– Welcome everybody to today’s “Building My Legacy” podcast. I have with me today Jacqueline Smith. She is a life coach and behavior resource. She graduated from Boston College with a psychology degree and then completed a master’s degree in behavioral science. And she is now going on and doing her doctorate in clinical psychology. She is working with women who are high achievers, who are looking at where do they find a balance in their life and how did they deal with their pressure and intensity of achieving results, and then still having a place for themselves in their own lives. So, with that, Jacqueline, I’ll let you add what you would like to add to the introduction of you and what you would like to just share with us what it is that you do and how you came about becoming a life coach.

– Hello, thank you for having me, and thank you for the introduction as well. Yeah, so I’ve always been interested in the mental health space. As you mentioned, my background is in psychology, and I’ll be continuing that on in my PhD starting this fall. But while I was in my master’s program, I became really interested in life coaching for a variety of different reasons, some personal and some more research focused, such as I was curious about why people behave in ways that are inconsistent with what they say that they want. And I just find that to be such a fascinating question, why can’t we just do what we want all the time? So, I was interested in it from that perspective. I also was noticing in my own life that achievement and sort of goal attainment didn’t provide the lasting satisfaction and fulfillment that I sort of thought that it would, and granted I’m young and early in my career, but I just thought, oh wow, isn’t this fascinating? So, I thought a life coach for something a little bit different than therapy. I mostly went into it just curious as to what it could provide and how it could be a resource in my life and absolutely fell in love with it, had such a transformative experience that I knew I needed to be involved in the work myself. So, I became certified as a life coach and started working with ambitious women. And it has just been an absolute blast, I love this work. I’m so thankful to be talking to you about it today. And yeah, I just really can’t say enough good things about it.

– So, tell me why achieving a goal doesn’t satisfy or doesn’t fulfill, what is it that you found in working with people that gets them to that point or that realization?

– Yeah, I truly find this so fascinating and I think to put it as simplistically as possible, it’s like we moved the goalpost for ourselves, right? So, we adapt to our own level of achievement. So, as we move closer to what we say that we want, we just set bigger and bigger goals for ourselves. If we continue to progress in that way, it’s a very adaptive response, but it doesn’t leave that lasting fulfillment that we think it will, right? When we’d go after a goal, we assume that on the other side of it is this sort of persistent feeling of contentment or joy or pride for having done what we set out to do. But the ironic part about it is that we don’t, or we do for just a very fleeting time. And then, we kind of move on to the next thing. So, it was a great thing for me to learn early on, and to share and work with on my clients, because in knowing that, we can continue to go for goals, I’m certainly an advocate for progress and growth, not trying to say that we shouldn’t, but we can start to appreciate what we’ve already done even more. And we can fall in love with the process of achievement rather than the result or the outcome. And I think that that’s a really powerful realization to have.

– So, interesting because I was reading about Andrew Carnegie recently. And one of the things that he talks about is as we manage our mind and how we approach work, people who really produce extraordinary results are the ones who are enthusiastic. He feels enthusiasm is what really opens the brain and takes vision and action and puts them together into a really powerful result. So, it’s sort of what you’re talking about a little bit is where do you get that sense of enjoyment, right?

– Yeah, absolutely, I think that’s a great comment. And I would also add curiosity to that as well. I think the more that we can implement sort of playfulness, curiosity, enthusiasm into our work, actually the better off we’ll be. It’s sort of a thought error that we all kind of have this misconception that pushing ourselves, being critical with ourselves, being hard on ourselves is what forces us to progress. And it’s the opposite is true, right? The more that we love what we’re doing, of course, the easier it is to attain goals, but also we just become so enthralled with the process. And I think that that is kind of what you were speaking to with your comment. And I think that that’s so magical to really love what you’re doing in a way that is fulfilling to you just for doing it, not for the sake of what it will get you when it’s done.

– So, what do you think are the biggest barriers that people experienced to having that?

– Oh, great question. I think that there is a sense of obligation that come in our common sort of viewpoint of work, where it’s so inherently involved in our society, of okay, we have to work, we have to, we should, sort of climb up the ladder, continue to succeed. And I think when we add in obligation, which don’t get me wrong, it’s certainly there, but knowing that it’s there and focusing on it can sometimes remove that sense of pleasure from the work that we do. So, it’s almost like a little bit of a cognitive shift, a little reframe there of work can be both obligatory and enjoyable, right? We can like what we do and we can sort of be required to do it for the sake of earning an income or taking care of ourselves and our families and things like that. I think sometimes we just focus so much on the responsibility of it that we lose sight of why we may have focused in that area in the first place or what drew us to the field in the first place. I think that that’s probably one of the biggest sort of obstacles there that I see.

– So, as you work with high achieving women, for you, yes, it’s that balance, but what are some of the other issues? I think there’s some issues that are perhaps unique to women because of our socialization, the way we’re brought up, even our in education process.

– Yeah, I think with women, I especially see this self-criticism coming out as sort of a, as I mentioned briefly before, as a driver of success, like oh, I need to be self critical in order to keep pushing myself in order to keep succeeding. And with that, very complimentary to that is this perfectionism piece where, now women it’s well known that women are very successful in the workplace, not just at home, things like that. We’ve really transitioned from that more traditional coaching models for leadership development. But with that, the expectation level never really dropped. So, I see a lot of women who struggled to sort of do it all now because it’s sort of like they added this whole new piece of now they wanna be great wives, mothers, caretakers in their home, but they also wanna be really successful in the workplace and really strive for achievement there as well. And now it’s like a balancing act of suddenly you’ve got what feels like the entire weight of the world on your shoulders. You’re doing it all, so to speak. And I would say that that’s unique to women. I’m sure that there are men for whom that’s true as well. But I see that a lot in the women that I work with.

– You know what’s interesting, Jacqueline, is as I’ve observed people through the COVID experience, what I’ve seen is women beginning to rethink that role. What have you seen? What’s been your experience?

– Rethink which role?

– Okay, so doing it all, being on the, so what I’m hearing is you know what? I’ve been that road warrior, Monday through Friday, going wherever my company sends me, having somebody taking care of my kids, having somebody doing the homework, getting them to their sports, coming home on Saturday, picking up all the pieces, doing double time as mom to make up for Monday through Friday, and spouse, and then started the program all over. And with COVID, what people have done is they’re working virtually at home, and yes, it’s been a added challenge of how do you now take care of your children, yourself, and make sure that the teaching goes on, but I’m also seeing a rethinking of, wow, being home has, I’ve been able to make this work, and I’ve been able to be more connected with my family. And so, I’m seeing women beginning to ask questions about how can I do both in a more fulfilled way? What have you been seeing?

– Yeah, I love that you raised that. I would say that I’ve definitely seen a narrative shift in terms of even lessening the expectation that I had just been referring to of during this very unique time, recognizing, okay, I can’t do it all, right? Maybe some things aren’t going to be as perfect as I would like them to be now. And I think what’s really fun about that from my perspective is that it was the circumstance that changed, the situation in the world changed, right? That sort of shook everything up. But the result of that was a cognitive shift. So, we’ve talked before about how I really work in a mindset space. I work with women on thoughts and feelings specifically, and that sort of pervasive thought of, I need to everything has sort of switched to it’s not currently possible. And in that I do agree, I think that there’s a lightness to that realization of, okay, wait a minute, it’s actually fine if not everything is done quite to the standard that I would like, that is the nature of the world in this moment. And I hope that that’s something that will continue on well past the end of quarantine and the end of COVID-19. I hope that that continues.

– So, Jacqueline, with what you’ve done with research in your studies and as you’ve worked with women, if you were to look even at yourself, your younger self at the beginning of college, for example, what advice would you give that person knowing, seeing what you’ve seen of what people have struggled with, what kind of planning and direction would you start giving people?

– I think the biggest thing for me, both looking at my sort of former self or my younger self, and just now the advice that I try and give as many people as possible is to pay attention to the stories that you’re telling yourself about yourself and about the world that you live in, because those stories truly shape your reality. And I think that we often think, oh, we see reality as it is. And then, of course, we do have an opinion of it, but it’s really our opinion that shaping the reality that we’re taking in, right? So, the stories that we’re telling ourselves are so important to our existence. And I think as a young person, knowing that, just having that awareness is so powerful, because then you can understand that in the moment when you’re being hard on yourself, in the moments when you’re thinking I should be better at this, I should be working harder at this, or whatever it may be, you can recognize, oh, wait a minute, that’s just the story, right? That’s not actually a universal truth of the world that I have to abide by. I’m making this up essentially. And I think that that would just in general, lessen the pressure, again, sort of circling back to the pressure that I’ve noticed that women feel. I think part of it comes from this narrative that’s just been repeated for so long. And so, that’s what I was mentioning when I was saying as sort of a silver lining of COVID-19 is that it did shake up that narrative unintentionally. It was just the circumstance sort of disrupted things, but you can do that yourself too, right? You can do that just by recognizing, oh wait, this is a story that I’m telling myself. I can choose to view this differently. I can choose to have different thoughts about this.

– So, I also see with this, Jacqueline, a in a sense, a buttressing, a conflict that’s going to be a rising perhaps in the workplace as we go back to work. You’re hearing some, and it’s not just women, you’re hearing people say, “A, I don’t know that it’s safe for me to go back to work. “Do I really wanna go back? “And I am able to work virtually quite well, thank you. “Let me continue to do that.” So, there’s that thought. And then the other is, well, companies are saying, “We’ve lost time. “The economy is not good. “We gotta double time it, make up so Q three and Q four “will look good,” and they want their employees to come along with that energy to make that result. So, there’s a new pressure, I think, that is percolating that we’ve not put into the equation. And what’s your sense of that?

– Yeah, another really good. I think that this is a twofold issue because there’s safety from the physical standpoint, and then there’s also psychological safety. And I think as folks transition back into the workplace, that the onus is really going to be on leaders in that sense to ensure that their employees feel psychologically safe. And that’s a challenging task. One I wouldn’t even dare to offer advice on in this current moment, to be honest with you, but I think that that will play out in a few different ways. I think the more that we can encourage dialogue around how people are doing, how they’re feeling, both from an economic perspective and also from this has impacted everyone differently, right? We don’t exactly know what the situation looks like in any one person’s home or with any one person’s family. So, just doing the best that we can, honestly, to communicate openly and honestly with each other, and especially for leaders to do that with their employees to check in and say, now, how are you doing, how can I help, how can we make this easier on you, will not only increase, of course, the psychological safety that I mentioned, but also productivity because people really can’t work if they’re not psychologically safe, right? If they’re not in that mindset to be able to do anything, you’re not gonna get sort of your quote unquote, best work out of them anyway. Yeah, I hope that answers your question at least in part.

– Right, so what are some things people can do to build in their own safety? Because yes, there’s things I think companies can do, leaders can do. The reality is we only control ourselves. So, in that space, knowing that these are some of the challenges we may face, what are things that you would suggest to people that they do to build in that safety network for themselves so they can really be the best self that they want to be?

– Yeah, I would say that sort of a simple model of the world is a compilation of the things that are in our control and the things that aren’t. And so, when we focus on the things that are not in our control, that’s when we really lose that sense of certainty, we really get caught up in how unpredictable the world is, and that’s terrifying, right? For folks, that’s a really difficult realization to deal with. So, in that sense, I would just simply offer the more that you can focus on what you can control, which as you mentioned, is always yourself, the better off that you’ll be in building that sense of psychological safety for yourself. So, that I think right now is going to look like being less hard on yourself, right? That was something that I had mentioned earlier. And I think that’s so important, sort of lowering the bar for yourself so that you can come to terms with accept and feel good about the fact that, okay, things look different right now. That is totally fine, right? There is nothing wrong that. And then, also building in any sort of little routine, habit, ritual, whatever it is that makes you feel most like you, whether that’s starting your day with a cup of coffee and a journal, or wrapping up your afternoon maybe a little bit earlier than you’re used to to take a walk or something like that. It sounds simple. But oftentimes it’s the simple things that make the biggest difference because that’s what reinforces our sense of control. And that’s what reinforces our sense of self.

– So, those are mindset concepts, right? Those are things that we do to be able to manage our mindset and how we approach things. So, when you work with people, Jacqueline, is there a process that you take people through that really helps them move?

– Yes, absolutely. So, the process with the women that I work with is really in identifying those stories that I mentioned earlier, and the way that we do that, you can approach it a few different ways. Sometimes it’s looking at action, right? You might say, okay, you’re not doing this thing that you’ve been wanting to do, or you are doing this thing that you don’t want to do, right? That’s sort of one entry point. Another way is to look at feelings. If you are speaking to someone who’s very attuned to their feelings and they’re noticing, wait a minute, I’m doing all of these things, I’m hitting all these goals that I set for myself, and I still don’t feel very good, right? That’s sort of another entry point. And the last is thoughts. So, if some people have a lot of rumination, a lot of anxious thoughts throughout the day, things like that, not at a clinical level of course, because this is coaching that I’m speaking to, but still, that’s another entry point. And with really any of those, you can begin to look up the story and unpack it a little and say, okay, what is the system of beliefs that you’re operating from here, right? What is the soundtrack of your mind, essentially, right now? And in, again, in building out that awareness, which is always the first and most crucial step, then we can begin to pick it apart because our thoughts are never true, our beliefs are never true. We’re just practiced in believing them. So, they feel more true than any other opinion, but they can’t be, right? They’re just sort of our opinions of the world. And the moment that we can see that is the moment that we can choose to change them. So, that’s sort of the process in a nutshell, and we do it through a little bit of a systematic way, but also with a lot of sort of room for fluctuation and for flexibility, because people will have different stick points, different things that don’t make sense to them or that they wanna talk through or stories that they’re really committed to believing. So, it looks a little bit different for everyone, but that, yeah, that’s the general process.

– So, I wanna stick with this for a moment, but also go back to an earlier comment, kind of put the two together, and that was that with some of the people that you work with, one of the things that keep them from really feeling fulfilled when they hit an accomplishment is that they don’t, they’ve moved the goal post, right? And so, they don’t realize that they accomplished something major. And I was thinking about some research that’s been done on perception with that, where if you take school children, for example, and the teacher will make an impression of each child in first grade within the first 15 minutes. The problem with that is that that opinion then is shared from teacher to teacher to teacher. And that perception stays with the child for six years. Unbelievable, but the same thing happens in the workplace. A manager makes a judgment that is passed on, and each continues. We do the same on an individual basis, this is who I am. And it keeps being passed on yourself in terms of the patterns that you’ve created in your mind. So, the interesting thing about that is in the research is the only way to shift that and break it loose quickly is to create measures so that the teacher or the manager says “You know what? “These were things that we were looking for. “Yup, you really did that, you’ve moved.” Because everybody’s moving, and so you forget that people are moving, you forget you’re moving, you forget you finished because, while you’re working on one goal, you’re already making the next. And so, you forget that you’ve finished it. So, I find that fascinating, but so then how do you pull this together so that people can really see progress and movement while pushing themselves in growing and shifting in their mindset to become more fulfilled?

– Mm-hmm, yeah, a few great points in there. The first I wanted to mention was I think you’re speaking to sort of our collective storytelling as well, right? So, earlier I mentioned sort of the personal narratives that we tell ourselves, but then there are also absolutely collective narratives, and you can see that on a societal level, but I certainly imagine you can see it in the classroom and in the workplace as well, where the opinion of one person becomes the opinion of multiple people and so forth. And it’s funny because what you mentioned about the measures being the way to break that, to me, from a mindset perspective, what the measured did was force your brain to see evidence of the contrary that it hadn’t been willing to see before, right? Because it’s selecting into what it wanted to see. And the measures forced to say, wait a minute, that’s not necessarily true. It doesn’t have to be, here’s the evidence to the contrary. So, I love that it all sort of ties together in that way. In terms of your question about how to find fulfillment while you’re in progress, I think it goes back to falling in love with the process, right? Falling in love with what it is that you’re doing rather than what you’re getting out of it, in both business and in our personal lives, right? The more that we can enjoy what we’re doing, the better off we’ll be, because life is really lived in sort of the work and the process. We very, comparatively, spend very little time celebrating the result and just living with it, right? We’re always sort of moving on, adapting, evolving, growing. So, we can find fulfillment in growth just as much as we can find it in results. We just tend to be a result oriented society. So, that’s why that’s where our focus is on. Okay, what can I show people that I have done? But on a personal level, we can celebrate all the way. We can celebrate as we’re doing, we can celebrate, we can break things down into even smaller goals, if it’s helpful, and choose to practice really embracing those, and patting ourselves on the back for that as well, to reinforce the idea, oh, wait a minute, I get to enjoy this all the time, not just when the work is done. And that prevents us from getting to that place where we’re moving the goalpost on ourselves, when we’re constantly pushing away our celebration, pushing away our fulfillment by saying, well, one day I’ll get there, right? One day it’ll be good enough.

– I think that is so true of legacy building as well, because it’s always, some of us start legacy building when we’re young, we know we want to leave something behind. And so, we start early. Others, we wait until we’re finished with our career and we really start kind of that second chapter. And it can feel so amorphous. And for some people, you look back at the end of life, and there’s a disappointment, right? Others, they look back and there’s a joy in what was accomplished. The goal itself was perhaps not so much, it was the people’s lives that were touched, or whatever that they accomplished. So, I like what you say relative to that.

– Yeah, yeah, I think your point about feeling disappointed at the end is such an important one because at least to my mind, what’s taking place there is that we did that process in delaying our satisfaction, delaying our fulfillment. And then, when we got to the point that we’ve stop, right? When we get there and that’s should be theoretically our time to celebrate, we just lost what we had been identifying with for so long. We just lost that whole process of evolving through our lifespan with work. We just said goodbye to it. So, that doesn’t feel like a celebration at all. That feels like a loss, you’re sort of mourning the loss of that identity. So, that’s not enjoyable, right? That’s not, oh yeah, of course let’s celebrate, which I think really speaks to why this is so important to change this process for people so that when they’re done, they can look back and say, well, I got to celebrate all the way through. Now, even though yes, I am mourning the loss of this identity, at least I also feel very proud of the work that I put in.

– Right, and so, I think for a lot of people, as they move into that next phase, what you see is people who have looked at mindset, as you suggest, and really thought it through, also look at that for that next phase of life. And they may be creating on not for profit. They may be creating places where they can touch people’s lives in impact. So, it may be on a smaller scale, but they know that there’s still, there’s a reason they wake up every morning. There’s a reason why they still eat and breathe. And I think as humans, that’s part of where our souls get nourishment.

– Yeah, absolutely, and I think in those moments, realizing that there is so much value that you offer just as a person separate from the work that you had done for so long that people cherish you for it, you should cherish you for it, right? There are all these other components of being human besides the work piece, but in terms of really building out the legacy portion of it, I think starting from whenever you’re able, recognizing that you can choose to opt into this narrative where you’re believing that the work that you’re doing has implications beyond your reach, right? Beyond your direct one on one contact with people, because you’re impacting their lives, who then go on to impact the lives of others. So, people that you’ve never even met are feeling the effects of your presence. And that’s something that you can just start choosing to believe whenever you want, right? You don’t have to wait until your career is over to decide, okay, I’m now gonna believe that I created a legacy. No, you get to have that anytime you want. And I think that’s really powerful as well.

– It is powerful. And I have enjoyed this so much, Jacqueline. We’ve been talking for almost fully half an hour. And before we close, I’d just like to know, is there something else that you would like to share with the audience that we haven’t talked about that you have seen is important or that you’re just simply passionate about?

– Mm . There are lots of things that I’m passionate about. I think for our conversation today, just wrapping with believing that you get to be proud of yourself whenever you want to be is something that I think sort of sums up our conversation well. We often think it’s in the future, but it’s available to you right now, whatever it is that you would like, whether that’s fulfillment, happiness, pride, whatever it may be, those feelings are available to you right now. And you’re probably doing a much better job than you realize or than you give yourself credit for. I think people need to hear that right now.

– You know what? There’s so many things that are if, on the positive side that we need to hear. So, I think that’s wonderful advice. Jacqueline, it’s been wonderful to be with you. And for those of you who are listening to “Building My Legacy” podcast today, we will also put the connections to Jacqueline’s social media link so that you can be in contact with her in the future, if you’d like, or if you would like other assistance in reaching her, just simply email me and we will be glad to connect you with Jacqueline. So, thank you so much, Jacqueline, for being with us, and thank you for all of you who are listening.

– Thank you for having me.

– “Building My Legacy” podcast.

– Thanks so much.