Guest Post by Evelyn Kalinosky Blog Post
I held a teleseminar recently that explored the concept of redefining financial success as a spiritual journey. This redefinition is about becoming professionally and personally “fulfilled,” which involves a spiritual quest of recapturing or discovering, sometimes for the first time, your dreams, and money is the higher purpose that helps you foster this fuller, more balanced life. Money is the by-product of values-based ambition, which is all about living out your authentic values and beliefs. It’s what I refer to as “Wealth of the Self” and what moves you from success to significance.
My guest, online visibility expert Nancy Marmolejo of Viva Visibility, and I covered a lot of information in 45 minutes, but nothing in what we discussed was more important than when we talked about the one key thing that needs to happen before you can move from success to significance. This one key thing is non-negotiable. There’s no way around it. Think of it as the foundation that must be poured before you can build a house. It’s what anchors you to the life you want to live.
That one key thing is becoming empowered. It’s giving yourself permission to take the risks and make the changes you want and need to make.
I know that sounds really simple. And you’re probably thinking: “You’ve got to be kidding me? That’s it?!” But the reality is that for so many women – including women in high-level positions and women who own their own businesses – there are places in our lives where we don’t stand in our own power.
Whether it’s being afraid to speak up, doubting our capabilities or denying the things we long for, allowing ourselves to be mistreated, feeling like an imposter or fraud in our professional life, resisting the truth, or acting in ways that go against our values – disempowerment is at the root of the problem.
When we feel powerless:
- We think of ourselves as small and ineffective, more like victims of circumstance than the strong, capable women we are.
- We find it difficult to make positive, lasting change. We vacillate. We’re ambivalent.
- We spend too much time needing acceptance and validation from others rather than trusting that we know the answers that are best for us.
When we’re empowered, however:
- We’re able to access our own abilities, strengths and gifts.
- We’re able to draw upon the host of internal and external resources that are available to us, and we know how to put these resources to our best use.
- We’re able to say “Yes!” to change and welcome transition because we trust ourselves to be able to handle any challenge that comes along.
Take a moment and think about those times in your life when you felt truly empowered – what kind of decisions were you able to make? How did they impact your life and your choices?
Now compare that to those times when you felt powerless – how were the decisions you made different? How did they impact your life and your choices?
A critical part of redefining your life means going from breakdown to breakthrough in terms of discovering your authentic power. Not “perceived” power that can often feel aggressive, and is largely situational and transitory, but true power that is strong without being forceful, and that doesn’t come and go depending on the moment.
When you stand firm in your own true power in both your professional and your personal life it’s like you are a tree with its roots firmly, deeply embedded in the earth. It’s from this base of knowledge that your life branches out to embrace infinite possibilities.
Part of your journey in going from breakdown to breakthrough includes working to uncover the hidden landscape of habits, beliefs and patterns that underlie and sometimes subvert how you live your life and how you own your power.
I’m pretty sure you know what I’m talking about. Have you found yourself at one time or another:
- Hanging on to a job that is physically, emotionally and psychologically draining because it provided you with a substantial amount of money, good health benefits and a retirement plan?
- Holding on to a personal or business relationship because it provided you with financial security, even though it was clear to you that separation would be best for your emotional and spiritual well-being?
- Being surrounded by all kinds of information, advice and resources, and yet something stopped you from using any of it?
As a “breakthrough” woman, you must be willing to do the things you sometimes don’t want to do. There are many things that keep women in business from making changes, especially if we’re making a healthy income. The promise of money, or the threat of losing it, induces us to tolerate or make concessions. I say this without the slightest hint of judgment or reproach, because I am a woman who tolerated things at different points in my life that my more actualized self would never allow now.
Refusing to make changes when you know in your core that you’re doing yourself a disservice is a clear sign you’re not empowered. Give yourself permission. Say “Yes!” to what it is you truly want. That’s your first step on your journey to living a life of significance.
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As Founder & CEO of Evelyn Kalinosky LLC, Evelyn specializes in helping women executives, professional women and women entrepreneurs who want to achieve a more sacred kind of success.
She is a consultant, speaker, published author and poet, and is currently writing a book about women navigating through midlife. Visit her at: www.evelynkalinosky.com.