#4 – Coaching Gaëlle: How to let go of (work) expectations?

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Transcription of the episode

EPISODE TEASER

There is this word: expectations. It’s a big one. And consciously, all the time we have the expectation. We wake up, we expect, I don’t know, our partner to do this or that. We expect that to happen at work. We expect the sun to come up in the morning. We expect our friend to write back. We have all the time expectations. Sometimes we have very fixed expectations, sometimes also very high expectations. I know that’s a big topic for many of my clients, and these expectations might cut us off from life.

EPISODE SUMMARY

This episode is for you if you have a particular relationship with your expectations. You are going to understand it as you will listen to the episode. It’s a huge topic for many of my clients. You will gain a new perspective on that through the episode. Also, when life brings change that we don’t want, we didn’t desire, we didn’t wish, and you move from a situation where you were happy, you felt at peace, and life throws in something, and you find yourself just regretting the previous situation and wanting to go back, and that being the expectation of what you really actually want in your life. It’s like, how do you move from that situation where you’ve had something beautiful, it stopped for whatever reason, and how do you move from there? That’s what this episode is about. Enjoy.

TRANSCRIPT: GAËLLE’S COACHING SESSION

Gloria:
I would love to hear what brings you to this coaching session. What’s the topic you would like to talk about today?

Gaëlle::
I’m changing my job, and next week, I will enter a new company. In my last job, I was with the best manager I can imagine in my life. And unfortunately, she had to quit the company. So now I’m integrating a new company and I want to be sure that I feel good there. And sometimes I can be, it’s not maybe the good word, but I can be shy because it’s your first day in the company. So you don’t feel, you don’t act like you are because you said, okay, maybe I don’t have to say something, or I don’t have to ask questions, or I need to be polite. Of course, I need to be polite, but maybe I have to be just as I am. I don’t know how I have to be for the first days to be sure that my integration will be good and I will be sure that it’s a good company for me because maybe it’s not the good one. You just have one or two interviews with your future manager, so you don’t know exactly who she is. I want to be sure that it’s a good company for me.
It’s a good manager, and I want to know if I have to be just natural during my process integrating this company. I have a good feeling with my manager, but I was a bit astonished with human resources. I discovered something in my contract last Friday, and I was very angry. Maybe it’s just a mistake. Everybody makes mistakes, but I want to be sure that this situation will not pollute my integration.

Gloria:
And how will you be sure or how can you be sure?

Gaëlle:
That’s a good question. I think for the human resources, if they don’t speak about this point, we have, between brackets, arguments. But then, okay, the situation is closed. We find a compromise. And with my manager, I hope she will speak with me about this topic. Because I think it is her responsibility to defend me, to make me feel comfortable, or to say to me, It was a mistake. We find a compromise. I’m happy you are here in the company. It’s important for me, but maybe I’m expecting too much from somebody who, in fact, doesn’t know me. She just had an interview and she said, Okay, she could be the good candidate for the term. I don’t know how I have to react because I was a bit astonished to discover something in the contract.

Gloria:
What do you have control over? What do you have influence on in that current situation?

Gaëlle:
Nothing, I think. I can’t manage that. I can speak about the subject myself, but it will not be a success for me. I think it’s not my role to speak about it. I think it’s the role of my manager because it was a mistake from the company. Maybe I’m expecting too much because I had the greatest manager I could, and now I’m looking for the same manager, and maybe it’s not possible.

Gloria:
What’s the fear underneath that situation if you go one level deeper?

Gaëlle:
Yes, because I feel that it will be her role, and I will feel good and comfortable, and it will be a good beginning for the next months or years. If not, maybe I will say, okay, she’s not the good manager for me.

Gloria:
Okay. You are saying something important here because you are saying that this specific situation right now is maybe a key indicator for you to know if this is the right company or if this is the right manager for you. Is that what you mean?

Gaëlle:
Yes.

Gloria:
What does it mean if she doesn’t speak up for you?

Gaëlle:
Maybe she doesn’t defend me, and I will feel alone.

Gloria:
You will feel alone?

Gaëlle:
Yes, and maybe I will say, okay, I’m in the wrong company.

Gloria:
Okay. So you’re also saying that this is something that might even affect your perception of the company?

Gaëlle:
Yes, because for me, it’s very important to feel good. I work in human resources, so I need to feel good in my job and with my colleagues.

Gloria:
Yeah, okay. I hear you. I want to reflect back something because I hear that you’re saying it’s very important for you to feel good and comfortable in this environment. And I also hear you saying that you have expectations toward this manager, which are very important for you to feel this way. At the same time, what I also hear you saying is that this situation is out of your control. So if we take these two things together, what would you say is a way for you to find clarity or peace in this situation?

Gaëlle:
I think I just have to observe during the next weeks how the manager will react.

Gloria:
Okay.

Gaëlle:
I will not say something because it’s too early, but I will observe.

Gloria:
Yeah, okay. So you are giving yourself time to observe, and then you will see how it goes.

Gaëlle:
Yes.

Gloria:
Okay. Thank you for sharing that. One last question: if this situation had not happened, what would you have liked to talk about today?

Gaëlle:
Good question. Maybe about my first day in the new company because it’s not very easy to feel good during the first day. I want to know how I can feel confident, how I can just be natural, but at the same time, not say too much, not say too little, just find the right balance.

Gloria:
So you want to explore how you can find this balance, be yourself, and still feel confident in a new situation.

Gaëlle:
Yes, exactly.

Gloria:
Okay. Would you like to dive into that now, or would you prefer to stick to the first topic for today?

Gaëlle:
I think the first topic is enough for today.

Gloria:
Okay. Thank you for sharing, and I wish you a lot of clarity as you observe the next weeks and see how this relationship with your manager unfolds.

Gaëlle:
I’m afraid that my future manager is a bit cold, and she will accept what the CEO says, without challenging him. My former manager, she was always thinking about the worst situations, challenging all positions, even of the CEO. And I thought it was the best way to take the best decision and just to have courage. And my future manager, I think she will not have this courage. So I’m afraid that I will not be very comfortable with her. I was astonished during my discussion with the human resources because she was in the copy of all the email and she said, I didn’t know. I didn’t follow your discussion with the human resources. It’s not possible. She was in a copy. She knew that maybe I will not come because of this point in the contract. And she spoke without taking into account my feeling of being betrayed. Maybe I have to forgive her and go ahead, but I don’t know if I am able to do that. Just listening, it’s always a French expression, but I’m listening my stomach. Maybe I’m thinking too much. But my stomach is just saying me it’s not normal, but maybe it was just a mistake.

Gloria:
Do you want me to give you some feedback on what I hear?

Gaëlle:
Yes.

Gloria:
First, there is this word that comes all the time: “I want to be sure. I want to be sure”. That is coming from the mind. I want this certainty. Why you seek the certainty is because in your gut feeling, you’re like: I don’t know. Often when in our mind, we’re like, I want to be sure. I want to the certainty. What are the signals that make you ask yourself this question? You’ve shared them already. What discussion that happened with the HR, how your manager didn’t react, and that was for you something that didn’t feel right. That’s what happened. We want that certainty from the mind, but in the end, the only voice that will be able to guide you, it’s going to be your gut feeling. Is it right for me? That’s the first thing I hear, so that you can make a difference. It’s always important in a decision-making to make the difference between, am I coming from my mind? What’s coming from my mind and what’s coming from my gut in your case? The question is, okay, you’ve had that experience that was not good for sure. That made you really doubt maybe your decision.

When you go back to the interview process, apparently it was fine with the manager. It felt right. Now you’re going to start very soon. Basically, can you stay connected to your gut feeling to check, is this the right environment? Is this the right person? As you said, can you give a chance beyond that original situation, acknowledge that it wasn’t right for you? Then I’m going to ask you other questions around that. Can you give a chance? Are you ready? Or maybe it’s okay. You tell me, Gloria, no, this is inconceivable for me what happened, and I don’t even want to show up. It might take a bit of time to sense what’s right for you to feel okay. And that I’m saying also because I asked you to come here your date of birth and I created your human design chart, and maybe you don’t know anything about it. But I have some information about your human design and how you are designed is also to take time. It doesn’t mean like taking a decision in the moment, but give yourself a bit of time to find clarity. Not, Okay, the first day, this was shit, I’m going to leave tonight. That might be a very impulsive reaction. But actually, how you are designed to take a decision is maybe give you one night, two nights of sleep, a bit of experience, and you will gain the clarity to take the decision by giving yourself a bit of time. Not to think, but to feel. Does that make any sense?

Gaëlle:
Yeah.
But because of this experience, I think how I can be sure when I have an interview that it is a good manager?

Gloria:
Can you be sure? That’s the question.

Gaëlle:
Yeah, because when I met Sophie, she was the name of my last manager, I feel that she was very human, very sensitive, but I was not sure. It was just a feeling You just have one interview, even if you speak during two hours, it’s just an interview and people are trying to seduce the other to be the good candidate. But I don’t know how I can be sure I know that this is a good manager for me.

Gloria:
I want to return you back to the question, how would you get the answer to that question? Practically, how will you get the answer to that question?

Gaëlle:
I don’t know. I really don’t know because when I met my new manager, she seems very sensitive, but it was not the same feeling with Sophie. But I find her very calm because I’m moving very fast. I need somebody who is calm. I need somebody with courage.

Gloria:
I can help you at least make an opening to that question. I will take another path that might be surprising. When I hear you asking that question, it reminds me of clients I have who are thinking about their professional path and want to do maybe a new career, a new job, and like, How can I be sure it’s the right job? Or I’m thinking about people in a relationship. You are now in a work relationship, but it can be in a love relationship. How can I be sure that’s the man of my life, the woman of my life? This desire of, Can you give me the certainty that if I’m with that person, we will be happy our entire life? And that, no one knows. Of course, I’m sure you can search on Google, make some research, how to analyze people. You will find books, you will find signals, for sure, you can develop your sensitivity and your perceptions. My feeling is you are already connected to it. You talked about your gut feeling, you talked about what you felt. So you are already connected to your body signals. Can you keep the connection and trust, give yourself the space and the time to experience it?

Because the answer to the question, how can I be sure? In advance. First, you don’t know. Because if you would be sure in advance, it means things are going to be in a certain way. You don’t give space for life to happen. I’m going to give a more concrete explanation of that. You will find the answer, and that for the other topics I shared, whether it’s in a relationship, work, love, even in our path, it’s through experiences that we will find out what’s right or not for us. Are you willing? I can understand it’s, wow, am I willing to reopen my heart, reengage into something? Am I willing to retry? Maybe you need some space also of healing and of grief of what happened, the fact that now, okay, you probably still have parts of you regretting the nostalgic of that relationship you had. A lot. Yeah, exactly. Maybe you need to make some space for that, and that’s a process. It’s really a process of grief, of letting go, of, Okay, that was part of my life experience. I’ve been very happy? Are we fortunate to have that relationship? I keep the door open to something else and come up.

Maybe a different relationship, a different manager. But to answer your question, how can I be sure? We all would love to have this certainty. We know even as business owners, we are like, Okay, if I do that action, will it bring me client? We never know. Can we follow our heart? Can we trust ourselves and let ourselves make mistakes? Because that’s only the way we are going to learn.

Gaëlle:
Okay. Okay, so there is no recipe.

Gloria:
Well, as I said, of course, you can search on Google. I want to add something. It’s like, certainty. There I’m also talking specifically about your human design. As I told you, the best way for you to take decisions is to give yourself time and aim for 70% certainty or 80% certainty. Aiming for 100% will be very hard. You can even challenge what I said you by checking in your life. Have you ever been 100% certain?

Gaëlle:
No, never.

Gloria:
Exactly. It’s okay. You’ve had all your life experiences. Sometimes we seek something. Maybe, at least from a human design perspective, it’s like this 100% that you’re seeking of certainty will be almost like from a design perspective, impossible to achieve. It’s okay, can I go for 70% clarity? My gut feeling saying me like, yes, I sense, feel this is right. I give myself the time to find out. Also this perspective on certainty has something, holds something of the idea of things are going to happen in a certain way. What do I mean with that? It’s like this new manager, you are going to create a relationship. The question is more, are you willing to engage in a new relationship and grow together?

Gaëlle:
I was thinking about that. One of the questions when I had my interview was: if Sophie gives you a new job, will you quit? And it was a good question because I was not very honest, of course, because I wanted this job and I wanted to change a company. But for the moment, I know with Sophie, justice exists, and it’s one of my value. And yes, maybe I was fortunate to meet Sophie, and I will be so pleased to work again with her. So maybe it’s just a question to give the chance to my new manager and to create a new relation. But the problem is, yes, maybe it was too quick to leave Sophie living my professional life, and I was not ready to have a new manager. But this is my problem, and not the problem of my new manager. So maybe the problem is me. It’s not an issue, but maybe it’s my fault, if I can say so. It’s just because I want the clone of Sophie. I see. That’s awful. But I realize that now it’s, in fact, this is the situation.
I want the clone.

Gloria:
It’s fantastic that you’re realizing it now because that’s giving you a solution for next week, but also for the future, whatever happens. Because it’s fun, I have this image that comes to me. It’s weird because it’s really not related to the topic. But imagine you were in a loving relationship with a man or woman, whatever, you had a partner and this person died, and then you were missing that person. Every time you meet someone else, you’re like, No, but he/she’s not as beautiful. He/she’s not as caring. You can’t even see the person, how the person is because you’re only comparing to what you don’t have any more. If you go now into what’s happening for you, it’s okay. I had this manager who was absolutely amazing. I loved her.

You are really giving yourself the solution because otherwise, you are going to judge her. You have that image of the perfect manager, which is your previous experience, and you don’t give her even space. Because you had these qualities in your previous manager, and you will only see what the new manager doesn’t have. Maybe she has other qualities that your previous manager didn’t have. Maybe she’s going to bring you something else that you didn’t have before.

Gaëlle:
I didn’t realize that before. It was so obvious. Yes, I’m in my process of moaning. I was not giving her space to be a good manager and to have a good relation with me. Yes. Wow. I was not expecting such an answer, but yes, that’s for sure. Yes. I’m in the process of moaning, and I was not really realizing. I was looking for somebody who have exactly the same quality as Sophie.

Gloria:
Yeah. And there is only one Sophie. Each of us is unique.

Gaëlle:
And she’s really fantastic.

Gloria:
It’s really part of the briefing process, as you said, or the moaning process. With all my heart, symbolically, or you can do it in reality, but thank her, thank life for the experience I’ve had for her. Also, I can imagine because it’s a grief in process, there is probably sadness, maybe anger, all the emotions that are associated to the fact that this is over for now, again. Can you make space and That in your own way, that’s an exercise I would propose you, whether it’s, I don’t know if you like writing, it can be doing a drawing or walking or really give yourself space for what you feel. Because that’s so that you can release and let go of that.

Gaëlle:
I will do that because I couldn’t imagine that during our discussion, I will realize that my future manager, she will suffer from this situation. Yes, I have to write down my feeling about this situation because I’m very sad. This problem on the contract was just not possible for me because I was not going to work with Sophie. Then there is a problem on my contract. I was very angry and I see my new manager, she’s not defending me. While Sophie was really good.

Gloria:
You are doing a great job because it’s like you realized that you had glasses looking for all the negative aspects. Of course, something happened with the HR, it’s a separate topic. Maybe you want also to have a discussion later when it’s right. This is another topic, but almost you had the glasses on that would only look for everything that is not right, not going well because you had that attachment to, as you said, the clone you would like to have, the experience you would have like to have. So keep connecting to your heart. And as you said, the sadness that is coming up, making space for it. It’s a process. Moaning is a process. It will take the time it needs, make space for it. And then, and that’s more an advice, how you enter next week: can I give a chance to the company, to the people, to the manager, and just see what life brings me and what’s the next chapter for me?

Gaëlle:
Yeah. Thank you very much. It was really useful. I’m very happy because I was just thinking all the time, negatively. It’s not the way I like to think. I’m always thinking about life is in the present. So be happy every day. Thank you, really. I was just thinking about the negative aspect of this situation. I’m sure she has a lot of qualities, my next manager, and I’m trusting in the company because she has value I share, so I think it will be okay. But thank you very much, really.

Gloria:
You’re very welcome. Thank you for sharing your story so openly.

COACHING SESSION REFLECTIONS by Gloria

I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode. Have you recognized yourself in some I love the sharing of Gaëlle? I’ve recognized key behaviors, and now making it a bit abstract so that it can help you in your life situation is this word expectations. It’s a big one. Unconsciously, all the time we have expectation. We wake up, we expect, I don’t know, our partner to do this or that. We expect that to happen at work. We expect the sun to come up in the morning. We expect our friend to write We have all the time expectations. Sometimes we have very fixed expectations, sometimes also very high expectations. I know that’s a big topic for many of my clients, and these expectations might cut us off from life. When we are in expectation, as I shared in the episode, we have these glasses and we see just part of the reality. We are not open anymore to all of life and all of what is happening, whether it’s in a relationship, just life generally. As we are cut off from part of life because the expectation is saying, I expect this to happen. If this doesn’t happen, of course, I’m unhappy, I’m sad, bringing in any difficult emotion.

The thing is, we don’t see all the other things around. If you wish to shift from having this high expectation, maybe the episode in itself already helped you to make your own conclusions, I’m pretty sure you will have your own insights. Just, can I be open and curious to life or to the situation you are thinking about when you think about expectations? Can I give a chance to the person? Can I give a chance to life? Sometimes being in expectation can also cut off from life or disconnected from life and also wanting to be in control. Actually, if I just trust life, life is going to bring me the right things on my path. I’m here to experience the things that are right for me. I am also open to maybe things I didn’t expect that might be even greater. So releasing expectation can also be making more space for amazing things in your life. If you like this episode, please let me know. Rate this podcast. Give me five stars. That’s a huge gift for the podcast, for the message I want to bring forth in this world.

If the coaching I did resonated, reach out to me. I do a lot of work through emotional work, as you might have heard in this episode. In many life situations, in the end, it’s about our emotions and what’s behind the mind. For Gaëlle, it was this grieving process as well that was impacting how she saw life. I help you exactly with that. Reconnecting emotionally, being aware of what’s really underneath, liberating the emotion, and that for Gaëlle will be this writing process she has committed to. It can be different for you, When you’re working with me. I give more specific tools, ideas, and also things come intuitively during the session. So reconnect, liberate, and that helps you then to transform your internal state and move differently, as you’ve seen with that episode at the end.

Thank you for listening The Inner Space. I see you in the next episode!

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