Own Your Work

A Gentle Approach To Disrupting Your Default Modes

• Sonja Holmes

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What if you could take control of the autopilot mode of your life? That's what we're diving into in today's episode. I share my personal journey of disrupting ingrained habits, those default modes that have been silently dictating the course of my life. Using a specially created journal, filled with insightful prompts, I've been able to identify and begin to alter these default habits. Change isn't easy, but acknowledging these habits and recognizing their impact on our lives is the first step. Join me in celebrating and accepting ourselves as we are now, while also acknowledging that change requires time and work.

Now, imagine viewing that same journey of self-discovery through the lens of love. That's the perspective we explore in the second half of this episode. Self-reflection is a powerful tool, but it's easy to get buried under the weight of change. Instead, we should approach this journey with love and observation, allowing us to view ourselves and our work in a new light. Using a set of 12 thought-provoking prompts, we begin to realize that we are more than just our work. We can take ownership of our work, without it consuming us. As we embark on this journey together, remember: You are more than your work, and you deserve to celebrate that.

Get the free default journal here: sonjaholmes.com/default 

https://www.sonjaholmes.com

Speaker 1:

Hey, friends, it's Sonia Holmes here and you're listening to the On your Work podcast, where I bring you some inspiration and some actionable steps to help you create your best work life. Yet Now, friends, if you listened to last week's episode, which was about disrupting our default modes, our default modes are those, you know, it's those tendencies and it's our second nature habits that we don't even think about. Right, and this episode is going to double tap on that. I feel like I want to just go back to that and talk about it a little bit more, because I feel like I left an important piece of the conversation out which is most important to me and it's something that I really want for you. So I wanted to double click on that episode for two reasons.

Speaker 1:

Number one, I'm kind of obsessed with you, and so I created a kind of like a journal. It is so cute too. I like it, I find it myself but I created a journal so that way you can actually go through some prompts to get you thinking about some of your you know maybe default habits. I cover a lot of different things in there. So, from like your digital habits, your first morning habits, some of your work habits, communication patterns. I mean we cover a lot in that and so I created that for you. It's a couple prompts and questions about 12 different prompts and questions to allow you to really go deeper into looking at and observing and noticing some of your habits. So that way you can start to determine if it's things that you want to keep, if it's things that you want to, you know, change or tweak a little bit. But I hope that that journal is really just a good starting point for you. It's not supposed to be the you know be. All in all, it really is something to get you thinking, to get your wheels turning and to really start thinking about your habits in a couple of different areas. So I hope it helps for you. You can get this at sonyahomescom forward slash default. Okay, go to sonyahomescom forward slash default to download your free journal. I think you'll find it fun and it's very easy to go through to. You can do it all in one day or you can do it over 12 days.

Speaker 1:

So, anyways, I wanted to again go back to that last episode because I want to number one, share that with you because I think it's going to allow us to go deeper in that conversation. But then number two is because I want to go a little deeper with you in that conversation and what I feel is probably one of the most, a couple of the most important elements that I didn't bring into last week's conversation. So I feel like we got to talk about it. Okay. Now one thing about me I am definitely someone who is going to encourage you to get outside of your comfort zone, to stretch yourself, to go after your goals. You know that's a lot of my conversations. I do it for myself and for others. However, I've learned to be for myself especially a very safe place and a loving place.

Speaker 1:

And on this journey of self discovery, of self learning and becoming a self aware, self actualizations at all, the self in right, self loving, self acceptance I've been just learning how to accept myself in the present and where I am today, and I think the reason why I really really wanted to dig back into this conversation because I don't want the conversation about disrupting default modes to be one of those other, you know, just messages that tells you to you know you got to change, you got to strive, you got to do this and you got to do that If you know anything about me and if you've listened to a lot of my episodes, I really do try to talk about being present and accepting yourself and really recognizing your progress and where you've come from and who you are Like. There's so much that we miss when we're striving to become that we miss the very thing that we are in the moment. So I wanted to just come back to that because when we are disrupting our default modes right, I kind of share some of my personal experience with you. I have some default habits that I do without thinking I share too, I think, with you. I shared about my, my yes mentality. Like I'm always, my default mode is to say yes. So I had to work to undo that and to be intentional about it. I think I also shared some other ones, probably about my boundaries, not having boundaries right, and then I shared this really, really one that was a big struggle for me, which is actually sharing my voice and being vocal and speaking up, and my default mode for a long time was to just be silent and the work that is taking me to shift so that I'm more vocal, in that my default noun becomes to share my perspective. So it's been a lot of self-work on that.

Speaker 1:

But with that being said, right, I want to acknowledge something, something that's very, very true right, these things don't happen overnight. It didn't happen for me overnight. And when you are going through, if you go through that journal, or when you start to think about your default modes, right, and some things that you want to change, I want you to know that, first of all, don't try to change everything all at once. Okay, all right, it's so tempting to look at all the things and then just want to say you know what I want to change, just about myself. I want to change that. I want to encourage you for everything that you think is a default mode and that you want to change. I want to encourage you to pause and actually celebrate that part of you, because here's the thing that, at least, I noticed about myself those things that you know, right now I'm realizing are things that I want to change or things that are no longer serving me.

Speaker 1:

I think I'll say it like that right Is neither good or bad, right. It's more so that in this particular season that I'm in, it's just no longer serving me, and I think we're so used to everything being either good or bad, past or fail, right. We've been conditioned that way from school. Like you, you know you hand in your work, you get a grade and they tell you what your grade is. It's past or fail or it's. You know a different grading system, but we're used to that kind of response, right, and there's that kind of feedback loop that we get. So it's only natural for us to even look at ourselves when we start looking at things that we want to change and label it or put in a box of. This is good. I want to keep this. This is bad, right.

Speaker 1:

But I want to encourage you that for every default mode or every habit that you feel is quote unquote bad, like it's not necessarily bad, like it's sometimes. Things just is, sometimes it just is. It's not good or bad, it just is. And a lot of times those default modes like, for example, the one that I shared with you, my default of saying yes to everything or my default of being silent sometimes is not necessarily a bad thing, right. So I want to encourage you that, as you start to look back at your default modes, I want to encourage you to look at it from a lens of. This isn't either good or bad, but I'm celebrating that part of me because y'all, the yes part of me, that yes mentality it actually did serve me very well for a season. So I want to challenge you to look at that, those parts of you right, those parts of you that maybe is no longer serving you, but realize that it did serve you in the season.

Speaker 1:

The yes mentality has helped me a lot in my career. It's helped me to stand out, it's helped me to I feel like just it really did help me a lot, right, and so for me to discount that as an all negative thing, it's not. It worked for me in a season. It served me very well. But I'm realizing that in order for me to get to where I want to go and creating the life that I envisioned for myself right, how I want to feel about myself, I'm in a completely new season. I have different expectations or different demands. I have a different capacity mental, emotionally and now that yes mentality saying yes to everything without thinking it does not serve me. It does not serve me the way that I want to show up. So that is why I'm choosing to work on that and instead of letting or allowing that to be my default, that's where I just pause and try to be intentional about the next steps that I want to take and that's all.

Speaker 1:

Disrupting really is like I want to disrupting it. It sounds very aggressive and it sounds like very, maybe even violent, right, but I wanna encourage you, like, when I say disrupt, I mean taking an intentional pause. I like to call it my power pause. I've talked about it before but my power pause is just like five or six seconds where I just gather my thoughts and I think about being intentional and I try to think about the action that I actually want to take, right, not the one that I'm used to taking, not the one that is expected of me, because in this place that I'm in now, I'm noticing that, like I have to challenge and I'm now rejecting a lot of the things that was quote unquote expected of. So For me, disrupting it looks like taking an intentional pause five to six seconds, right, and I think there's even science that backs up like the six seconds of a pause, like what it does in your brain, but taking that to pause and to think about my intentional action and think about what I want to do. So I wanted to call that out because y'all, change is freaking hard. Right, it is hard Because that's where disrupting it. I don't want that message to sound like you know, it's just so simple. All you got to do is just think about all the habits you want to change and then you just change it Like.

Speaker 1:

I want to acknowledge that it's so hard, you know, and a lot of times these are things that served us in one season of our life. A lot of times it was coping mechanisms or it was things that we used to cope for. These things that we use to survive, these habits, a lot of times are ingrained or even encoded in us, right? So I want to acknowledge that if there is a part of you and you realize that it's not serving you anymore and you do want to change it, it's. I want to acknowledge that it is. It is hard, right. I want to acknowledge that it does take real intention, it takes work. It's also very uncomfortable because, again, it's something you've been used to for so long. It's your normal way of you know behaving, of thinking and believing, of acting, of you know communicating, of all the different things. Right, it's what you've grown accustomed to. It's what you know. You've been sometimes even conditioned to do so I want to acknowledge that and I'm with you.

Speaker 1:

And trying to change, though, right, I already acknowledged that change is hard when we're trying to disrupt things. But trying to change when you are genuinely not ready is even harder, right. So I think it's something that you know. You can look at the things that you want to change habits, things like that but you really got to want to as well, okay, because it's already hard. Sorry, y'all, that was the dog, and y'all already know by now that my dog, he's in my office with me when I'm recording and anytime he hears a noise or something like that. So we just heard the kids and he had to, you know, make his presence known. So, anyways, anyways.

Speaker 1:

So back to what we were talking about. When you're trying to change, when you're not ready, that is even harder. And I want to just get back to what we were talking about, because I think if you're seeing all the things that you want to change about yourself, it can be demoralizing, it can feel defeating, and I really want for you right To, if you're thinking about, or if you are looking at some of the things and noticing some things that maybe is no longer serving you. I want to, number one, tell you to just notice and observe and reserve judgment. You know, reserve trying to say that this is a good or bad. Sometimes things just is and actually sometimes things were very good for you and maybe you know it helped you in a season and it's just no longer serving you. So look from it, from that lens and acknowledge that about yourself. You really need to acknowledge that, getting a lot of disruptions today.

Speaker 1:

So, anyway, friends, but what I wanted to just really say is that when it does come to it, I wanna encourage you to look from it as a lens of noticing and observing, reserving your judgment because it really did serve you at some point. So look from it from that, acknowledge it, celebrate it, accept it that part of you and then avoid trying to change everything all at once. Really, start in baby steps, maybe one thing at a time, and don't try to go at it all at once. Okay, I feel like I had a lot of disruptions today, y'all, but I really do want to ensure that when we are talking about changing behaviors and habits and things like that, I really do wanna come from a place of love, of self-acceptance and of grace and self-compassion, because I think sometimes that's missing from the conversation and I think that's probably the most important element, at least for me on this journey that I've been on self-acceptance and self-love and self-care and self-compassion and having grace for myself and acknowledge and celebrating parts of me even parts of me that I wanna change. Actually still loving and accepting and celebrating those parts of me has been for me, I think, just the biggest part of this whole journey, and I just wanna call that out and share that with you as well too, and I hope that for you as well, friends.

Speaker 1:

So I hope that you found this episode helpful. I hope that when you look at those things today or whenever, that you can look from that lens of love and that lens of just observing and noticing. Don't try to change it all at once. Friends, make sure you go to sonyahomescom for slash default to get those prompts that I created for you. I think you are going to enjoy it. I love going deeper in just knowing myself and discovering myself, so I think that those 12 prompts is really gonna help you on your journey as well too. And until next time, friends, just remember there's so much more to you than the work that you do Own your work, don't let work own you. Until next time, friends, bye.