What It Feels Like to Level Up!

Hey Party People,

What does it mean to level up? It means shedding past identities. It means pushing past fears. It means doing the things that you didn’t have the courage to do in another moment.

I recently quit my job. I had been there for 5 and a half years, rising from a Coordinator of a sole program, to a Manager, to my final role as Director overseeing the entire programs department for the Foundation. I learned a sh*t tonne in my time in this role, with some of the best leadership a girl could ask for. In early January I put in my resignation knowing it was time for me to embark on my next journey.

Making this decision though was pure agony, and not one I made lightly.  Some of you knew I was struggling or having a harder time the past few months, but very few knew what was going on at my core. I was battling with who I was and who I used to be while trying to explore who I could become. I was in a state of flux and a state of transformation that ultimately forced me to level up, or stay the same. And I’m not a girl that likes to stay the same 😉

I had a new nudge on my heart, something pulling me in a different direction that was murky as a swamp pond. I couldn’t, and still can’t see my next path clearly. It was a battle both internally and externally for me to come to the conclusion to leave the incredible role I was in (and still am until February 26th!).

I battled with 5 emotional stages before I was ready to spread my wings and level up into who I was made to be. Each stage was grueling and consuming in its own way, and this all occurred over a few months time. The 5 emotional stages consisted of overwhelm, doubt, fear, acceptance, and finally guilt before the decision was made. I’m going to expand on each of these emotions I walked through in more detail below. Dive into my emotional journey with me.

1.    Overwhelm. When looking back I realized I was beginning to feel stretched and stressed at my job starting in August last year. Over the remaining months of 2020 things only worsened to the point where I felt drained at the end of each and every day, I had nothing left to give. This impacted my energy, my sleep, my motivation, and my ability to do, well, anything. This was a time I was thankful I was working from home because I could hide these feelings from my team and coworkers. I could pull myself together for Zoom calls with a smiling face only to fall apart after. I spent many evenings in tears, for reasons I did not understand. The feelings of overwhelm consumed me, I couldn’t keep doing this, but what was the solution? I was too overwhelmed to find any.

 

2.    Doubt came next. The narrative I played over and over in my head was that I wasn’t strong enough and that I was a bad leader. I couldn’t handle my job anymore and I felt shitty that I wasn’t performing as I once was or that I couldn’t hack it. It... was...Brutal. Then something flipped and I realized it wasn’t that I was a bad leader but that I was leading in the wrong space. I recognized I wasn’t connected or fulfilled by the work as I once was and I was being pulled towards “something” else. But how could I leave a sustainable job in the midst of a pandemic – who would do that?!

 

3.    Fear. This is where my Ego showed up something fierce! See the Ego doesn’t like change, it wants to keep you in the reality you know. It likes certainty, not a murky unknown path into the abyss of “something” new. Once I allowed the notion of leaving my job to enter my conscious mind I was smacked in the face hour over hour, for days on end with all the reasons I shouldn’t.

 

What are you going to do about money? What’s your plan? You are going to isolate yourself even further. You’re not enough to go out on your own. You should be thankful you still have a job when so many others are losing theirs. What are other people going to think!

 

I dug into each and every fear that popped up, found the root, dissected the truth, and realized these fears were simply stories I was telling myself. They had no truth or evidence behind them. This gave me confidence that I could make this decision, I was ready to level up. So I started telling people what I was thinking. Well then came a hurricane of all of THEIR fears! I had to walk through each and every one of them and separate these fears from my own.

 

What happens when you can’t find another job? What kind of job do you want instead? You should wait until you have found another job before quitting. Can’t you talk to your boss and address the problem? Are you depressed? You are making a rash decision. Etc. Etc.

 

The only way I made it through everyone else’s fears was because I worked through my own first. I realized these fears and beliefs were ones they held and would drive their decision if they were in my position. But they weren’t. This was my life and I could not let their fears choose for me. This stage was the hardest and longest, but it brought me to my decision.

 

4.    Acceptance.  I was leaving my job. The decision was made. It gave me a sense of calm and I had a deep knowing that I would be ok. I needed to step out of who I had been to create space that would allow me to grow into who I am meant to be. I got to the point where the question wasn’t can’t I do this? It became what if I don’t do this? I could no longer pretend or entertain the possibility that I would be happy staying put because I knew I wouldn’t be. My subconscious brain knew this way before my conscious self did, but once I knew, I couldn’t unknow. Feelings of acceptance were fleeting, only to be followed up by a massive tidal wave of…

 

5.    Guilt. My role had grown significantly over the years with little added support. Somehow I made it work but there was little reprieve on the horizon and we were BUSY. Busier than normal with a relatively new staff, all working from home due to COVID. My leaving would create a significant gap in the organization and I didn’t want to let anyone down. I didn’t want my boss to have to pick up my workload. I didn’t want to leave behind all the communities I was actively working with. I didn’t want to leave my team. I was sick to my stomach with guilt. How could I do this to an organization that was so integral to my growth and development and saw my potential before I did. I mean I was being groomed to be the next CEO. How ungrateful could I be?

 

Those five stages were all agonizing in different ways and took an incredible amount of strength, courage, and perseverance to work through. I had to dig deep and not only believe but connect with a dream I had inside me, that like I’ve said is still SO UNCLEAR! I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I AM DOING YOU GUYS! There is no concrete next step, and that was probably the scariest thing of all. What was magical though was once I finally resigned it became real, I was doing it, and it gave me the full on pukey unicorn feels!! (thank-you Jen Anderson for the description of this feeling). It’s a mixture of excitement and WTF am I doing type of feeling, and it's freaking glorious.

And that my friends is what it’s going to feel like to level up. It’s hard, it's scary, it takes work with many sleepless nights, as well as days where you don’t want to get out of bed. It takes effort to confront your fears. It takes courage to do the thing that others are too afraid to do. It takes believing in yourself, which is hard to do.

Is your heart nudging you to do something? Get curious and begin to listen. Play with the possibilities. It doesn’t mean you’re going to act on it tomorrow. But let it in and let it grow in your heart. You were made as the only version of you, and therefore are the only person that is meant for your dream. I believe in you, even if you don’t just yet.

Here’s a throwback party jam to get you shaking your bootay!

YouTube –  Destiny’s Child – Bootylicious

Spotify – Destiny’s Child - Bootylicious

 

With Gratitude,

-S

P.S. DYK February is Black History Month! Say what?! In all the years I was in school I NEVER learned about black history. So this month I’ll be adding resources, videos, links, and giving you party jams from Black artists. Embrace something new along with me– I mean we’re all stuck at home anyway!

Let’s start small with some personal learning and get some Definitions outta the way. Equity vs. Equality.