When You Say Yes to Work You’d Rather Say No to...
What happens when we take on work we really don’t want to do?
Cortney recently posted her experience doing just that in our Brand Strategy Bootcamp Slack.
Here’s Cortney’s story...
“Saying yes to work you know you wanted to say no to will invite imposter syndrome to share your office space with you.
I had a realization the other day. I was working on something for a long-time freelance client. At this point she feels more like a friend than anything else. She checks 2 very important boxes: 1. We are a personality match. 2. I love what she is trying to do for the world.
The problem is not even that the pay is lower than I’d like. The REAL problem is that the work puts me right back into the identity I’ve been working to shed– The designer who isn’t a brand strategist yet.
When I sit down to do this work, I find myself literally battling with my inner-critic. I snapped out of a negative thought spiral and realized what I was saying to myself. I was full of frustration, impatience, and impostery-feelings. I was angry at myself for saying yes when I shouldn’t have. I convinced myself I was disappointing myself and others. I was pissed off at the work itself! Like “stupid” photoshop for its moment of delay. I was blaming my client for constantly changing her mind and turning a “simple” project into a never-ending one.
I was mad. But was I? No. I was not. My inner-critic was mad. His friend imposter-syndrome was mad. I was just learning a lesson. A lesson I needed to learn. A lesson that was so important it was now screaming at me while I sat at my desk.
I needed to know this. When I say yes to work I know you wanted to say no to, it’s saying yes to a lot more than I may have bargained for. It’s saying yes to an old identity. It’s giving the inner critic room to YELL because I am saying I accept the fact that I’m not “good enough yet”. I am giving into fear. This work takes away my confidence. It takes away my belief that I am no longer a freelance designer.
My level of belief in a new identity is the exact reflection of the kind of work I take on. As long as I say yes to this kind of work, I will never be the brand strategist I want to be.
When Nick and Angela had a chat, they uncovered that saying yes can often lead to stress and saying no can often lead to growth.
They shared a little question we can ask ourselves: Does yes = stress? Does no = grow?”
In response, Angela , a Bootcamp alumni shared this:
“Another thought I just had—We still learn a lot through the No’s, it is just learning what to avoid. Like in a video game—oh, if I touch that object, I start back at the beginning. I wonder if it would be helpful to grant ourselves some grace as we switch from freelance to brand strategist. I felt like going from one to the other was like turning a cruise ship around. Knowing it can be a long process could relieve some pressure. I had to shift perspective, mindset, systems, process, etc. It took me a year to get where I’m at, and while I have a handful of strategy projects under my belt, I’m still learning how to say no to past clients. Perhaps the saying could be modified to Yes = Learn through stress // No = clear path to grow.”
Are you saying ‘yes’ to work you’d rather say ‘no’ to?
Cheers!
Melinda
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