145 - Love Your Work: 3 Simple Steps To Reconnect With Your Purpose

In this episode Charlotte Rooney shares 3 simple steps we can apply, to love our work and reconnect with our purpose.

Charlotte is an anti-burnout coach on a mission to make the world of work, work for us - not the other way round. 

She passionately believes that working for what you believe in should not burn you out. 

As a former humanitarian aid worker, ex-McKinsey strategy consultant and fresh from a fast scaling start up, she now runs her own evidence based coaching business, helping purpose driven professionals to create the life work balance they want & deserve.

To learn more, please visit www.halfmanagedmind.com

In this episode we cover:

2:08        Love Your Work

3:49        Options

5:20        Workplace Best Friend

8:58        Approval

10:08     Chameleon

15:15     The Three R's

17:55     Biases

21:14     Values Audit

28:07     Strengths Based Theory

31:35     Strategy

35:31     Progress Over Perfection

Thanks so much for tuning in again this week. I appreciate you  🙂

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Special thanks to Charlotte Rooney for being on the show.

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Transcript

Intro  0:03  
Did you know that the key factor which makes it likely you or your people will burn out is when you don't feel safe, included and valued in your work environment? Hello, action taker. Welcome to Live Blissed Out a podcast where I have inspirational and informational conversations with business owners and subject matter experts to help you get the scoop on a variety of topics. Tired of hesitating or making decisions without having the big picture, want to be in the know than this is the place to go. I'm your host Marisa Houston, helping you achieve bliss through awareness and action. So let's get to it. In this episode, Charlotte Rooney shares three simple steps we can apply to love our work and reconnect with our purpose. Charlotte is an anti burnout coach on a mission to make the world of work work for us, not the other way around. She passionately believes that working for what you believe in should not burn you out. As a former humanitarian aid worker, ex McKinsey strategy consultant, and fresh from a fast scaling startup. She now runs her own evidence based coaching business, helping purpose driven professionals to create the life work balance they want and deserve. To learn more, please visit half managed mind.com. The information opinions and recommendations presented in this podcast are for general information only. And any reliance on the information provided in this podcast is done at your own risk. This podcast should not be considered professional advice. 

Marisa Huston  1:28  
Charlotte, welcome to the show. 

Charlotte Rooney  1:31  
Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to be here. 

Marisa Huston  1:33  
Yeah, I'm excited to talk to you too, from across the pond because we are international. And I don't get a lot of international guests. But when I do I really enjoy having these conversations. I think that's one of the reasons why I love podcasting so much is it allows us to reach people from everywhere. Typically, we're so used to working with people within a certain radius. Being able to have these conversations with people from all over the world and obtain different perspectives is so exciting. Why don't you set the stage for us, Charlotte and tell our listeners, what we're going to be talking about today.

Charlotte Rooney  2:08  
I'd love to, we're going to be talking today about something that is one of my favorite things to talk about in the whole world and that is how to love your work. And fundamentally, that's because we spend so much of our lives at work, whether you are an entrepreneur, and you're working for yourself, or whether you're working for someone else, or maybe you're doing both, you're spending at least if you're full time you're spending like you know, 35-40 hours a week. That's at least half of your awake time every week that you are spending at work. And so, I believe that it's just so important for people to know how to love that. And I think what I'm seeing often is, particularly you know, we've seen with the pandemic, a lot of people have had a moment to kind of reconsider the role that they want work to have in their lives the way they want to relate to work. And a lot of people have taken a step back and gone, hang on a minute, this isn't what I want. I don't want this to continue in my life. But, they're not quite sure what to do after that. 

Marisa Huston  3:11  
I've talked to many people about this before. We live these robotic, very structured lives a lot of times. You know, we wake up in the morning, we have our systems in place. This is what we do every day. And we never experienced anything else. And so, your perspective is simply, this is how it is, this is how it's done. And then when you get a taste of something different, you broaden your horizons and you say, wow, there's a different option here. Is this better? Is it not? Like, where do I want to be? And I think that's where a lot of people are given the fact that they were put in that position, not necessarily voluntarily.

Charlotte Rooney  3:49  
Exactly. And it's sort of a bit of a double edged sword. Of course, the pandemic was terrible in many, many ways, but also provided suddenly, for a lot of us this opportunity to reflect from a different position and to ask ourselves these questions of going, well, wait a minute, there's an option that I didn't even think was on the table. I mean, for many of us, the idea that we would work from home or like give up commuting or work flexibly, these were just not even available to us before the pandemic and then suddenly the worlds work was turned on its head and a lot of people started to consider options for themselves that previously they would have just thought, oh, well, you know, I would never be able to do that. 

Marisa Huston  4:25  
You're so on point. Going back to what you said a moment ago, Charlotte. We do feel like we spend a lot of time outside of our families, you know?  Wspecially if you're working for somebody else, and you're going to that what you'd like to call nine to five job, where you get in the car and you drive 30 minutes to an hour and you get to your destination, you do the same thing coming back and you spent eight hours, sometimes 10 hours a day. And people need to have a feeling of enjoyment when they're doing that because if it becomes something that you dread, I think that personally it causes anxiety. You know, you go through a lot of different emotions, one of them is anger. Because you're like, why do I have to go through this? I know I have to put food on the table. But does it have to be so terrible? Like, I don't even want to go to the office, I don't want to work with these people, I don't want to do these things. And so it's really important, given the fact that we spend so much time doing that, that we enjoy it. 

Charlotte Rooney  5:20  
Couldn't agree more, you touched on a couple of points there that are really, really fundamental about, like finding that pleasure in work. One of them is definitely the people that you're working with. It's really fascinating that a recent study found that one of the best protective factors against feeling burned out at work is having a workplace best friend. So it's really, really important that you can find good people to work with. And the other one that I really wanted to dive into today is feeling like the work that you do is meaningful to you and has a purpose that works for you. 

Marisa Huston  5:53  
That is so true. And we are very strange creatures as humans, because we have different requirements from any other living being out there. I guess that was one of the things I wanted to ask you is why do you feel that people need to have that purpose and belonging in their lives? Why does it matter so much? Why can't we just say, it is. I'm here, and I'm doing this and this is enough? We're always seeking that. And I'm curious as to why that is? 

Charlotte Rooney  6:21  
Yeah, it's a really good question. So I think there's a couple of sort of separate things there. One of them is that it is a basic human need to feel a sense of belonging. And by that I mean, kind of belonging to a group that is bigger than us. And the prevailing theory that I tend to hear is usually based around evolutionary psychology. And the idea that humans are social creatures, we evolved from apes that live in big family groups, we then became, you know, hunter gatherers, we lived in tribes. And essentially, if you were not accepted by your tribe, then you were really at a pretty big risk of not surviving, because as a baby, as a small child, you need to be taken care of, you need someone to keep you warm to feed you. As you get older, if you get ill you need people to take care of you, if you are having your own children, you need people to take care of you. So we need that social structure around us to survive, and our brain was formed during this period. And our primitive brain, sort of the oldest part of our brain hasn't quite caught up to the fact that actually now if I'm by myself, I can get on delivery to get food. It still thinks if I'm by myself, I'm going to die, I'm going to starve, I need to be in part of this bigger group. And so I think that's where the sort of the sense of belonging comes from. The purpose piece is a bit interesting. So I think that is the one where we really do feel really quite separate, because we don't know whether or not chimpanzees sit around wondering about the purpose of their life, but it's definitely something that humans do. It gives us a connection to something greater than ourselves. So not only are we connected to a group, but we're also striving for a reason. And if you're doing something that you believe in something that's important to you, then when things get tough, that's like an extra well of resilience that you can draw on.

Marisa Huston  8:10  
And see, I never thought of either of those that way. So you're saying that from the belonging standpoint, it's really a survival mechanism that's built into us. And in today's world, we may not necessarily need it like we did back then. Or like a lot of other animals and creatures in the world need it. But at the same time, it's instinctual, it's there, because to your point, if you don't belong, then you tend to be shunned, and you don't have the support and the resources that you need to survive. But then from the purpose standpoint, it makes us very, very unique from that perspective. Because what is purpose in reality? It's really our perspective of what we feel we want to contribute and what matters to us, isn't it? But somebody else might think of our purpose as not really significant. 

Charlotte Rooney  8:58  
It definitely can be I mean, your purpose has to make sense to you. And because again, we're social creatures. And we're also brought up to be sociable, it's really, really common for us to want approval from people around us, even for things that we think are our purpose. Like, we want other people to agree that our purpose matters to them as well. But, if you can have the confidence in yourself that you know what, this matters to me, and that's enough, then that's a really helpful way of kind of separating a little bit the idea of, I want to belong, and I want a sense of purpose, but I also don't want to be 100% dependent, that, you know, everybody I meet is just like, oh my god, I also agree, that's the best thing. 

Marisa Huston  9:35  
Yeah, and I do think that that is where there is a little bit of a disconnect. Because when we want to belong, I feel like we're being who we aren't. There's a certain group of people for example that we want to connect with and even though we may not necessarily agree with them, we don't want to ruffle any feathers and we don't want to feel like we are the odd person out. So we turn into chamelions I guess, is the way I look at it? Where it's almost like you behave differently in certain groups, just so that you don't stand out as much and people like you more. 

Charlotte Rooney  10:08  
Definitely. And it's a very, very natural human behavior. So I think, on the one hand, it can feel unauthentic to us, and I can completely understand why somebody might not want to do that. On the other hand, it's a totally normal, instinctual human behavior to try to converge with the group that you're with. So if you are finding yourself doing that, don't beat yourself up too much. It's definitely something that we all do and it's something that we're taught to do. Even if you think back to just basically manners, everything you were taught was manners is all about not ruffling other people's feathers. So be kind to yourself, if you find yourself doing a little bit of chameleoning when you're when you're in groups, and maybe not speaking your complete, unvarnished truth in every single space. 

Marisa Huston  10:52  
You know, it's funny, I think that we forget that people think a lot. And when they're thinking, they may be doing things completely different from what's on their mind, simply because it's the right thing to do. And we do it a lot in, let's say, office environments. There's times when you're just like, frustrated, and you're like, I hate this thing. But you can't tell anyone that. So you just have to smile and go, we can do this team, we can get motivated to do this stuff. But inside you're thinking, why are we doing this? We've tried this before it doesn't work or what not. And so there's like this conflict between what's going through your mind versus the behavior that you're putting out into the world because you're concerned about what other people might think or say. 

Charlotte Rooney  11:32  
Definitely, we all do that. And I don't think it's always necessarily a bad thing. I think there is a lot to be said, for being considerate and professional in an office environment, I think where it can be difficult is when the drive to fit in, the drive to be polite or professional or whatever gets to the point where it is really stopping you from being yourself. And when you're starting to feel as though you can never express yourself fully. Because that's going to get in the way of you feeling like you belong to the group, because you're not really belonging, then, you're hiding yourself. It's a bit of a balance, you know, between authentically showing up as yourself and being able to really connect with people and maintaining some kind of politeness standards and not ruffling feathers that don't need to be ruffled. 

Marisa Huston  12:15  
Yeah, and I do think that it does tell you too who your closest friends are. Because we tend to open up to the people that we're very comfortable with. And that takes time. You build these connections and relationships with people and once they're deep enough and you feel safe enough, you can start to say things perhaps that you wouldn't say to somebody that you weren't comfortable with, because you feel safe. Like you know that they'll accept you for who you are because now your friends, you're really creating connections. Whereas, when we connect with people casually or online, you really don't know who you're dealing with. There's just so many variables, because you haven't developed a deeper relationship. 

Charlotte Rooney  12:54  
For sure. And that's where if you're in the workplace, and you are able to find someone like that, you know, that workplace best friend, that's where it can really help you to create that sense of relief and connection and belonging, rather than just feeling as though, you know, this is the place that I have to go to every day so that they pay me money so that I can afford my mortgage or my rent or my groceries, that kind of thing. 

Marisa Huston  13:15  
Yeah. And I also think it's more than just griping. Not just telling that person, well, this is how I really feel. And you're the only one who understands me. I find that a lot of the best friends that I have are the ones that will listen to my perspective, and then give me theirs. And I learn so much from that different perspective, because they give me a viewpoint that I didn't see. And then I go, wow, that's a great way to look at it. I never thought of that before. And a lot of times it solves things. We have this tendency to want to understand and when you don't understand based on your perspective, it's frustrating. 

Charlotte Rooney  13:47  
It is it's very frustrating. I mean, I know that some of your listeners are people who work for other people, and some of your listeners are entrepreneurs, potentially people who work by themselves. And so when you don't have that community around you of people who can help you to shift your perspective, or can help you to solve a problem that's come up for you. That can definitely be something which can really contribute to that feeling of burnt out or overwhelmed or frustrated with the work that you're doing. 

Marisa Huston  14:14  
Yeah, and isolation. You feel like nobody gets you, like you're the only one going through that experience. And we really need to know that other people are dealing with the same challenges and also learn from them. Because there's no point in reinventing the wheel. If you already know somebody who's been through it, and they tell you how they got through it, that's going to be so helpful. And that's why these communities and groups are really, really invaluable resources. I think.

Charlotte Rooney  14:39  
I agree. Very definitely true. 

Marisa Huston  14:41  
Now that we're talking about purpose, Charlotte, how do we then create this purpose? Because I hear about it a lot from people. They always say, I still haven't discovered my purpose. I don't understand what I'm doing. I feel like I get up every day and I just do the things I do because I took that degree and I wasn't really sure if that was even what I wanted, and now I'm even less sure. But now I'm here and I'm doing it. How do we find that path and purpose so that we feel like we're getting where we need to go and that we don't wake up one day old and regretful about the decisions that we made? 

Charlotte Rooney  15:15  
I'm so glad you asked. So when I'm working with people about this particular problem, which is really very specifically how to reconnect with your reason for doing what you're doing, I like to take them through three simple steps to get them there. Sometimes I refer to them as the three R's. I don't know if you had that same expression over in America but over here, they used to talk about education as being the three Rs, reading, riting and rithmetic, which of course, you know, writing is not an art and arithmetic is not an art either. 

Marisa Huston  15:44  
Yeah, easy to remember, right? 

Charlotte Rooney  15:46  
Exactly. But my three R's are a little bit different. Step one is just relief. And that is to say, you need to cut yourself a little bit of slack, if that's where you're at, if you don't know what your purpose is. Because the more we allow ourselves to become stressed and unmanaged stress and overwhelm, the less creative we become. It really shuts down your brain and gives you that tunnel vision, because of the stress that's happening. I mean, on a biological level, you're literally cutting off the prefrontal cortex, which is the part of your brain that is creative and problem solving. So the first thing you need to do is cut yourself a little bit of slack, be kind to yourself, just accept, this is where I'm at right now. I don't really know what I want, but I can figure it out. And the second step is kind of to review and reflect. When you're feeling a bit less stressed out about it, maybe you've taken a moment to look at all of the things that you're good at, you've stopped telling yourself what I should know by now, and started to just accept that maybe you don't, then take stock of like, what are you doing in your work? Or in your business? How are you spending your time? And I really like people to think here about what are their values? What are their passions? What are their strengths? What are you doing every week, or every month, which you really love? Where you're able to enjoy yourself fully, it's a bit challenging, but it's not too challenging, it excites you, it makes you feel good. And what are you spending your time doing that you don't enjoy? I mean, there's a couple of different ways that you can do that. A couple of exercises from positive psychology that I absolutely love. One is called the red and green light activities. And that is literally what you do is you go through your week and when you finish doing something, you give it a red light, if it left you drained, negative, not having a good time, and a green light if you're feeling happy and energized and joyful, or you enjoyed it or you love the challenge. Anything felt about it felt positive, you give it a green light. And if you're feeling negative at the end of it, you give it a red light. And at the end of the week, you can look back and see how much of your week is green. And how much of your week is red. 

Marisa Huston  17:52  
Oh, I love that. It makes it so simple. 

Charlotte Rooney  17:55  
It does. And it gives you one of my favorite things, which is some actual data. Because our brains have many, many biases. But two that are really, really strong in this particular area and really important to be aware of is you have a recency bias. So the most recent thing that you remember, will seem much more important and much stronger than something that's long ago. So if you finish your week on something that you don't enjoy, you're going to have the idea that you don't enjoy your work. And if you finish your work week on something that you do enjoy, you're far more likely to think, oh, that was a good week. And I really enjoyed it. 

Marisa Huston  18:31  
That is huge. Don't you notice when people try to bring attention to something, they'll do not so good things in the beginning, but then all of a sudden they switch gears and do something really nice at the end so that people remember that instead? I find that that happens quite a lot. 

Charlotte Rooney  18:47  
And it's because it works. 

Marisa Huston  18:48  
Yeah!

Charlotte Rooney  18:49  
The recency bias, which is really useful, because you can use it in that way as well, to shift your perspective on purpose. And the other bias that you have, which is a shame, but everyone has it is a negativity bias. And your brain is much, much better at remembering negative experiences than positive experiences. So by going through your week, and looking in real time, so to speak out what was positive and what was negative, you'll be able to look back and actually see really what that balance is like, rather than at the end of the week just thinking oh, that was a great week or that was a rubbish week. You'll be able to say, Oh, actually, I can really genuinely see that 50% of my time, I'm doing activities that I consider green and 50% of my time I'm doing red, or you know, maybe it's 10% or 90%, whatever it is. But at least you'll have the real facts. And from there, it's so much easier to make things better. 

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Marisa Huston  20:20  
It starts with awareness. Because if we have, like you said, our own biases, and we're looking at things from a certain lens, and we're not really documenting it, and putting some logic into it and saying, alright, well, this is exactly how much time I spent, these are the things I enjoyed, these are the things I didn't. If you're not truly aware, because you're coming at it from a more emotional standpoint, or a perspective that you really haven't analyzed or considered, then it definitely gives you, I like to call it a wrong reading. You know, you may assume that it was worse than it really was. 

Charlotte Rooney  20:52  
In fact, you are quite likely to do that. So yeah, it's so important to really get some facts in front of you. If looking at each activity, day by day or hour by hour feels like too much for you, the other way that's really good at figuring out where the gap is in your work is to do the very unsexy named values audit. 

Marisa Huston  21:13  
Oh, we love audits. 

Charlotte Rooney  21:14  
I know it sounds terrible, doesn't it. But actually, it's a really, really simple activity, I promise, Really focus on identifying your top three, definitely not more than five values, things that really are important to you. And that might be a love of learning, that might be your family that might be contributing to others, whatever it happens to be that you value, and take a piece of paper and write three columns on that piece of paper, if you're doing three or five columns, if you're doing five and put the value at the top. And then underneath you think back to your last week, and you write down all of the things that you've done in the last week, which support that value. So for example, if your value was family, you might think about what have you done in your life and your work that supports your family, and then you do it with the next one, and then you would do it with the next one. And then finally, you want another piece of paper where you're gonna write down all of the things that you've done, that don't align with any of those things that are most important to you. And it's a similar idea. You're going to look at that balance and you're going to ask yourself, Do I like that balance? Is that the way I want my life to look? And if the answer to that is yes, perfect. And if the answer to that is no, you've got that data to say, okay, I am seeing that I'm not giving as much attention in my life to this thing that matters to me. And that is almost certainly contributing to you feeling like you've lost your connection with your purpose or like something's a little bit off. 

Marisa Huston  22:38  
So simple, and yet very effective. Both these exercises you shared have to do with really taking a long, hard look at what it is that you want, and what you're actually doing and do they correlate. If there's a disconnect, then that tells you, okay, well, my family is important to me, but I never spend time with them. So what am I going to do to change that? 

Charlotte Rooney  23:00  
Precisely? 

Marisa Huston  23:01  
I do have a question that I just thought of, as you were explaining all this. I find that there are two messages that I've heard about doing what you love. And I'd love to get your perspective on it. Here's what I hear. I get some people saying, look, if you don't like doing something, just pass it on to somebody else. For example, if you hate math, and math is required to run your business, then hire somebody that can do those things for you so that you're not put in that position. But then I also hear a different perspective where they say, you need to then learn math. If you don't like it, you need to work harder and learn it so that you can be good at something that you need. Just focus on that thing and get better at it because all of us are capable of doing that. To me, the concern with that is maybe it's just something you've never been good at, you really don't enjoy and when you're pushing it, even though you get better, you still don't like it, then it's almost like being forced to take medicine for the rest of your life that you really don't want to take, kind of thing. So where do you think people should fall? Is it a balance between the two, where you still should learn a few things, but not necessarily feel like you have to take it over but just understand it enough? 

Charlotte Rooney  24:11  
It's a really good question. And I think the answer probably isn't simple and isn't the same for everybody. The first thing that comes to mind when you say that is whether or not you have the ability to outsource something that you don't like doing is often kind of depends on the means that you have available. And for some people, as an entrepreneur, when you're starting out, you might not be able to afford to pay someone to do all the things that you can't do. And so in the beginning, you might have to take that step of okay, let me figure out how to do it myself because right now, I just don't have the resources to be able to pay someone for that. I would tend to err towards the idea personally of if it's something that I really don't like, am not good at, I'm not enjoying learning about and if there's something else that is better for what I'm trying to achieve, better for my business goals that I could be doing, then it is worth really looking for the resources to try to find somebody else to do that. If you're working in a team, this can be really, really great. Because actually, if you get together with a team and have a conversation about, you know, what are you good at? What do you enjoy doing? What am I good at? What do I enjoy doing? Sometimes you can find like, really simple swaps of like, oh, wait, can you take this for me, and I'll take that for you. And then everybody's happy. 

Marisa Huston  25:26  
That applies even to your personal life. Let's say that you're married and your spouse likes to cook, but they don't like to prepare the meals. Like they don't like to do mise en place, cutting all the pieces, getting everything ready. And they're not even interested in keeping the kitchen clean. They just like cooking. And then the other person is the opposite. Hates cooking, but loves to do all the prep. So now you've got this perfect partnership where one person can worry about the one side and the other does the other and then it becomes a nice teamwork and everybody's happy. 

Charlotte Rooney  25:55  
That is the dream isn't?

Marisa Huston  25:56  
Yeah, right.

Charlotte Rooney  25:57  
You find that complementary personality and sort of set of tastes. It is true as well, though, that if you are going to outsource something, particularly in business, you know, if you're going to pay somebody else to do a job for you, I think it can be really helpful to have a basic understanding of what it is just so that you can be sure that the person that you're outsourcing is doing what you need to do. 

Marisa Huston  26:19  
Absolutely. 

Charlotte Rooney  26:20  
It's a bit of a tricky one. I just don't think there's necessarily always a right answer. But I do think that it kind of comes back to my first sort of step. Make sure you just be kind to yourself as you figure this out. And if you are having to learn something that you're not very good at, and you're really struggling, and you would much rather somebody else did that but that's just not available to you right now, that's okay, except that that's what's going on right now. Do your best. Don't beat yourself up by thinking, oh, I should be good at this. I mean, that's such a harmful thought process to think you know, I shouldn't be doing this better than I'm doing it. This should be different. I think it's Byron Katie, and I hope you will forgive me when I get this quote, not quite correct. But, she said something along the lines of..."When we argue with reality, we lose, but only 100% of the time."

Marisa Huston  27:06  
The reason I asked you that question, Charlotte is because that's basically our childhood. When you're going to school, they tell you, you have to know all this stuff. So, whether you're learning history, whether you're doing math or science, we have to learn the things that we really just struggle with from day one. And then we have this thing in the back of our minds going, I'm terrible. I'm not good enough. Because look, my classmate is really good in math and science and I don't like, it I never have. And so what's wrong with me? And so we're at a very early age programmed to say, you know what, I doesn't matter that I don't like it, I need to learn it, because that's what our teachers tell us in school. And so as adults, when, now we have the opportunity to say, listen, if I'm not good at that, I learned enough to get by and do what I need to do. But then eventually, I can reward myself by outsourcing it to an expert. It's kind of a paradigm shift, don't you think? Because we've been so programmed from a very early age to say, you shouldn't hand it out, you should just get better, you should improve in all areas. And that's kind of a tall order, I think.

Charlotte Rooney  28:07  
Oh, definitely, it absolutely is. And I think it's also something that outside of education, a lot of businesses and certainly a lot of kind of modern theories of really moving away from that so you get more of the kind of strength space theory, which would say, lean into what you're good at. I used to work for a management consulting firm and one of the things they used to say was, find out what you're good at. They would call it your spikes. So, if you are really great at the detail oriented accounting side of things, and you love it, then lean into it, do that. And you don't really like big picture strategic thinking, find someone else who does. Or if you're working with somebody else and you know, you love meeting new people, you love connecting with clients, and explaining and what you can do and how you can help them and seeing their vision but you really don't enjoy writing the proposal afterwards, then being able to kind of lean into what you're good at and find somebody else to fill in those gaps. It does overall, make everybody happier, because they're spending time doing the things that they're good at. But also it's going to make your business more efficient. I think that's sort of the third step. So once you've started by relieving the stress, stopping arguing with reality, then you've taken this time and the time to review reflect, gather some data, so you really can see, okay, what's actually going on here? Why am I feeling as though I don't love my work? What's the problem in inverted commas. Then the third step is to renew what you're doing and renew your focus on what works for you, and start putting those changes into practice. So focus on the work which lights you up and reduce as much as you can with whatever strategies that you have the work that doesn't. Maybe change your goals if you need to. If you're in your own business. Sometimes you have that facility to say hang on a minute, even my goals in my business don't really align with my value. Maybe I need to shift those goals. If you're working for someone else, you may not have as much flexibility to realign your goals. But it's worth potentially having those conversations if you can. 

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Charlotte Rooney  30:45  
I love the word renew. The reason I love that word is because a lot of people are adverse to change. Because essentially, when we're renewing we're changing. It's difficult to renew without actually incorporating new elements and the word new is in there. So, by definition, it means we are changing in some capacity. But when you say change, there's a negative connotation for people. They run away from it, because they're like, oh, this is gonna be hard. I gotta try something. And what if it doesn't work? And they go through all these mental notes in their head that stop them from moving forward. And that's a word I use a lot on the podcast, move forward. I'm not saying you have to take a leap, I'm saying you have to take a step. But you got to move. Because if you just stay stagnant and expect things to be different, that's not a realistic expectation, and you're never going to get to where you want to go. 

Yeah, one of the other things that I love to tell people when I'm working with them is...Hope is not a strategy. So just sitting there and thinking, well, I hope things change isn't gonna get you there. It doesn't have to be a radical change like you were just saying. You don't have to feel like you've ripped up everything that you've built before. But you do need to take that awareness, that step back, and really make a decision about what you're going to change and then renew your relationship with your work, renew the goals that you work towards. Think about how you can recommit to incorporating your values and things that matter to you into the work that you're doing. And it really will. You find so quickly by making these little shifts and these little changes, starting by being nice to yourself, not expecting things to just be different because you want them to be and then putting in these little teeny changes as you go. You'll find very, very quickly that you start to feel much more joy, much more excitement, much more engagement with what you're doing, because it is hitting those buttons for you. 

Marisa Huston  32:38  
Oh, absolutely. And I have no idea why people tend to make things more difficult. So if I said, you need to tidy up your house, it becomes this, oh, I got to do every room in the house. Well, why can't you start with one room, or even a drawer or a closet? It doesn't have to be that. But I think people just make things into bigger things and then they get discouraged because they're like, oh, that's too much of a task. You know, I'm looking outside the window right now and I'm looking at our tree, and the leaves are falling down. Well, the leaves don't fall down in one day. We go through a season, slowly, little leaves fall down until you get to the point where there are no more leaves. And the same thing happens in the spring. You don't just all of a sudden get leaves on the tree. They start to grow gradually. Life is like that. The universe shows us that everything happens gradually. And I just have no idea why us humans think we have to conquer the world overnight.

Charlotte Rooney  33:32  
It is not a helpful thought. There are people who have theories about why we do that. As you mentioned, change is hard. It requires you to do things that you've not done before. It's going to require maybe a little bit of discomfort. All this is new and feeling a bit nervous or just want to go back to doing the easy thing. You're not doing this on purpose. But like your subconscious brain is stopping you from feeling that discomfort and using all of that energy, because it really doesn't want you to do that is by making it massive. I'm saying rather than I could just start with one drawer. Oh, but you know, then there's this drawer and this drawer and then there's five drawers and then I have to do this and then oh, well, I may as well just not do that. You're gonna go sit on the couch.

Marisa Huston  34:10  
Yes, we all go through that and it's so rampant Charlotte. It's like I hear it all the time. You've heard the term analysis paralysis? 

Charlotte Rooney  34:18  
Of course. 

Marisa Huston  34:19  
That's really what it is. 

Charlotte Rooney  34:20  
Yeah. And I like to think about it as no one's perfect. We're not looking for 100% better tomorrow. But what about 1% better tomorrow, and 1% better the day after that and the day after that? And if you just think about like, over time that compounds into such a huge difference. But each little piece was a tiny little step that will take you there.

Marisa Huston  34:43  
Progress over perfection. And I think that's the other thing that stops us. I don't know why we think that everything has to be just right. I mean, I'm guilty of it too. I say to myself, well I'm gonna put this effort in here. I'm gonna give it my all and it's got to work out and then when he doesn't, we call it failure. I switched that now and I call it learning. And I laugh, and I go, oops, I just learned something really cool. Now, I'm not gonna do that again. Okay. And I just shift gears. But there was a time in my life and I'm sure many people who are listening right now are thinking the same thing. They're hard on themselves when things don't come out exactly as they expected. The reality is, it's part of the process, and you have to embrace that.

Charlotte Rooney  35:21  
You definitely do. I am sure there are people listening who resonate with that I know, I still find myself from time to time dropping back into that sort of learned behavior that yeah, if it's not 100%, perfect, then it's a failure, rather than looking at it as a learning. And also then that fear of like, well, if I don't think that I'm going to be able to do it perfectly, then I just won't do it. Because I'm too afraid of failing, because I know that then I'm going to be mean to myself in my head. So I just won't do it. And then I can't fail. And it really all starts in that first step that I was mentioning, it starts with learning to give yourself some relief, and learning to be kind to yourself, show that self compassion, so that you can kind of remove a little bit of that fear that you're feeling and know that, yeah, things aren't gonna work out perfectly sometimes. That is just genuinely, definitely going to happen. But at least I know that when that does happen, I'm not going to make it worse by telling myself that I'm a failure, that I should have known better that I should have done this. I know that I'm just going to take that more the view that you were taking that really compassionate. Oops, well, I guess I let something fun today. 

Marisa Huston  36:29  
Yeah, it's all a free learning experience, isn't it? I mean, that's life in general. Well, let's recap what we talked about. We're talking about the three simple steps to reconnect with your purpose. And you have three r's that you shared with our listeners, you talked about relief, give yourself some grace, you talked about reviewing and reflecting. So that's kind of analyzing where you're at where you want to go, what are some shifts you can make, and then finally, renewing, which, in essence, is change, but in a great way, because it's essentially saying, listen, I get to improve. I get to make things better. How do I want to make that happen? How do I visualize that? And then taking that action, taking those first steps to move ahead? How do you help your clients? When they come and want to connect with you and learn about what you do, what are some of the things you help them accomplish? 

Charlotte Rooney  37:23  
I work with people who have a series of different things that they're trying to overcome. Some people come to me and they are really on the verge of burnout. They're completely disconnected with their purpose in their work and beyond. They're exhausted, they're genuinely no longer finding any joy in anything at all. And I take them through those three steps so that they can bring themselves back from that brink. Be able to recover and refined their joy, whether it's, you know, in the job that they are in or sometimes finding a new job. Other people, it's more that they just don't love it anymore. They're still working for something that they believe in but somewhere along the way, they've lost the joy in that. And I help them then to uncover what is it that has changed in the way that you are thinking and relating to the work that you do, which means that you feel disconnected from the mission of the organization that you work for, whether that's your own organization, or someone else's. And we do that through a combination of positive psychology coaching, so those two the red light green light activity and the values audit, those are positive psychology exercises. I also do mindset coaching with people and that's a lot where that relief step comes in. And the final piece is a piece that sort of based in physiology and somatic experiencing, which is, how do you give yourself that comfort, when things get uncomfortable?  Because they do get uncomfortable when you're trying to change. It's absolutely going to happen. And so it's making sure that you feel really able to protect yourself able to soothe yourself so that you can gently try something new, feel a little bit stretched, feel a little bit uncomfortable, but then comfort yourself so that you feel excited to do it again, rather than afraid.

Marisa Huston  39:03  
Oh that is so helpful. How do they get a hold of you and learn more about the services that you offer? 

Charlotte Rooney  39:09  
The easiest way to find me is on LinkedIn. My profile is Charlotte-Rooney-Coach. I am really active on that. You just send me a message on LinkedIn, I will come back to you pretty fast. You can also find me on my website, which is www.halfmanagedmind.com. You can find me on Instagram at I am Charlotte Rooney, but that's mostly going to be pictures of my cat. So it really depends on whether or not you want to look at that.

Marisa Huston  39:34  
That's still kind of fun! They get to know more about you on a personal level. 

Charlotte Rooney  39:39  
So true. 

Marisa Huston  39:40  
Thank you for taking time out of your busy day and share these things with us because I feel like so many people are hard on themselves Charlotte. They feel frustrated. They don't understand what's wrong, Something is just off and they don't know how to resolve it. It's nice to know that there are people like you who can help them and that there are steps that they can take to get out of that rut, so to speak, so that they feel like they're going back to the purpose and belonging that they're seeking. 

Charlotte Rooney  40:07  
Absolutely. The important thing to remember if you are feeling like that is you are not alone. This happens to all of us at some point. And it really is something that you have far more control over than you might think. You can get help, you can come to me, you can find a lot of things if you just want to with Google. But it's something you can change and it's not that hard, and it's so worth it. 

Marisa Huston  40:29  
Thank you so much, Charlotte. I appreciate it. 

Charlotte Rooney  40:32  
Thank you. This has been an absolute pleasure. 

Outro  40:34  
That's a wrap for this episode of Live Blissed Out. Thanks to Charlotte Rooney, for joining us, and thanks for listening. If you have a question or comment for a future episode, all you have to do is go to www.speakpipe.com/lbovm or click the link in the show notes to leave a brief audio message. If you find value in our show please visit www.liveblissedout.com to reach out subscribe and share on social media. This show is made possible through listeners like you. Thank you. So long for now and remember to keep moving forward!