Mindset Monday- Fitting In vs Belonging

This is episode 126 of the Empowered Team Podcast. Welcome to the Empowered Team Podcast, where we explore how to optimize your performance in career, sport and life. And now, your host, vitality and peak performance coach, Kari Schneider.

Hello. Hello. Hello. Amazing people, amazing humans. That's what we are. We are amazing humans because we are adaptable. We can deal with so many different things and there's so much that comes.

At us all the time and we.

Find a way to manage and that's what we've been doing a lot of lately. So today I am going to bring you the topic of fitting in versus belonging. The difference, the distinction, and why you typically want the feeling of belonging, but what it takes to really get there. I don't know about you, but I've spent a lot of situations, a lot of years trying to fit in in.

Various places, whether it was being sent.

Away and living in the States in.

Private school and trying to fit in with people.

I didn't even know whether it's been in different career scenarios where you dive into another arena of work that is.

Very demanding, very challenging, and you have.

To try and step up to that state, step up to that standard that everybody has for you, and you don't know if you can do it. So you're trying to fit in really badly. Or there's gender types where I've been in environments working with primarily men or working with primarily women and finding myself changing how I'm being and how I'm acting in order to fit in. Right. I don't know if you've done these things, whether it's been in school or work or home, even family life, finding some of our kids or even ourselves, doing things or acting in ways to fit in. So what does it really mean to fit in? It's changing your actions, changing your ways of being, and even changing your state in order to fit in with those around you in order to be really accepted. And even if you think of a zoom meeting, a team environment, a work scenario, you can probably think of a recent scenario, even in your family life that you've done something, you've acted in a different way, you've changed what you're doing or your attitude or even your state or your mood in order to fit in. You can think of a time in the recent past this has happened. But why are you doing it? Are you doing it for acceptance? Are you doing it to get close with somebody? Do you find yourself thinking in the back of your mind, they don't really get me that's happened to me a lot. They don't really understand me. But we're doing it for acceptance. Because what we really want, the thing we're really going for, the thing we really feel the best in, is that state of belonging, having an affinity for a group of people, that affinity, or that affinity for a situation, feeling like we truly belong. We're going for the belonging. And what we don't really want is to change who we really are in order to fit in. We want to belong with the group that we're engaged with, no matter where it is. We want to belong with that group we're engaged with just the way we are. Have them be accepting of us just the way we are. I can think of this scenario in countless times in my life. And if you ponder for just a moment how you've been even in this past last week, are there ways that you acted that weren't actually who you are in order to be accepted? Are there scenarios that you were just whoever you are in every possible way and you're accepted no matter what? That right there is the distinction between fitting in and truly belonging. Here's the paradox, and this is how you really get to find where you belong and who you belong with and get that feeling of belonging. And it's actually putting yourself in scenarios to figure out how you fit in. It's almost like trying on clothes at a store, you know, when you don't really know if those shoes are going to fit and you're not going to buy them and you're not going to run in them and get blisters before you actually try them on. You're scared to order something online because you don't want to get it and have it be wrong, but you have to actually try them on. You have to try on the shoes, the runners, you have to try on the jeans before you know whether it's exactly right with you, whether it's exactly a belonging situation for you. So there's a lot of times where that little voice that says, they don't get me, they don't get who I am. And that particular voice stops you from going into situations to test the waters. And what I propose to you today, and I invite you to try on is quite literally try things on. Try on different scenarios, try on different conversations, try on different platforms, try on different opinions, try on different ideas, try on different scenarios and work whatever it is, try a whole bunch of things on. Because only by trying on a whole bunch of things to see if they fit, to see if they fit in with you or you fit in with them. Only that way is how you find out where you truly belong and what feels like belonging to you. But if we continue to just dismiss every other thing, we won't really feel that sense of true belonging. So the paradox becomes that to truly find where you belong and to find that belonging feeling is to quite literally try a whole bunch of different things on and keep trying on. Don't stop trying on. Try things on to see if they fit without any expectation. Just keep trying things on to see if they fit because then you will find more and more scenarios, situations, other humans that you have true belonging with I hope this serves you for your Monday. I hope this launches you into an incredible week, however it looks, and I invite you to try on a few things that might be just a little different. Doesn't mean you have to force any fit, it just means trying it on.

To see what's there for you.

Have a fantastic week everybody. Much love to you.

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