Ep 8: 32 things I learnt in 32 years!

Foreign welcome back to the Career Chronicles Podcast with your host, me, Emma Nayla Weston, AKA the no BS Career Coach, Certified Coach and NLP Master Practitioner. This podcast is for the ambitious and motivated individuals who are looking to feel inspired to create a career that they love. Join me in conversation with those that inspire me the most and as well as solo episodes packed with tips and tricks that will guide you to start finding the clarity and confidence to create a career that you love. Welcome back to this week's episode. I am so excited to be here. It's the first episode of 2024 and I cannot wait to dive straight in with you. I really wanted to leave it the first few weeks as I know it can be such an overwhelming time. I often find the first two weeks of the year very overwhelming. Full of goals, full of New Year, new me. And I really wanted to use the first two weeks of 2024 to reflect on the year gone by and set myself up for an incredible year ahead. Which is why I wanted to invite you to do the same. I didn't want to add to the noise online the podcast talking about New Year, New Me, and all of the incredible things that you want to achieve now. There's nothing wrong and I always, always tell people, setting goals, getting clear on what they do is the most important thing you can do. I often find that with the first few weeks of a new year, there's this innate extraordinary external pressure to need to change every aspect of your life, to really, really spend the time ridiculing yourself of the things that you want to change, the weight you want to lose, the behaviors you want to change, the big audacious goals. And often what I find is those don't come from a place of alignment and clarity. They come from a place of thinking that you need to do that. This year things looked completely different for me. I really took the time for myself and also with my clients to sit down and create space for reflection, reflecting on what worked last year, what didn't, and what we can do this year that feels aligned, feels amazing, and actually works beyond the year goal, but for our future self and our future career. So many of us set goals in the new year that really look short term, the short term gains, the short term wins, rather than actually saying the goals that I'm setting today, how do they fit into my life in the next three to five to 10 years? Now I really want you to have a think about that. If you have been setting goals, we're in the third week of January. If you've been thinking about setting goals or you have set goals, have a look back at them, have a look and understand. Are they short term goals or are they actually going to allow you to get to where you want to get to in the next three years? I know that I used to set goals that were super short term, super quick wins, but weren't actually Building a Foundation for the Future when this podcast goes live, I will have celebrated my 32nd birthday. For me, birthdays very much feel like a new year. I really find joy in reflecting on the year gone by, the lessons that I've learned, and really deep diving into the growth and the things that have happened in that past year, but also in all of the years gone by. A tradition I started a few years ago was where I used to share all the invaluable insights that I had learned through those years prior. So I actually started it on my 30th birthday. So I did 30 things I've learned in 30 years. Last year I did 31 things I've learned in 31 years. And this year, as you guessed it correctly, I did 32 things that I have learned in 32 years. These posts always allow me to have this moment of reflection. They bear nothing apart from just allowing me to reflect. It's not an opportunity for me to ridicule myself, for me to think about the things that I haven't achieved. It's merely just to sit down and think about all of the learnings that I've had. I really wanted to share with you. I will not share all 32 with you. Maybe if I was 18 I'd be sharing them all, but the podcast episode. I don't want to be recording a two hour episode, but I really wanted to share with you the few things that have I have really, really learned over the last 32 years. The the top few things that I believe are the most important and I'm going to talk you through why I think these are the most important. So the first one is acting like you know what you're doing. With confidence, you can pretty much do anything. It took me a very long time to realize that so much of how we behave and we hold and we show ourselves is around how we carry ourselves. The confidence that is within. Now I want you to think back about a time that maybe you were in a meeting or maybe you were interviewing someone, or maybe you were, you know, going for a promotion and there were a few other people in the process. I want you to think about a time where you know that Someone was less qualified or someone didn't actually know as much, much as they thought they should. However, because of their level of conviction and their level of confidence and how they carried themselves, they were able to captivate the room and the person who they were speaking to. It wasn't about the facts and the information that they were saying. It's the conviction and how and how they were saying it and how they were holding themselves. So the first thing for me was really learning that even in a situation where I feel like the underdog, even when I feel that imposter syndrome coming in and I feel incredibly under qualified with confidence, I wear it as a crown and it allows me to realize I can pretty much do anything. The second big thing for me was looking after my skin. And I know I'm still in my 30s and I'm still young, but my gosh, I wish I had worn SPF 50 every single day. I wish I had drunk more water and drunk less alcohol. I wish I had looked after my skin. Our skin is the biggest organ and so many of us take for granted that our skin looks a certain way, that we don't have to look after it, that we're more olive skin so we won't get as burnt. For me, one of the big things was looking after my skin because I know when I look good, I feel good. When I look good, I feel good. And I just wanted to throw that one in there because I think that is something that's so important that so many of us do not take seriously. Trusting your gut is the next one. Trusting your gut, because I promise you, it is always fucking right. If something feels off and something doesn't feel right, there is a reason. Even if you don't believe in intuition or you're not an intuitive person. We've all had that feeling in that moment, whether it's been in a friendship or a relationship or a job offer or whatever it is, where that feeling just doesn't feel quite right. I remember I once went for a job interview and I was desperate to leave one of the companies I was at. I went for a job interview and it just didn't feel right. I knew it didn't feel right, but I was so desperate to get out of the situation that I was in, I convinced myself that that gut feeling was wrong. And you know what? It wasn't. I took the job, I quit my full time job, took this other job and within a month I had quit. But I knew even before I took that job that it wasn't Right. And yet I did not listen to my gut. Our intuition and our gut knows absolutely everything. If you give it the space and actually listen to it, I promise you it can work with you and help you a lot more. The next one is not wasting your time wishing you were doing something else and go and fucking do it. I was actually having a conversation with a friend yesterday who was talking about the fact that she's in a job that she hates. She absolutely hates this job, and she's counting down the days until she gets to leave. And hey, no judgment, because I've been there. I had a reminder on my phone, a countdown app, of when I could finish that job. I was literally wishing my life away. I'd wake up every morning and go, yes, 80 days to go. Yes, 79 days to go, 78 days to go. I was wishing away. I remember it's like a third of a year. I was wishing time away. And I understand if you are in a situation that makes you feel like crap, like a job, whatever it is, you can't just get up and leave. But you need to have an action plan and a strategy and something to actually be looking forward to. However, you also have to understand that job needs to be as enjoyable as possible. One of the big things that I learned really on when I was working with a previous coach of mine, we came to this realization that actually if I shifted my mindset and saw my full time job as my investor in my business, it changed everything for me of how I saw my job. I saw my job, my 9 to 5 job as the investor in my coaching business, and my God, that changed everything for me. I stopped despising it and hating it and saw it as an investor, as a partner, as something and someone that was going to get me further. And as I said, that shifted everything for me in how I would show up and how I would present myself and the energy that I went and put in, I saw it working for me. I saw that working for me. Rather than feeling like it was this horrible, awful thing that I had to do. And that changed how I showed up every day in the energy and it allowed me to actually start enjoying, allowed me to actually start feeling good about going to this job and rather seeing it as a countdown day, I saw it as an opportunity to say, every day I'm going, they are paying me and this money is helping me fund my new business. And actually my employer, I really hope they're not listening to this, but even if they are, that's fine. My employer helped Pay for most of my coaching qualifications. I saw it as that way. I saw it as you are funding my coaching qualifications. And that changed everything. Everything for me. Changed everything for me. The next one is, if you have that business idea or new venture, just start it and see what happens. Remove the outcome. For so many years, I didn't start a business. I didn't start doing things because I was so petrified of it not working. I was so petrified that it wouldn't work. And believe me, I've had businesses that haven't worked. Most entrepreneurs or most business owners that you speak to will have multiple businesses or multiple things that they've started that have never taken off and never worked. And it's okay. And it's okay to admit that you started something that didn't work out. And it's so much better to be able to say, oops, that didn't work, then never knowing if it could have actually turned into something. And I want to know in your head, if you have that idea, what is stopping you, what is really stopping you from taking a leap and just fucking trying something? Because I guarantee it's that fear of a failure, it's that fear of it not working out, it's that attachment to the outcome that we're so fucking obsessed with, rather than just being able to go, actually, let's try it and see what happens. Let's just give it a go. What is the worst that can happen? And that really leads on to this creative side, finding creative outlets and hobbies that make you feel good that don't make you any fucking money. We're so obsessed with money, and we're so obsessed with hobbies, making us money. I'm obsessed with money. I absolutely love money. Money is something that I have no shame in saying that I absolutely love. But I also have a bunch of hobbies and outlets that I would never try and monetize because it's the enjoyment. It's the enjoyment of actually doing things. And that for me, was such a big learning. Every time I do something and enjoy something, I don't have to turn it into a business idea. I've got my business ideas. I did it, I ran with it. I've created my own business. It's not about making everything I do and turning that into something monetary. It's not one of the biggest shifts that really happened to me. And this was actually. This was actually a really difficult shift. And it's something that in real time I've been working through is accepting that some friendships have a Season, and that's okay. It's painful. The world of friendships navigating as an adult in your 30s is painful. And it's difficult, and it's uncomfortable because we are all at different stages. And I always sort of talk with my husband about this, saying, I feel like I fall into this gap of I've just gotten married, so the expectation is I have kids then I also have so many fun single friends that are, like, starting these businesses and, like, traveling and, like, taking over the world. And I kind of feel like I fit into both of these fun categories. Just got married, not planning on having kids right now, but I'm also starting a business and love traveling. And sometimes friendships fall into all of those categories. And sometimes people are so wrapped up in their own getting married and having kids that what you used to have in common with them is evolving and changing. And I really want to caveat that with. It's not a bad thing to evolve and move on from friendships and be in different friendships of your life, be in different seasons with your friends. And also sometimes you have those friends in your life, whether that be colleagues, whether that be an acquaintance, whether that be someone who's been there for a period of your life when you needed it. But it's really difficult to move past those feelings and actually accept sometimes that friendships have seasons, and that's okay. And I've had to do a hell of a lot of work recently on that, because we're not taught about that. We're not taught. There's no manual of how to manage friendships. There's no manual of how to deal and navigate with things. When you're evolving and you're growing, and when you get into your 30s, even 40s, people's lives do start changing. The kids, the marriage, the businesses, the jobs, the promotions, the moving countries. There's a lot of change. As you can tell, this is a subject that's very important for me, and I'm going through this myself and just want to be as completely transparent that we know we're moving country at the moment. There's more on that later. There's a big change. There's shifts. There's things happening, and it's really uncomfortable, but it's learning to accept that some friendships have seasons, and that's okay. One of the really big things for me as well, that's so important, I actually don't talk about it that much because I was really mindful of not ever going down this route of coaching. But that's. Alcohol is not the answer. I Promise you I am next month. Touchword Celebrating seven years of sobriety and seven years in recovery. Seven years of mind altering substances. And one thing I can say is whatever's happening in your life, career wise, job wise, relationship wise, financial wise, alcohol is not going to make anything better. In fact, it's going to make everything worse. Took me quite a few years to figure that out. I got sober when I was 25, which is relatively young to get sober, but I knew I should have got sober when I was 16. And yet I continued for another nine years drinking and using because I didn't have the tools to be able to deal with life on life's terms. I struggled with really simple things. I struggled with my own mind, I struggled with social situations, I struggled with school. There were so many situations where I really struggled and I used to think alcohol and drugs was the answer. And it's not, I promise you. So whatever the situation is, really listen to someone who's been there and I promise you it's not going to make anything better. One of the biggest learnings for me has also been I feel like all of these are big learnings and I could go through the whole list, but I said I won't. One of the biggest things for me was learning to say no and having boundaries. And there's kind of two points to this. First of all, no is a full sentence in any situation. No is a full fcking sentence. And for anyone that needs permission to know that, please take it from me, I'm giving you permission to say no. It doesn't have to be no. Sorry, but no. Full stop. Big full stop. And then the second part of that is when you are saying yes to someone else, make sure that you're not saying no to yourself. How many times have you said yes to someone knowing that it means you're going to have to say no to something that you've wanted to do. Saying yes to someone else when you know that your desk at home is full of things you need to get through. Saying yes and taking on someone else's burden when actually you already have a thousand things that you need to get done that you haven't done. I really want you to think about your boundaries, how you're saying no when you're saying yes. People. Why are you saying yes to people? I really want you to think about what 2024 for you in terms of boundaries means. What does that look like for you in your career? What does it look like for you in your day to day job? What does it look like for you in your relationships, it's all intertwined. It's all intertwined. And it's so important for you to really think about how boundaries show up or the lack of boundaries show up in your life. The final piece that I really want to finish on and this is one of the biggest things in the last 32 years that I've really learned. It's interesting and this is going to get dark quite quickly and I apologies, but I didn't have to deal with death until the last few years. I was very lucky and very thankful. I didn't really have to deal with that much death in my. In my life. And in the last few years I have. There's been situations, unfortunately. Grandparents, you know, getting older, friends, family, friends, parent, other, other friends, parents. And it. Every time something like this happens, it really hits me. And it really hits me. And it's made me add this to my list this year as the last One is number 32 things that I've learned in 32. And it's don't wait until something big happens to realize how short life is. We all think I'll apply for that job when I'll quit my job and go traveling, when I'll start that business, when or when I've got this, I'll be happy. When I make £150,000, I'll be happy when I have a $250,000 bonus. I'll be happy. Don't fucking wait until something big happens to realize we are not here forever. We get 80 good years if we're lucky. If we're lucky. And every birthday that comes round, I always take a reflection and do this list. And I'm going to share. I'm going to link the list that I did for my 30th and my 31st birthday and all of those learnings I try and implement into my life every single day. Some of them more than others. Some of them are more important than others. But I sure as hell know I cannot sit around and wait for shit to happen for me, for my life to start. I can't. Am I making all the money I want to make? No. Am I as fit and healthy as I want to be? No. Is everything, everything dandy and perfect? No. But if I wait to feel X before I start, if I wait to go, well, I'm not going to do this in my business until I've got Y or I'm not going to go back to the gym until I lose X amount of weight, I am going to be Sat there waiting, and so are you until it's too late to do something. If there is something you want to do in your career, in your job, in your business, whatever it is, travel, quit your job, find a remot job, travel, go and start your own business, take a sabbatical. Whatever it is, do it now because we are not getting any younger, time is not slowing down, and do not wait until something huge happens in your life to realize, shit, I should have been spending my time doing that. That, for me, is the biggest learning I've had in the last few years. You know, when Covid hit, I think it made so many of us realize how much we hated our jobs, how much we didn't like where we live, how much we wanted to move country, how much these friendships weren't working anymore. So many things, and I feel like so many people have just gone back to pre Covid life. Bobbling along. Yeah, when you say to someone, how's life? And they go, yeah, I'm getting by. Fuck that. I do not want to be getting by in life. I don't want to just be bobbling along. And someone says to me, how's your job? And I'm like, well, you know, my job's my job. I can love it as much as I can. No, that's not how. It's not the life that I came here to live. And I sure as hell know that you are listening to this podcast, podcast episode. That's not the life you came here to live. So this is my invitation to you. If you take anything away from this episode, it's go and do the things that you want to do, even if it scares the living out of you. Do not look back when you are 70, 80, 90, going, I wish I had done that in my 20s and 30s and 40s. There is no age on when you can do it. I speak to people all the time that go, I'm in my 50s, I can't change careers, and I'm in my 40s. I want to go traveling, but I feel like I've missed it. There's no time. There is no time limit. But you have to, have to, have to. If you know you want to do it, you've got to do it. Don't wait until you wish you had done it. Don't wait until that big thing comes and happens. That big thing happens. Growing old is a privilege that so many people do not get. Every time I have a birthday, I celebrate. I am so happy. It's a privilege for me to get old It's a privilege. I don't like the wrinkles, but you know, we get Botox for that. Because I like to look a certain way, I like to feel a certain way. There's nothing wrong with that. But it's a privilege to know that I'm getting older, that I can feel a certain way, that I can make changes and choices anywhere in my life. I was never planning on waiting until 40 to start my business, and if I could turn back time, I would have done it a hell of fucking sooner. But I didn't. But I make a promise every day to myself to grow, to make change, to do the things that scare the shit out of me. So this is my invitation to you. You are sat there listening to this. Don't wait until the big thing happens to realize how short life is and then go and make the change. Do it fucking now. I really hope you enjoyed this episode. You can hear how passionate I am about some of these topics, but I hope you all have a wonderful rest of your week and join me next week for the next episode. Thank you for listening to the Career Chronicles podcast. If you have enjoyed this episode, please make sure to subscribe and leave a five star review. They mean the world to me. I would love to connect with you over on Instagram at. I am emmanelaweston. I can't wait to connect with you further. Until next time, stay BS free, clear on your goals and confident to go and get them.