of guilt related to career is when we miss out on important family moments, the important moments in our family life, such as maybe birthdays, anniversaries, school events or even simple milestones like maybe our child's first step or our child's first word, because we are working. Jenna experienced this type of guilt missing out on important family moments. She missed her son's graduation ceremony because of a crucial court hearing and even though there was a victory at court, it was bittersweet victory because she felt the guilt for not witnessing her son's graduation, this huge milestone for her son.

Penelope: 4:56

Another form of guilt is the conflict of climbing a career ladder. We have the ambition to progress in our career and so often this ambition is often met with the challenge of making sacrifices and there is this internal war between personal aspirations and familiar duties and it can be a major source of guilt. And this was Rita. Rita wanted and she was aiming for a sweet position and often faced opportunities that will benefit her career. But there was this conflict with her family life and she felt torn between wanting to achieve her professional goals and the guilt of not prioritizing her family. And now the question becomes how do we change? Feeling guilty Because we love our career and we want more success, but we also want the family time, we want the joy, we want the connection with our partners.

Penelope: 6:14

There are many techniques that exist to manage workplace stress without allowing overwhelmed or burnout to arise, and I can share many tools and strategies with you, but let me give you a couple. One way is learning to delegate. Believe it or not, many of us, we don't delegate, and this is where we need to let go the fear of someone making a mistake or of someone making a project not as good as we would or a task not as good as we would have done it, and this comes down to becoming a better leader, but also to practicing delegation. Another way is breaking big projects into smaller tasks and creating smaller deadlines, and also ensuring that we take short breaks throughout the day to decompress. Now, if you find yourself experiencing chronic fatigue, irritability or reduced work performance, you might experience burnout. This is a sign of burnout, and this is where you never miss out on your regular checks or maybe taking a day off and, most importantly, start to setting boundaries.

Penelope: 7:54

The thing that you must remember is that you cannot puke from an empty cup. You cannot create from an empty cup. You will be more productive when you rest, and that's why boundaries are very important to ensure that you don't allow your work to continually intrude into your personal time. Nobody expects you to check your emails when you're not in the office, unless and this is big unless you gave them that impression and that right to demand it from you. It's very important to have a clear distinction between work mode and home mode, and that's why clear boundaries are so important.

Penelope: 8:47

But let me tell you this If you don't change your thinking and your beliefs on what is expected from you or what's your role as a woman, all the things I've mentioned before would mean nothing and they will bring no result. The techniques are the first layer. To change, you need to be willing to dig deeper, to go deeper and to understand what is the real cause of the problem that makes you take certain decisions. A good coach will help you find the root of the problem and will not stop on the first layer. A good coach will not sugarcoat you, but it will push you to look deeper until you see how your thoughts are causing the results you are experiencing right now. This is where true transformation happens. This is where insights and how moments happen. Now let's move on.

Penelope: 9:58

The second kind of guilt is relationship-related guilt. Here, on this kind of guilt, guilt takes the form of keeping the spark alive. What I mean by this? Juggling a demanding career and maintaining a romantic relationship, is not always straightforward. The time and energy that a career demands from us can sometimes mean less time for romantic dinners or spontaneous dates, or even intimate moments. Let's see Naomi's experience. Naomi is a tech entrepreneur and often finds that after a long day of meetings and decision-making, she is too exhausted for meaningful conversations or romantic gestures. She wants to, but has no energy left. Anyone been there, done that? I certainly did. What this does, though, is to lead Naomi to feel guilt about neglecting her partner's needs. Another form of guilt in this area of our relationship is ensuring quality time with our partner, and this comes down to not only to the quantity of time we spend together, but the quality. Quality is more important than the quantity.

Penelope: 11:36

If we are physically present but mentally elsewhere often leads to misunderstandings, even fights, because, believe it or not, our partners can sense what's going on. They can sense that we are physically there, but mentally elsewhere, and this is when guilt comes in, when you have a fight with your partner because you were there, but actually you weren't listening, and they start saying you don't care about me, you don't pay attention to me. Everything that matters is only your career, only how to excel, only the next project. This is when guilt comes in, and I felt this type of guilt many times when I am in a creative mode, especially when I'm working on delivering a workshop or creating a program for my clients. Sometimes I find myself struggling to leave my work behind when I am at home and I feel that I need to work during weekends or vacations because I want to finish and I want to refine it and I want to get it out there to the world. And I get so excited and all I want is to talk about it, to refine it, to think about it, to experience it, and I am distracted. And then I start feeling guilty because I'm not fully present with my partner and I am not the only one. From the conversations I have with my clients and my prospective clients, this is one of the common problems quality time with our partners. And lastly, under this kind of guilt, there is the challenge of not bringing work stress home. Many times, high responsibility roles come with high stress and it might become tricky to be able to manage the stress without letting it affect the home environment and the relationship with our partners. And the truth is that high stress affects our mood, which then affects our interaction with our partner, and this is when actually guilt surfaces.

Penelope: 13:57

Now let's see some ways to devote time to your relationship, and one way is to mark out time in your calendar for your partner and make it non-negotiable. Let me tell you a secret it's not about doing something grand. What matter is more consistent effort. In the middle of the day, send a short text saying hey, honey, I'm thinking about you and I love you. Two sentences and yet can make so much difference. At the end of the working day, have a check-in ritual. This is what I do with my husband. This means that you go on a short walk to catch up with each other's lives, with each other's day. Or you may want to sit together and catch up with a glass of wine and some nice music, with no phones present, because the minute the phone is on the table, you can see it. It distracts you. The possibilities are endless if you are willing to find ways.

Penelope: 15:08

Another way to keep the spark alive with my husband is to go away for a long weekend every three months. No kids and we have two, and they are both teenagers, but we choose to go on our own and we make plans for them either to stay at the grandparents or to stay with some friends, because this is time for just the two of us. We visit places we love, or we go to sparring treats. We do things that will bring us closer and it will help us get rid of the stress and the worries. How about you? What can you do? What would you love to do together? Maybe is to learn a new sport, like tennis. We are trying now to find someone to teach us tennis lessons. Or maybe you want to learn a new dance, or maybe you want to create a ritual of cooking your date night meal together. Whatever that is, it doesn't have to be a trip. It doesn't have to be a jump on a plane to go somewhere. What would you love to do? Or maybe is to revisit a place of significance for both of you when you first started dating, or it created something for you that's meaningful.

Penelope: 16:38

Think back. Don't fall to the trap of oh, I'm too busy. Just think what can you do. Think outside the box. Don't go to the logistics. Just think what would you like to do with your partner? Decide on something first and then sit together and find a way to make things possible.

Penelope: 17:01

One of my most favorite phrases is I don't know how, but I will figure it out. And the minute I say this, it opens up so many possibilities. It's like the mind opens up and it's like huh, okay, now I need to find other possible ways. I know that when both partners have demanding careers, it adds another layer of complexity to the relationship dynamics. I know I understand this, and this is where good and open communication is key have a shared calendar about work, commitments, potential trips and important events. But, most importantly, beyond the logistics, celebrate each other's achievements, cheer each other, say well done to each other, be happy for each other and offer a supportive ear when challenges surface. It's not just in the good times. What matters most, most of the times, is when things don't go as we plan them to go.

Penelope: 18:13

Lastly, let's explore personal guilt, with personal and professional responsibilities all day long, all year long. Self-care often takes the back set and this again might lead to guilt for not looking ourselves, looking after ourselves and our well-being. And the truth is, when we don't look after ourselves, our stress levels goes up, our cortisol levels goes up, and this is when our health deteriorates, either in the form of gaining weight, of lacking sleep, of burnout, of prolonged fatigue. There are long off things that can happen when we don't look after ourselves and we are so good at giving advice to other people and not following our own advice. I am guilty as charged on this, and so is Sophia. As a healthcare professional, she advises her patients about the importance of self-care, but struggles to find time for her wellness routines, which, as you may guess, leads to feelings of hypocrisy and guilt.

Penelope: 19:33

And then comes the pressure on having it all. On top of that, it comes the pressure of having it all, which means a successful career, a happy family, a personal and a personal fulfillment, and it can be so overwhelming. Falling short in any of these domains can trigger feelings of guilt. Claire is a good example of this. An artist, she feels guilty for not having a nine to five job with a steady income, and even though she's recognizing her field, she finds herself battling with the guilt of not fitting the conventional definition of having it all, because this is society's lesson to us. This is what society taught us we need to having it all to be successful. We must having it all and also personal guilt comes with the challenges of time management, finding time for work, family, self-care, hobbies and personal growth. I'm tired by even telling you these things. All this can be daunting, and they are. How many times have we wished we had more hours within the day?

Penelope: 20:56

And, as you can see, guilt as I have described it comes in so many forms, and I also already mentioned that you can try all the tools in the world and adopt many strategies, but unless you're willing to understand the real reason or reasons for taking actions the way you do and making the choices that you make, no change will be permanent. I've used many examples in this episode to show you how easy it is to fall into the trap of thinking there isn't any other way and I have to make the career sacrifice. Or I love so much my work that if it means to let go of my relationship so big, you don't have to struggle and certainly you don't have to sacrifice. All you need to do is to understand and then work out a plan to change these patterns. As we wrap up today's discussion, it's important to remember why guilt might be a universal emotion.

Penelope: 22:07

How we navigate it is deeply personal, whether you are a mid to senior level professional woman trying to scale the heights of your career, nourishing a long standing relationship or merely trying to find a moment of solace in your hectic schedule, remember that it's okay to seek balance, it's okay to prioritize self care and, most importantly, it's okay to be imperfect. Your journey is unique. Embrace it, learn from it and always strive to find your own equilibrium between personal aspirations and professional commitments. I hope the insights from today's episode and real life stories have offered you some guidance and solace Until next time. Remember you are not alone on this journey.

Penelope: 23:11

There are several myths and misconceptions that exist about women who want to have successful careers and maintain fulfilling and beautiful relationships, and this is what I love to do. I love to debunk these myths, to coach and guide women to a new way of thinking and doing. If you like more of this and if you like to learn more about my community, go to penelopem agoulianiti. com if you are interested in learning more about my work, I would like to invite you to a conversation. Go to penelopemagoulianiti. com/lets talk.