foxonthego

Values and trust, and the skill of letting go and embracing the new

Oh, the tortures women put themselves through to be ‘presentable’ in the world, to conform to beauty standards today or corporate image expectations. There’s a lot of investment in advertising trying to convince us that to be successful we need to at least ‘look young’ – oh, but not too young! There’s an unspoken parameter and if you fall somewhere outside the mark at either end you’re at risk of being dismissed. Yes, that’s me above, at the salon last week with the fab Elise, getting some baliage. I’m not immune. I’m a woman in her 50s in the Invisible Age.

Things are changing a bit though, aren’t they? A lot of women are proudly embracing their greys and advocating for pro-aging. I didn’t start colouring my hair till my mid 40s when the greys started appearing. I played with very dark to chestnut for a few years. And, then decided what the hell, let the grey come but ease into it. So, I started lightening my hair, eventually going quite blonde. It didn’t really work because my greys are not white but quite silver so I’d end up with a crown of black, steel grey, and silver roots with blonde ends. Not a good look! I kept up the blonde for a couple of years in my early 50s, regularly getting my roots touched up, as I started to notice that it made me feel different. I felt more comfortable wearing different colour palettes, not just black, and weirdly felt more ‘soft’ and ‘approachable’. Maybe it was all in my head. Maybe blondes did have more fun. I also started noticing that the majority of the women in my organisation in public facing senior roles were blonde. Coincidence?

When I left corporate life, I let it all go and decided to just embrace the grey. My daughter and husband were delighted – seems they preferred me as a brunette. Turns out though I’m not grey, or actually, white haired enough yet for my liking. The mix of colours felt a bit harsh. Made me feel a bit drab. So, now, some baliage to add some lightness – a technique which leaves your natural colour at the roots and underneath. I do it for me. Not to look young per se but to feel that while I may be old, I’m conforming to my idea of aging with grace and elegance. At least that’s what I tell myself. Maybe I’m fooling myself. I don’t actually care. It’s nobody’s business how I choose to play with my image.

I remember as a child going to the salon with my grannies. My Scottish granny would go to get her short hair coloured black and curled. She’d sit under the big dryer hood in her curlers and laugh and gossip with her mates. My German granny and her sisters (above pic) did the same but coloured their hair Titian red. They had the same hairstyle for decades and it became a bit odd the older they got with their tiny wisened faces under these bonnets of bouffant and tightly curled round the edges red hair. They also had little hair pieces to make the bouffant work better that they pinned in each morning and removed and combed out each night. The salons were filled with odd ammoniac and other smells but the atmosphere was warm and happy and just lovely. I do love trips to the salon. Even when it’s sometimes uncomfortable it feels like a luxury, a bit of self care, to have your scalp massaged and your hair brushed for you – leaving you with a sense of well-being. Trips to the salon are comfortably uncomfortable.

Comfortably uncomfortable! Interesting thing to contemplate. Someone recently posted about being comfortable with the uncomfortable as something holding us back. Many of us stay or have stayed in toxic work cultures and environments no matter how uncomfortable just because it’s comfortable – it’s familiar, it’s safe. And, maybe, there’s also hope that things will get better. Change, especially when it’s forced on you, is hard for a lot of people. In a way, you might say change is uncomfortably uncomfortable. I mean, we often fear the unknown, don’t we? Better to stick with the devil you know, where perhaps you feel a certain amount of safety. And, quite often, that safety net is connected to financial or economic concerns. In reality though, it comes down to trust, doesn’t it? In order to take that leap into the unknown, you have to trust in yourself that you will be ok with whatever comes. As the thought-provoking speaker in the video below says, “Life begins at the edge of your comfort zone. It’s never as scary as it looks and you’re stronger and more capable than you think.”

When faced with change or difficult decisions, I often ask myself, “what’s the worst that can happen? And if it does, do I trust myself to get through it, deal with it?” It’s been quite helpful. When I decided to leave corporate life and embrace a new career path, I was relieved and terrified at the same time. Relieved to escape a toxic work culture that didn’t align with my values, relieved to let go of the hope that things would get better with the next assignment or that I’d get the promotion I’d been seeking for 15 years – don’t get me wrong, I really did love the work itself – but did I have what it takes to be a freelance consultant and coach? Would I be able to earn enough to continue living how I wanted, enough to support my family? Would I be ok? Took a lot of internal struggle and positive self talk to have the courage to make the leap – a new kind of getting comfortable with the uncomfortable. I’m quite curious by nature so imagining a different future was energising. So, courage and curiosity! Interesting article here on Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.

I’m fortunate to come from a long line of entrepreneurial women. My mother, a serial entrepreneur, started her last business at the age of 70 and was going great guns till Covid shut her down in her mid 80s – was probably time anyway. A few years back, I shared with her my worries about striking out on my own after a couple of decades in corporate leadership roles. She said, ‘Trust in yourself. Focus on and leverage what experience and skills you’ve honed over the years. And, transform your fear into excitement. It’s the other side of the coin.” I think she’s very wise and inspiring. Excitement, yes, it’s a motivator alongside curiosity and courage. A forward-looking and positive reframing and reinventing of self was needed and one that was true to and reflected my values. I think there is inherent in this an element of self-love and self-care. Not ego or arrogance or even self pity but an acceptance of all that we are, our strengths and weaknesses, and being ok with it, being gentle with ourselves. Trusting that everything will work itself out, everything will be ok one way or another because we are ok.

Reframing and reinventing oneself. Sounds easy right? ha! This is the hard part, isn’t it. Change and transitions can sometimes be welcome and easy but more often than not bring on a tsunami, a rollercoaster, of emotions, and a process of letting go. We are all capable of change but it’s less about changing who you are. It’s actually I think more about becoming clear about who we are and want to be in this stage in our life, having trust in ourselves to get uncomfortable as we move into uncomfortable territory, and deciding that we are not going to compromise and negotiate who we are. It’s often hard because it requires deep introspection; having to identify and confront our authentic self – who we are, have been, want to be, our core values and beliefs – in order to craft the roadmap from point A the past to point B the future and move beyond our comfort zone. It means being honest with ourselves about a lot of things and letting go of an identity we’ve built and lived or a narrative about ourselves which may no longer serve us.

I’m not a therapist. As a coach, my focus is on looking ahead but it does often touch on helping people to get a perspective on what’s holding them back and on letting go. Journalist Jill Sherer shares a personal story below about letting go with some tips that have helped her.

What I’ve found is that most things come back to values. Some are core and some are changeable. For any reframing or reinventing, to help you thrive through a transitional period, reflecting on your values is often a good starting point.

You are who you are but presumably you have grown over the years. Are you clear about who you are now? What your core values are? What is important for you, really, now in this stage of your life?

A few questions for reflection on your values:

• Are your values truly your values or adopted and held onto from your family and upbringing?
• Are they linked to a role, ‘a hat’, you’ve worn that you’ve now taken off?
• Are they perhaps values that developed from learned childhood behaviours around reward and recognition?
• Have your priorities changed? Which of your values are core and which are no longer serving you in this new phase of life?
• What are the underlying motivators for these values? Are these still valid? Could they be reframed?

There are a few coaching sites that offer info on values, tools and questionnaires for evaluating your values. A few examples to explore here:

• 10 Values Types and how they motivate behavioural change (Info);
• The Resultist Core Values Index (Free);
• Barrett Values Centre – Personal Values Assessment (Fee);
• Article in Executive Support Magazine on Values with a helpful exercise;
• Article in MindTools on Values with a helpful exercise;
• If you haven’t already done it, you may find the MBTI 16 Personalities Test (Free) interesting.

If you’ve got stuck, become comfortably uncomfortable, then you are probably compromising your values. Believe you are worth and deserve more!

Well, that’s me. Your turn! I’d be delighted to hear your thoughts on my ramblings above and about any of your forays into the uncomfortable – salon related or otherwise! Drop me a note in the comments below…

Thanks for joining me here. I’ll leave you with this brilliant motivational chat, below, with the ever insightful and straight-talking Brené Brown on trust, belonging, and values.

Do what makes your heart sing, what feels right in your gut, and take good care of you!

F ox

PS If you’re going through a transitional phase now and feel a coach could help, I offer life coaching and would be happy to set up a discovery call with you to see if we’d be a good fit. Email me at ciao@foxonthego.com and/or visit my site www.foxonthego.com/coaching/

I also have a free Self-care Guide available which draws on Blue Zone principles and chakras. You can download it here.

NB Thanks for reading! This piece was written on 24/11/23 for my Substack ‘Notes from Sardinia: Musings of a coach‘! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.