Welcome to episode #218 of the Own Your Best Life Podcast. If you want a bigger life, you have to stop playing small. A bigger life can mean being paid well to do work you love. It can mean having time for people in your life. It can mean more confidence and less anxiety. It can mean going after the job, title and life that you’ve been thinking about but haven’t yet made the moves towards.

Today’s podcast on how to stop playing small will help you reclaim control of your time and impact.

In the last year or so, I’ve decided to really dig into this topic of playing small within my own life. As I saw that I was ending a cycle of figuring out how to get paid well to do the work I love while being able to spend time with those I love  – and reached a point where I trusted the results of that, I found that it was time for a different kind of growth. I had grown my capacity and the process of growing my capacity gave me space to do more.

There was so much I had done to constrain my work hours and time that it created so much more of a need for higher-level thinking. That translated. I got a promotion in my corporate role, doing the work I want to do where this kind of level and title didn’t exist anywhere else in the organization. I was seen as an expert. I grew my group coaching program and income. I increased my visibility everywhere. I was running ads online, volunteering more in my community, seeing my family and friends even more. Our family grew closer, our kids became more mentally resilient and trusting of us being there for them. My relationship with Jay has also gotten closer, more vulnerable and honest. I added Cross-Fit to my yoga and running routines, while doing more surfing.

Before I knew it, I had shattered any idea I was playing small. Looking back in hindsight, I can see what happened and why the question of an upper limit is a sign that you’re ready to bust through it yourself. 

I wanted to help you break down what is happening in your life when you’re at these places of feeling ready and energized for the next thing, but somehow still feel unclear or certain of what to do to actually translate that energy and desire into tangible results like more income, time or impact – bigger roles – in your outer life.

Professionals often hit these cycles of leaning into their work and life super-hard and then burning out. In the process of the push and drive, we have personal or professional setbacks. Perhaps we get sick or we have a personal crisis in our families. We might have been a high-potential rockstar on track for special programs and roles, but then hit a plateau in our career. There’s a desire to stand out but at the same time, it’s normal to want to play small if being visible and big somehow felt too much or that we couldn’t handle the new level.

We either wonder if we’ve hit some kind of invisible limit that we’re unaware of or we know what that limit is but we haven’t figured out yet, how to break through. This upper threshold confines us to the life we have wondering what is next for us but not yet confident that we’re going to make it to the other side of this threshold.

Should you go for the next position? Should you stay? Should you start something of your own? Why are other people compensated more than I am or doing bigger roles? These are the questions that keep coming up when you go onto LinkedIn, doing the comparison thing – feeling frustrated or demoralized as you learn about the promotion or job changes of peers. 

The reason for not wanting to play small is that you know that if you keep staying where you are today, there’s something you’re missing out on in your life. Financial security, income potential, time or your gifts not fully being used up while you’re here on this planet. For those achievers and professionals on a journey of growth and self-exploration, this feels like an early death. They don’t want to just go through the motions of life thinking that they’ve hit their limit. They’re not ready to call it quits. They know that something has to change because that’s when they reach out to me for a consultation or to talk through where they’re at – and they just need a little bit of understanding of how breaking through really works, to know that they can have it for themselves too.

My Spiritual Achiever® method is tailored for the person who wants to have some big step change in their life and isn’t afraid of doing the work. They’re highly capable even if they lack confidence. If they truly mine their past, they’ll find sparks of when they were at their best and believing that life had more to offer. They’ll see the times when they did the unexpected, whether it was in their personal life or professionally. They want to be a positive influence. If life had alternate and parallel universes, they’re ready to step over into that next version of their lives.

Here’s the 4 things you’ll want to focus on – that I work with my clients on – when they’re in their next phase of growth:

The first is Spirituality. Spirituality is their own personal understanding of what matters to them and why. This is a secular approach that is inclusive of your own motivations, preferences and strengths. A combination of both art and science, we dig deep to be more intentional about who you are and why. What are your superpowers, your zones of genius and how do we get you to be masterful no matter the level you are at today? This is about becoming extraordinary, exceptional and undeniable in your approach to life and who you are as a human being. Of having standards for yourself that other people don’t. Of living a life that is examined, questioned and minimizes the outside noise of everyone else’s opinions. Of opening your energy, frequency and vibration to more joy, love and acceptance.

When you do this, you become an n of 1. No one else is exactly the same and you may be copied but never duplicated. Your genius continues to flow from you because you own it. You have a personal brand, leadership style and it attracts people, opportunities and wealth to you.

The second focus area is Achievement. This includes visioning what we want 5 years from now, one year from now and what we focus on first. We dig into the ability for you to want what you want and to understand where your desires come from and how to trust your intuition. We use my Prioritization Process™ to clear up any confusion when making decisions on what to do next. When I was doing this work on myself, I found that the things that occurred this year were things I had set in motion 5 years ago and 1 year ago. Reminding me again of the power of not just dreaming but having a process for visioning that can truly set you up for tangible results, not wishful thinking.

This is often where we find ourselves with increased wealth. More money, energy, time and resources. More choices with how to spend those things. Higher quality of life and problems is a side effect of focusing on this area of Achievement.

The third area of focus is Earth Energy or Mind/Body. This is where we learn how to put things into motion and create a structure for our life and time that allows us to do more and better work. This is what opens up the pipeline for more work, results and life experiences to come through. We open up the capacity for you to not just handle a lot of stress but to alchemize it and transform it into something that drives you and fuels you endlessly. It’s burnout elimination and stress management taken to another level. This allows you to create your body of work, whether it is owning the title and legacy of your work at your organization or creating your own business or creative pursuit.

Then we have our fourth area of focus which is Harmony. We integrate all parts of our lives and ourselves into our next phase of growth so that we can enjoy the process and lead. This is where thought leadership comes into play. This is where you stand out and become more visible. This is where you do the shadow work so that you can open yourself up to understanding what you’re still limited by and why you’re ready to break free. While this can be daunting, this is truly the most fun because the speed and flywheel catches here. One shift and it all opens up. You feel like you can be who you truly are – whether that’s blasting music without feeling super embarrassed or taking a trip you’ve always wanted to take. You lead your company and organization with your strategy, culture and vision. You help yourself and others grow. This is where you start movements and lead them. You change the world without realizing you’re doing it and life becomes a virtuous cycle instead of a vicious cycle. You help make the rest of your life and the people around you better off than when you found them.

This focus on these four areas is not about being normal. As you can see, normal leads to playing small, afraid of standing out. Yet normal people may not be who you want to model your life after because it’s normal to be intensely negative, unhappy and stressed with life. This is the life of the overworked achiever, who is fueled by a feeling of never enough and worried that someone is going to figure out that they’re not good enough for the job or what they have in life.

Instead you want to stand out and lead in your life and career. Normal is mediocre and mediocre is risky and not as fun. This is what the Spiritual Achiever knows. She’s going to work hard either way so why not figure out a few simple shifts to make hard feel easier and more fun. Why not get more from the hard work you’re putting in anyways? You don’t need to be loud and aggressive, but you also don’t want to play small. You want to reclaim control and agency of your time, impact and life. 

What do you want for yourself and your life? A year ago, I made a decision to go for the next phase of growth and to do it sustainably. Now, it’s your turn to decide.

If you’d like to become a Spiritual Achiever, I invite you to watch the free training on how to Stand Out and Lead, using spiritual, high-performance strategies: STAND OUT AND LEAD.

You can apply to join my Spiritual Achiever® program, where you’re going to create your next chapter with spiritual and high-performance strategies to achieve time and financial freedom using my proven method. It’s risk-free. You either start seeing results within your first month or I give you your money back. Schedule your call here at www.mayempson.com/contact.  We’ll see you inside.

Want to know more about what happens when you join?

1. When you join Spiritual Achiever® Coaching you’ll be supported for a full year: Career Revelation Academy: A 5-step career change process (if you have a job you want to stay in, I’ll show you how to love it even more) that can launch you into your next career chapter in 30 days.
2. 2x/month group training and coaching on Spirituality, Achievement, Earth Energy and Harmony. You’ll know how to design your days for breakthroughs, create a personal brand and community, lead yourself and others through change, become more physically and mentally fit, reduce stress and reinvent what’s possible in this next chapter of your life.
3. Discover your Leadership Strengths and Branding Workshop: Increase your awareness of what makes YOU different from others and how to become even better at your genius zone.
4. Your Best Year workshop: Create your one year plan and design this next year, no matter what time of the year it is.
5. Your Next 5 Years one-day virtual retreat: Vision what’s possible 5 years from now and break out of your old routines so you can step into new habits, behaviors and routines.
6. Tickets to all in-person Spiritual Achiever retreats (discounted rates): Highly immersive and intimate gatherings where we spend time in nature, experience energy work, eat and move well – all while making big decisions and committing to what’s next for us.
7. Monthly 1:1 Coaching Sessions: To help you break through obstacles, define your individual path, and to work on both strategy and mindset.

The next step?

Schedule a consultation to get clarity on how coaching can help you on your journey.

Once you’re accepted into the program, you’ll receive a calendar invite for a 2-hour deep dive 1:1 session to map out your personal goals and your own year-long journey.

You’ll have immediate access to the Spiritual Achiever process and philosophy – how to achieve your biggest goals and reinvent your life.

You’ll have immediate access to 5 modules of Career Revelation Academy – to love your career even more and launch that next chapter of your career in 30 days.

You’ll have the calendar invites for the upcoming group calls and retreats.

If this speaks to you, I can’t wait to talk to you live: Schedule a consultation.

Reach out at www.mayempson.com/contact for more information on my Spiritual Achiever coaching program. You’ll figure out what’s next and actually go and do it. 

That’s it for this week. Have an amazing one and I’ll talk to you next time.