Am I Doing It Wrong?

Leanna Laskey McGrath  0:08  

Welcome to the executive coach for moms podcast where we support women who are attempting to find balance and joy, while simultaneously leading people at work and at home. I'm your host Leanna Laskey  McGrath, former tech exec turned full time mom, recovering perfectionist and workaholic, and certified executive coach. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  0:30  

Hi, everyone. Welcome to the show today, I am excited to be talking with you, as today is the last episode of this little series I've been doing here in January and February, it's been really fun. I've been basically writing episodes inspired by my conversations with coaching clients, with friends with family, and reading the news and seeing social media posts just kind of like what's feeling most present for people in my orbit and what's feeling most present for me. And that's what I've been writing about. So it's been really enjoyable to just come to the microphone each week and talk to you. Just you and me. It's been great. So today's the last day of that, and we're going to be switching it up for the next couple months. So next week is March, which has always been one of my favorite months, because it's my birth month. And now, it's also women's history month two, so it makes it extra special for me. So in the month of March, I have a really special lineup of topics and guests that I'm really excited to share with you. Obviously, my podcast is always focused on women, but I want to share more women's stories. And we'll have kind of a focus for the month of March, April and May. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  1:50  

So for today, I want to talk about this question that we often ask ourselves that goes something like, Am I doing it right? What am I doing wrong? And did I make the right decision? We have a tendency to ask ourselves and kind of look for an answer about whether what we're doing or what we've decided or what we're thinking is right or wrong. And I've heard a lot of friends ask this. It's something that I have often asked myself, and recently I've had a lot of clients asking it as well. So I want to kind of break this down a little bit. So first, the concept of right or wrong? How is this defined? Like? Why do we even say this? Who defines right and wrong? Because what's right for one person may be completely wrong for another person. What's right for you right now in your life, where you're at, given your circumstances, might be completely different from what was right for you 20 years ago? I mean, can you think of a decision that you've made or an action you've taken in the past that you felt was right at that time, and it was right for you in that moment. But if you were to do the same thing right now, it would feel wrong. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  3:11  

There's not this like universal agreement on what's right or wrong, or what's good or bad. So it's really up to each of us to determine it for ourselves. And I think a lot of times, we are looking externally for that answer, or we're looking for that answer somewhere. And we're always asking ourselves that question. And it's a question that is very difficult to answer, and that we spend a lot of time and energy and focus on, and it just might not be the most helpful question to ask. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  3:45  

So let's talk about the idea first of making a decision, whether we believe that a decision we made was right or wrong. So what does it mean to decide, decide actually has Latin roots little known fact about me, I took five years of Latin in high school. It really helped me on my SATs, and to pick up some Italian whenever we were lost somewhere near the Vatican, in Rome back before Google Maps, but I never learned a spoken foreign language. But I love the etymology of words and kind of how they came to be, especially when they're derived from Latin. So decide literally means to cut off. When we decide we choose something and we cut off the other options. And it doesn't always feel that way because our minds tend to want to go back and revisit that decision over and over and over again and review all the options again. But whenever we're deciding that is what we are literally doing is choosing something and cutting off the other options. And when we make decisions of course we want to get clear about our values our goals our priorities and make sure that whatever we're choosing aligns with that. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  5:04  

In Episode Two, I talked all about conscious decision making. So if this is front of mind for you, I highly recommend revisiting that episode where I go way more in depth on decision making. So if we've done that we've gotten clear on our values, goals and priorities, and we're still doubting our decision, then we need to kind of check out our thoughts and to check in on what's going on. What specific thoughts are causing us to feel this regret or this confusion or questioning of ourselves? If we're truly aligned? Then where's the disconnect? And what does it really mean when we are revisiting our decision or wishing that we had made a different decision? What we really mean is that we believe we'd be happier if we chosen differently. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  5:56  

But remember that happiness is a feeling. And as we've talked about before, our feelings come from our thoughts, not our circumstances, we have the option of being happy in any situation by choosing thoughts that make us happy. Happiness is available to you in any situation. And let me just caveat by saying that I am not talking about abusive, unhealthy or dangerous situations. And of course, sometimes the reality of a decision doesn't match our expectations once we're actually living it. A lot of times, that's because we put a heavy weight on our options, like one is going to be 100% amazing, and the other is going to be 100% terrible. That's related to our all or nothing thinking, which I talked about in episode 31. But let's just play out a really simple example that we can probably all relate to, let's say you're out to dinner with friends, or a partner, and you order something different from somebody else. And when the food arrives, you look around and you come to the conclusion, and say, I definitely ordered wrong, I did not order the right thing. And what leads to this conclusion, our friends entree might look better than our own. Maybe my thought is that I would enjoy that meal more. And then I think oftentimes, when we're questioning our decisions, it comes back to this core belief of I'm not good at making decisions.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  7:31  

I think that that is something that so many of us very deep down, believe. And I think that's because a lot of lies have been told to us about the idea that we are not able to make decisions on our own, that we always need help. So if we look at media, media is always telling us we need a quiz, or an article to tell us what to do. There are so many How to Guides for women in every area of our lives, implying that we don't know how to do it ourselves, or we don't know how to decide for ourselves. So this belief that we are kind of taught and reinforced throughout our lives usually, I think not overtly, but we kind of pick up on you know that there are all these outside forces telling us how to make decisions throughout our lives. I think what happens is it can delay our decision making oftentimes leads to us like outsourcing it to others asking people, What should we do going into a Facebook group or somewhere on social media and asking people for advice, on what decision we should make hoping or wishing that one of the options kind of falls off the table. And our decision is made for us just simply so we don't have to feel the weight of that responsibility of making that decision. And I think a lot of that has to do with that core belief of I'm not good at making decisions. And then I think also it causes us to often second guess ourselves, once we've made the decision, we are not actually doing what the word decision means or what the word decide means we're not actually cutting off our other options. We're still playing them through our head and wondering, did I make the right decision? Maybe I maybe I made the wrong decision. Maybe a different decision would have been better. And ruminating on that. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  9:32  

Recently, a woman who I'm close to in my life and who I really admire had two really great job offers. Neither was the perfect opportunity. But each of them came with some really great pros. And also some cons on the flip side. And so we talked about looking at her values and what's important to her. And then she did that and chose one. And now on the other side of that decision. She doesn't Like her job as much as she'd expected to. And so what she's making that mean is that she made the wrong decision. She believes that she's made the wrong decision that if she had chosen the other job, she would be happier. She's frustrated by all the cons of the one that she chose. And she's longing for all of the pros of the one that she didn't choose. And I think there's an element of human nature here to just kind of always assume that the grass is always greener on the other side of that decision or on in the other options. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  10:35  

But every option has pros and cons, right? There are almost always things we like, and things we don't like about any option. Of course, we hope we'll like we'll like more about it that we don't like. But the reality is, is that no matter what situation we're in, in life, we're going to feel great about half the time, and we're going to feel not so great about half the time. And so we just have to decide what's most important to us and make sure that we're meeting those needs. But we're never going to get a certified letter from God or the Universe saying this was the right decision, or this was the wrong decision. We have to kind of rely on our own internal compass and test against our values and ensure that the decisions we're making are aligned with our values. And if they are, then we have to remind ourselves of that often if our brain starts going off and looking at all the good things about the other option that we didn't choose.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  11:32  

How often do you question yourself in the decisions that you make? How much time do you spend going back through again, or wishing that you had made a different decision, wondering what it would have been like, if you had chosen the other option? I would just invite you to ask yourself, are these thoughts helpful? Are they serving you? And do you want to continue thinking them? Because you have decided, and you get to choose your thoughts from here, you get to choose what you focus on. And if you focus on all the bad things about where you chose to be, and only on all the good things about what you said no to, you're going to make yourself kind of miserable, right, there's no way that you're going to be enjoying your situation. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  12:22  

I think about this in terms of like a life partner as well, right? We can long for someone else. But what I think what often happens is we're focusing on all the negative attributes of our current partner, and only on the positive attributes and assumptions about what it would be like to be with a different person. And it's just so important to notice when our brains are doing this. And to remind ourselves, oh, yeah, that's a normal thing that our human brains do. And it's not true. We can't believe everything that we think and every thought that our brains offer us. And maybe we want to choose to focus on different things. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  12:58  

The second kind of overarching question is, what am I doing wrong? We have a tendency to internalize things that have nothing to do with us and look for what we are doing wrong. I see it all the time, in a group that I am in, it's a parenting group, and I'm an admin, and we get all of these questions that are like, my two year old keeps hitting his friends, what am I doing wrong? My baby won't sleep more than a few hours at a time, what am I doing wrong? And the reality is, is like nothing, you have a normal toddler, nothing, you have a baby. And that's how many babies sleep. And also, we can't control other people's behaviors and other people's sleep. If we could, my mom would have had me to sleep way earlier most nights in my childhood. Because I've always been a night owl. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  13:52  

But I think another example in the workplace that I've heard from multiple executive coaching clients is my boss is in a bad mood, or my boss didn't like the thing I did or reacted negatively. And the first question we ask ourselves is, what did I do wrong? We just often internalize that. Why do we see a situation or another person's behavior which has nothing to do with us and assume responsibility for it? Do you do this? I know I do. I know many, many women I talked to do. And of course, it's not an individual failing. It's a societal thing. We're taught that we're responsible for and even that we can control other people's emotions and behaviors. And this is reinforced in many different places throughout our society. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  14:41  

We're told as kids as girls, that what we wear to school can impact a boy's ability to focus that what we wear to a party or how much we drink can actually control a man's behavior and how he treats us and we're told our clothes and behaviors are to blame if he makes unwanted advances, we're told not to make someone else upset, as if we can control someone else's emotions, and a million more examples. It leads to this core belief that not only can we, but also it's our responsibility to control the behavior of those around us. So when someone else is acting in a way that we don't like, we look for fault first in ourselves, the first question we'll ask ourselves is, what am I doing wrong here? 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  15:31  

I think this goes back to decision making, too, because not only are we not enjoying our circumstances, but we're also believing I did something wrong, I chose wrong. And that feels terrible, it feels terrible to believe that we did something wrong. We only exacerbate our unhappiness when we're beating ourselves up, because we're believing we've done something wrong. So maybe we get into that new job. And we don't enjoy our day to day. And that's one layer of feeling discontent. But on top of that, we're beating ourselves up because we're telling ourselves, I did something wrong, I made a bad decision. I am wrong, something's wrong with me, I can't make good decisions. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  16:15  

And by the way, I'm not suggesting that there aren't things we can do better or differently. If we have the misfortune of attempting to assemble a piece of Ikea furniture, and something doesn't fit together, we might actually be doing it wrong. I was trying to do a sewing project with my daughter today. And I cannot tie a knot on the thread to save my life. And I'm sure I'm doing it wrong. So there are certain things that we can learn by looking at opportunities for improvement. And there are some places in our lives where we can be doing something objectively right or wrong. But what I'm talking about here is internalizing and using other people's behaviors and choices as proof that we are doing something wrong, which is all too common and very seldomly productive or helpful for us and for them. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  17:11  

And then the third question is, am I doing it right? So so there are some places where it's very clear if we've done it right, I talked about a couple of examples. In school, math and spelling, were always my favorite subjects, because I love that there was a right and a wrong answer. It was cut and dry. There was no subjectivity. And then I would go to English and I would write a paper. And I knew that there was subjectivity in that no matter how much they tried to make rubrics and try to make it as objective as possible, there's always subjectivity when someone is judging your writing, or judging your art or your performance or something you're putting forth in the world where there's not a right and wrong answer. And I think that life is just way more like English than it is like math. I think that there is way more subjectivity to it based on who's looking at it, rather than clearly defined right and wrong answers. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  18:16  

And I think it shows up a lot in leadership, especially in male dominated industries or companies. So as women, we often show up in our own unique, authentic ways. And it might be different than how a man would show up. We bring different skill sets and strengths, and we focus on different things. So a lot of times, we'll look around and ask ourselves, Am I doing this leadership thing right? It seems like everybody else is focusing on different things than I am. So maybe I'm doing it wrong. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  18:49  

I remember when I was in my first executive role, I was the only woman. And I constantly questioned myself because I looked around at what all my peers were doing, all of whom were men, and what they were focusing on, and my instincts, were telling me to do things differently. And it was so hard for me because as a new executive, as a first time executive, I was thinking, what do I know? You know, and and what if I'm not doing it right? I just want to do it right. And I think it's really important. I think this is why diversity is so important in organizations, because we all are looking for different things, focusing on different things and therefore can detect the blind spots that would otherwise be present for an organization if we weren't there. But if a boss tells us that they don't approve of how we're doing something, or that they want us to do something differently. That doesn't mean we're inherently wrong or that there's something wrong with us. We have to recognize that there's a subjectivity to the lens of anyone who is looking at us or our work and critiquing it. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  20:00  

I saw some recent research that shows that women leaders are considered never quite right. They're told they're too young, too old too experience not experienced enough. And it's like we're always considered either too much or not enough. There's no sweet spot really, or maybe we're in the sweet spot for like 10 minutes. And there's research to prove that we'll actually be focusing on that more in a future episode. But I always think about the fact that JK Rowling pitched Harry Potter to 13 publishers, before it was accepted. That means that 12 publishers rejected Harry Potter. 12 publishers decided that she was doing it wrong, that her writing wasn't good enough that her story wasn't good enough, can you imagine being told by 12 different experts in your field that your work isn't good enough? And still holding the belief that it is, having that strong of an internal compass to keep going? How many people how many negative comments does it take for you to believe that you're not cut out for something, that you're not good enough that your work isn't good enough? Or that you're doing something wrong? 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  21:18  

Nobody can look at your life and accurately tell you if you're doing it wrong or right. They can tell you what they believe is wrong or right. But they're looking through their own lens, you have to decide it for yourself. You have the power to self author your own journey. Sometimes you'll find you've chosen situations that aren't what you thought. And now you have a new set of decisions in front of you do I sit here in my misery and miss out on enjoying my one and only precious life, by focusing on all the bad things about the situation? And all the good things about the other situation I could have been in? Or do I adjust my thoughts within my current circumstances? So I can focus on why I chose this. Why I believe this was the best decision and why I'm going to make this work focusing on what do I enjoy about it? And taking all I can from the experience? Or do I course correct? Do I make a change? Do I reevaluate my values and priorities and create a new opportunity for myself? You get to choose but unless you're a mathematician, or participate in competitive spelling bees, spending your precious time and energy ruminating over whether you're doing something right or wrong, is not going to lead to a fulfillment. Beating yourself up when you see the cons of a decision is only going to make you feel worse. And feeling bad about yourself and beating yourself up because you believe you're doing something wrong is going to block you from getting to a solution. Thank you so much for tuning in. I hope you'll join me next week to kick off Women's History Month. Have a great week. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  23:07  

Thanks so much for tuning in to the executive coach for moms podcast. Please like subscribe or follow the show so you'll be notified when the next episode is available. I hope you'll join me again next time. Take care