Episode 103 – Hustling for Self-Worth

This is Rebecca Clark Episode 103 Hustling for self worth. This podcast is for anyone that knows they haven’t yet found and offered up their best work, but are compelled to seek it out and do it. Are you ready to move your desk? Yeah. Mm, yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah. When we spend a lifetime trying to distance ourselves from the parts of our lives that don’t fit with who we think we’re supposed to be, we stand outside of our story and hustle for our worthiness by constantly performing, perfecting, pleasing and proving Quote by Bernet Brown This quote became very popular in my work environment a few years ago as some of us discovered it after reading from Burn a brown and shared it with each other. And we would stop each other in our tracks at times and say, Stop hustling for yourself. Worth. What’s so interesting about different work environments is sometimes you’re the person that benefits by just walking in and knowing the right stuff and having people truly value what you offer. And sometimes it’s just because they value something and they see you. And like Oh, good, here’s someone that has my kind of ideas, and I will have someone that I can work with and will support the cause, the initiative or the mission. Other times you walk in and you’re highly valued because people are yearning for someone who is a couple of steps ahead of them on the journey, and so they immediately see that you can help. And you are that person that can help them on the next steps, educate them on what they need to know and what they need to do, and they’re elated that someone is there to make it happen. Other times we aren’t the valued person. And no matter how hard we work, no matter how much value we think we are offering, people don’t get it, and sometimes they don’t want to get it right. They just have decided something about you and they’re just not going to value you. And I experienced this many times in past environments, and when I say I experienced this many times, I mean, I experienced being valued immediately and I experienced not and hustled for myself worth in those environments, and so many times I could see myself doing it. And yet I couldn’t stop myself while at the same time being able to point it out to a co worker or someone else that I was interacting with and saying Listen, you can try as hard as you want, but they’re just not going to think anything of what you are doing. They’ve already decided that they don’t want to hear it from you or that maybe you don’t know something that they know or that maybe you actually no, too much and they feel inferior or stupid or called out because of your presence. And so it really has nothing to do with you. But it feels like it does so often. Many of us work harder and learn more and try to justify who we are in our work. A lot of overachievers do this. A lot of people constantly seeking degrees and certifications and saying Yes, yes, I know that I’ve studied that, too, are suffering from that feeling of night being worthy enough and are seeking that approval and seeking to hustle for that self worth. Pay attention when you are striving to learn so much when you’re striving to accomplish and to ask yourself Am I doing this because I really need to do this because something is missing from me. Am I doing this because I feel like if I just learn one more thing, I’ll be valued if I just can contribute that one extra skill that will push me over the edge to get that promotion or to be thought of for that next leadership role, or to be valued once and for all in my work in my particular organization or niche? I love that there is a quote going around that I have shared on social media as well, and it’s about a peach. And I’ve heard this quote for the last couple of years and I still like it. And it is from Dita von Tessie. I believe maybe I’m saying that wrong you can be the ripest, juiciest peach in the world, but there’s still going to be somebody who hates peaches. That’s a beautiful quote, and one of the first stories that comes to mind when I hear it is actually about work and about cube farms because I never have cared for Cube farms. I don’t care how nice you make them. I don’t care how many windows you put in them, or special little office spaces where you can collaborate and share, or the special ho telling little cabinets. You can get in some places where you can bring all your stuff to whatever cube you’re going to be in that day or week. I don’t really care about any of it because I don’t like Cubes. And I remember there were various times over the last few years where there would be this innovative cube farm renovation or creation. At the time, most of this was happening in my organization. I was in project management and production management roles, so I was a member of the Cube farms because our offices had been taken away, the walls had been taken down and special cubes had been brought in, and some were quite large. And then we seem to navigate to cubes that were half the size that they used to be. And what was very odd to me is we would have cubes that would have sides that would actually cover part of windows, which doesn’t make any sense to me from a design perspective and as a person who loves to let in as much light as possible. And I remember during these renovations, leaders were periodically pull us in to see what our opinions were and see if we could handle being in a certain cube or facing a certain way or care about the colours or the types of cabinets in them. And every time I would share the same information with those asking my opinion, and I’d say, I don’t really care. And the reason I don’t really care is the minute you’re asking me to make a decision about a cube. I’m not interested in any of the ideas. Go do whatever you want because I don’t like cubes, so there’s no color. You can paint them. There’s no shape you can make them. There’s no special fabric or cabinets you can create that will make me be interested because I don’t like cubes. I don’t work well in cubes, period. My back is to the door and even if my back is sideways to the door, I am still distracted. I am still anticipating an interruption. I can hear all the conversations around me and I don’t need it completely quiet. But I’d rather have a buzz of noise than hearing distinct conversations and interactions. So I just don’t like Cubes. So you don’t need to spend any time coming to me to find out anything else about the Cube because I don’t like it now. I wouldn’t fight against it. I would sit in the Cube, do my work, disrupt the whole room because I had tons of conference calls where boundaries and expectations and things had to be discussed. But I did it because that’s the place I was given to work. And if I couldn’t work in it, I took care of myself, and I found a conference room or another building or another place. But any discussion with me about how to make a cube better was not a good use of the person’s time. It would be better to go discuss this with someone that actually felt like changes to the Cube would help them have a better work experience. And so I think of that experience when I hear that story about the peach, because I realize I’m someone that just doesn’t like Cubes or Cube farms, and I’m not trying to change that about myself, so it becomes useless for someone else. to change that, and I am okay. If others love cute farms, they can go sit in them hate, but I will keep myself removed from them as long as I possibly can, because I do not offer up my best work in a cube farm, and I’m certainly not going to try to hustle for self worth in Acute Farm. I guess I’m sharing some of these thoughts and stories today because I see this in myself so much, and I see it in others that feel like they are compelled to offer better work to the world and something of meaning that helps others, and that will help them personally grow and develop in life and in work and amongst people that are compelled to seek and do this. There tends to be a strong desire or need to hustle for self worth, to find that worth from an individual that tells them they’re doing good enough or a client that seeks them out, or a company that says, Hey, we’ll give you a big title and a pretty good salary. But what happens in that hustle for self worth is there becomes this cognitive dissonance between who we really feel compelled to be and how we feel. We should show up and act for others to accept us. And somewhere in that hustle, we lose ourselves and we know it and we actually lose self worth while still trying to seek it. And we often seek it from those that we actually don’t want to be like or don’t want to be revered by, but somehow fall into a habit of seeking that, because sometimes those were seeking it from are the biggest naysayers or the biggest ignore urz are those that find us irrelevant. I remember one time in days past where I was being ignored, buy some leadership and I actually was carrying a very large workload of projects. In the meantime, some other people that were in close relationships with these leaders were given free rein with budgets and opportunities and leading things, even though they weren’t really offering a lot of value. And I got a bit tired of it and I was overwhelmed and needed support and all the things. And so I copied off extremely large paper and put a big, huge status of projects on every single leader’s chair and It was like 15 pages of that really large paper, larger than legal size, like 11 by 17 to show them what was going on, what I was trying to pull off while all these other fun and games were going on around me. Or at least that’s what I perceived. And I remember it felt good to do that. And it felt good when some of the leaders acknowledged like, Oh, I didn’t realize all of this was going on. But as I thought about it later, I don’t know that it made me feel good beyond that moment because I still had to keep working super hard. And I wonder if behind the scenes, all of those that received it got a chuckle and thought, What’s this person trying to do? Why is she trying to get our attention? We know she’s busy. Whatever. We’re going to go off and do these other things anyway. Good thing we’ve got someone who likes to be busy and gets work done so that we can go experience all these other things we really want to do, go to conferences, talk about big ideas, maybe implement some, maybe experiment on some throw some money at a contractor to try some stuff. She’s just one of the few people that are willing to work and keep the machine going so well. Let her do it. Give her a nice little raise at the end of the year, and that’s okay when I think of it. From that perspective, I realize how important it is for all of us to decide what we find acceptable and what we do not and how we treat ourselves and how we allow others to treat us. If over time you feel like you are not valued at work, it’s important to reflect on it and figure out if it’s just how you feel and not an actual fact, or if you may not be valued right, they may not like Peaches. They may not like Cube Farms, right. They may not like people who don’t like to work in cube farms. They may value something completely different, and no amount of hustle from you may change that right. No amount of hustle and this is very tough because we often have conversations about how important it is to do the work, learn, grow, try hard things experiment, help other people share information, all of those things. And yet at the same time, we say, Don’t hustle for yourself worth. It’s a very fascinating idea to explore. How do you How do we How do I decide I am worthy? Because I was born? I am worth it because I am compelled to do my best work. I just love working. I just love learning. I like helping people. I like figuring out problems. I like learning how to make decisions and leading projects and all these things I like creating. But in the midst of all this, if we find that as we do, that it’s not going anywhere with certain people or organizations, or we feel like we’re kind of being that awkward child dancing around, being loud and goofy, trying to get an attention from a parent who’s talking or from another child that we want desperately to like us. It could be a good time to wonder if we are hustling for the wrong reasons, or we can make them be the wrong reasons. I guess if we want to, are you enjoying the hustle? Is your energy up from the hustle? Because you’re just so excited about what you’re offering, and the challenges are interesting. Are you experiencing the opposite? You’re worn out. What you say is never quite regarded. Even though you know it’s solid, you may just be a peach amongst a lot of apples. You may just be someone that loves a special desk in a special room and not a cube farm dweller, and you may not be wrong for thinking that way, but you may be in the wrong environment or doing the wrong thing for you, and it’s okay to keep searching and seeking for the right hustle and doing it from a place of knowing your worth it and that you have a lot to offer and that it will be valued in the right place and time. And what a shame it would be to continue to try to convince those who don’t like peaches or cubes to accept that. I encourage you today to keep following what you’re compelled to do if it feels like it’s an inner desire to level up and contribute to the world, and the journey will not be easy. But there will be clues along the way that let you know that your hustle is the right hustle, that it’s not for your self worth, but its toward offering up your best work, and you will feel a new energy and a new connection with people. And you will love working with them and helping them, and they will just love that you are helping them on their work journey. Pay attention to your feelings along the way and notice the difference between fear and when you’re having courage to take a step and when you’re being appreciated. If you’re being appreciated in ways that make sense to you and you are understanding what being appreciated means to you, are you being appreciated in the ways you want to be appreciated because you feel like you’re doing the right thing? Or are you seeking approval and all the wrong places for you? Mhm. Only you will know the answers, and it will be a journey of ups and downs. As you figure that out, because, as one lesson is learned, another opportunity to learn presents itself where you’ll be challenged on what you believe and what you think you should do. But only through that process will you figure it out and get pointed on the real road that you desire. Stop hustling for yourself. Worth. Use the hustle in offering up your best work. Yeah. Thanks for listening to the show today. If you enjoyed it, I’d love if you’d write a review and share the show with your friends, Sign up for a weekly nudge at move your desk dot com. Mhm, Yeah, Mhm.