Let me start by saying that I am not for one second thinking about moving on from my job, I love it, even on the hard days. It’s not just jobs that we need to think about however, the same review process is true of positions (like committees) and also things like projects. Sometimes, when you are in all of these things, it can be hard to have the distance to reflect on whether carrying on is the right choice, not only for us but also for others. As I get older and slightly more established as a Consultant, I’ve been doing some thinking about which things to maintain and which it’s time to move on from to enable the development of others. I thought therefore that now is as good a time as any to talk about what that review process looks like.

Know what you are trying to achieve

I’m a default to yes kind of girl, unless I have a clear reason to decline I will always agree to give advice, help your project, join your committee, become a Governor etc. There are so many reasons why this is actually great. It opens doors to opportunities, experiences, and networks I just wouldn’t have otherwise. The problem with it is that in the moment you might not truly consider the purpose of the request, and whether it aligns with your values and aspirations.

Now, I’m not saying that everything has to have a why. What I am saying is that if you don’t take the time to think about the purpose and what added value you bring to the role, it can be difficult to judge further down the line whether those things have changed and whether you want to continue.

There are times when this is easier than others. If you are in a position where you are no longer being heard and you question what you are bringing to the table because it is not being considered, you have the choice to step away or rectify the situation, as others may be feeling the same.

Things like mission creep can be harder to manage. When you gradually find yourself taking on more and more, beyond the original terms of your commitment. The key word here is creep. It happens gradually, and you may take some time to realise it. If you don’t have regular points where you review your commitments, you may not even know that it’s happening. This is often a mark that you are valued, but it can also be a marker that others aren’t respecting your time and boundaries. If you don’t have clarity about what it is you wanted to achieve by saying yes, it can be hard to determine whether this enhanced role is still fulfilling your objectives, or whether you need to cut back or walk away.

Even if you are also a default to yes person, doing it with clarity of purpose enables you to review along the way. Also, know that if you say yes to everything, you will by default say no to other things, even if not actively. If you don’t know what your aspirations and objectives are, you can end up signing up to many things that actually draw your focus from the place you wanted to end up.

Know when something still serves you

If there is one thing in life that is inescapable, it is that we live in flux, everything changes, some things for the good, and some less so. Work based commitments are no different. Sometimes, scenarios change, or your end point changes and the current project/post/role no longer provides what you require. For instance, the terms of reference on a committee may change and no longer reflect the purpose for which you joined it, or you have started a research project but the findings suggest you should focus on a new area of research that does not really appeal. There is little to no point in getting upset about this. It happens, and sometimes you have to acknowledge that you can’t change the situation to serve you. At the point that you recognise this, you may need to make some decisions about your future or the future of a project, no matter what the prior investment may have been.

Awareness of both yourself and your situation is key when changes are happening or projects are evolving, so you can actively engage in decision-making linked to those changes, rather than getting swept up as a passenger in events. This has happened to me at numerous points in my career, and it is especially likely at transition points. The shift from trainee to qualified, qualified to senior, senior to consultant, but also at points where you are deciding what that individual career route looks like. Within projects, you can become so focussed on the original goal that some of the surrounding details pass you by. If you are not actively engaging with the hard conversations with yourself, you may find you end up in a career/project cul de sac that leaves you unhappy or requires you to make a horizontal move to get you back on the right track.

Once you are in the cul de sac it can be may be possible to change where you are at, but not always – a training post for example cannot always become a registered post as there are so many external factors involved. It is much better to avoid the cul de sac if you can, by being open and honest with yourself early on, but also working to be aware of those external factors to better understand where they are leading you and if you can influence them. Sadly, if you find yourself in one, there’s nothing to be done but to plan your exit strategy.

It is possible that if this happens and you haven’t seen it coming, the first response is to feel trapped and to experience all the emotions that come with that. Sometimes, those emotions can make it tempting to double down and try to force change rather than to step back and take a rationale look at both the external situation and why you feel the way you do. Both of these are required, however, for you to find your way out. Flogging a dead horse is not going to get it to win the race. Your only choice at that point is to find a new horse. Sometimes, work based choices can be the same, and it requires you to have the reflective insight to understand when to step away.

Know when you are still serving the purpose

I’m in my 40s and fortunate enough to be fairly well established in my career. I’m super happy with where I’m at, but in recent years I’ve had to sit myself down and have a serious talk with myself about whether I am still the right person to undertake some of the things that give me quite a lot of joy. I’m talking about some of the school outreach I do and even some of the committees I’ve been on for years. Just because I still enjoy something doesn’t mean that I am the best person to do it. In fact, if the project is good and matters to you, it is even more important to be aware of whether you are serving it or if it is now only serving you.

Some forms of outreach are a perfect example of this. I really enjoy going into schools and speaking to students. There are still occasions where I think I am the best person to do this, when showing can raise awareness of roles etc, but there are plenty of occasions when I would not be the right person any more. I am probably not the best person to go in and talk about university choices or to talk about A-levels. I’ve been out of the system for waaaaaaay too long. I am also, probably, not the best person to do a standard career visit. For one, I am now probably too old for the students to connect who I am with their life choices, for another I am showing a career after 20 years in the job and what they most want is someone whose recently graduated and moved into the role. Someone who resonates with them and shows where they could be in 5 years rather than 20. This was a really hard discussion to have with myself, but this kind of activity isn’t about me, it’s about the individuals whom I’m there to serve, therefore being open about the fact that what I bring to the table has changed is important. Knowing this and taking the opportunity to pay it forward to someone who can do it better can improve the experience of all those involved.

The other part of this self dialogue is about whether I am being selfish. I’ve reached a point in my career where I am privileged to be offered all kinds of opportunities rather than having to go looking for them. This is, let me be honest, amazing, and a real confidence boost. It does however mean that I have to have some conversations with myself questioning whether it is always appropriate for me to take them, or keep them, or whether the time has come to pay it forward and hand over some of those opportunities to others. One example of this is that I have now stepped down from a number of committees that I used to sit on. I really enjoyed sitting on them, personally I got a lot out of it. At the same point however, I would never have had the opportunity to gain the skills and build the networks I have, if someone hadn’t stepped aside in order for me to be able to join. These conversations generally involve me asking myself: Am I still learning? Am I still being challenged? If the answer is no, I’m just enjoying it, then I’m probably blocking a learning experience that could be beneficial to others and I should consider stepping aside for them to benefit.

I also have to be honest with myself that as I progress I gain new commitments, if I don’t let some of the previous commitments go I am actually not serving anyone well. I have to ask myself: Do I have the time/resources/interest in order to continue? Time is my most limited resource, and if I can’t give something the time it requires it is better that I let someone else take over who can.

So here are my two questions I regularly ask myself in order to help support decision making:

What is my motivation for being involved/continuing (guilt or obligation is not a reason to stay)?

Would passing on this opportunity to others benefit them and the objective, or would walking away cause actual harm?

If you can honestly ask these questions of yourself and reflect on the results it can really help guide your thinking of whether you should stay or go for any project or role/position.

All opinions in this blog are my own

January so far, although always hard as it’s so dark, has held some really good news, and February has knocked it out of the park in terms of nice events, with celebrating both a Professorship and Freedom of the City of London. One of the interesting things that has struck me about both of these though, is how reticent I’ve been feeling about shouting about them, especially in the lead up. Almost as if I fear that once I talk about them, they could be taken away.  This is slightly ridiculous as they aren’t the kind of things that will disappear. They are however the kinds of things that feel really important to me and I don’t want to risk them being tarnished or diminished by others. We all know the people out there who will be: ‘well, you only got X because of Y’ or ‘that kind of thing isn’t really that important these days, is it?’ or even ‘I would have gone for that too, but we both know it’s just playing into the system, and I’m not about that’. The kinds of things that get said to your face, let alone the kinds of things that get said behind your back.

Now, I’m a grown-up (most of the time), and I tend to let these things wash over me, but it can certainly take the shine off things. Worst than that, sometimes I allow it to take the shine off things merely because I predict it will happen rather than waiting for the reality. Sometimes, I am my own worst enemy.

After all of these years, I’ve just accepted the reality of this, but I didn’t realise until very recently that in Australia and New Zealand they have a term for it = To Cut Down Tall Poppies. I think I’m probably late to the table, but in case anyone else is in the same boat (to mix metaphors), the term refers to:

Or

The idea is that we, as human beings, do not like outliers. We do not like different or people who stick their head above the parapet and dare to be seen. This really hit a cord with me. There have been numerous times over the last few years where, as I’ve been fortunate enough to succeed, the reaction has not been particularly positive. Even from some colleagues that I trusted to support me, especially as I started to forge my own path, which was different to the one they perhaps expected.

The end result has been that sometimes, instead of embracing the joy of the moment, I’ve spent too much time worrying about others’ reactions. Sometimes, I haven’t even mentioned to colleagues and others the end results of things I’ve worked long and hard for, as I’ve been too concerned about making situations harder for myself. I’m super fortunate now to have a great team that always exhibit genuine joy or amusement for some of these moments, but it’s taken me time to get here, and habits can be difficult to unlearn.

So how do we move from a space where we feel like we need to limit ourselves, limit our futures, in order to feel safe in the space we occupy. How do we move from the person who cowers to the person who has the courage to stand tall and occupy the space they rightfully possess. The below are a few lessons I’ve learnt, sometimes the hard way, and some things I’m trying to embody in order to be a bit braver every day, especially when it comes to owning my success and supporting that of others.

Know when and how to apply your boundaries

I once was awarded a grant for over £600,000.00. When I mentioned it to my colleagues at the time I was made to stand up in a meeting and apologise for not including any medical colleagues on my application, to explain why I had not reached out to add them to my grant. I patiently explained it was a Healthcare Science fellowship, that I was on supporting another Healthcare Scientist. I was thrown by the reaction. I apologised before I had time to think whether I should. My immediate reaction was to say sorry for overstepping my bounds, for being outside of my box.

In reality, the opposite was true. It was them who were breaching my boundaries. I was just so taken aback by it that I was unprepared. I’m still a natural apologiser. My default is still to say sorry and run from the situation. I don’t like conflict. What I try to remember now, though, is this. Every time I am in that situation and I take the easy route out, I make it harder for the person that follows. I reinforce the thinking that asking me ‘why’ and forcing me into a scenario where I needed to say ‘sorry’ was the right response, instead of simply saying ‘congratulations’. I also make it OK for them to do it to me again in the future.

Sure enough, I don’t discuss my grant funding very often in-house anymore. I don’t tell people when I succeed. I’ve even gone so far as not to host most of my research in my department. It’s been shown too many times to me how it could be weaponised against me on a whim when I stepped out of my box too much or when I didn’t play the game. As something that is super important to me, I removed the risk by removing the opportunity for it to be limited. I’m aware that hasn’t helped break down those very silo’s I’ve avoided, though.  All I’ve done is leave the same traps for others. So now my job is to be braver and to try and change things rather than hide from them. Now, I need to not only know my boundaries but stand by them to support others.

Know how we impact others by our choices

The problem with being too set in these boundaries however, is that you may not allow room for growth and change. We can get so caught up in protecting ourselves that we go too far the other way and isolate ourselves, closing off both ourselves and the setting. This is the difficult balancing act. The thing is, nothing stays the same. People change, both in how they interact and whether they are still decision makers. Personnel in general change, so we also need to be aware that boundaries may need to shift and flex rather than staying the same. In the example used about boundaries above, many of those people don’t work with me anymore, and so imposing the same rules now as then, may no longer serve the same purpose. We do ourselves and others no favours in being immovable in our responses. Instead we need to try to remain agile enough that we are aware of potential challenges without losing opportunities.

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learnt is that to remain open requires you to be brave enough to be vulnerable and to potentially face disappointment. If we don’t and just assume others won’t have your back, you have thereby remove their opportunity to support you and therefore you won’t ever have their support. In addition, let’s be honest here, some of the fear of telling others is definitely linked to imposter syndrome and the fear of being ‘found out’. In the end I think it comes down to being aware enough to set boundaries when they need to be set, but also spending enough time reflecting and trying to live your values. That despite the risks, you decide to be seen anyway, because that is what will help and support others. It is what will ultimately lead to change for all.

Own your own path

During the first workshop for the Nosocomial Project, a mentor who I admired greatly said to me, ‘Don’t you understand that you are taking an enormous risk? What if it goes wrong?’ The thing is, by avoiding risk and listening to people who, often kindly, warn us about the possibility of failure, we ensure that the best we will ever be is average. We will never truly reach our potential if we fear what it is to be seen or to fail. You won’t always succeed. It won’t always work out. You will however always learn and it will bring you one step closer to succeeding next time.

In moments like the one above, you have to be able to look inside yourself and have the strength and the determination to carry on seeing the vision or the end point. I’m not saying you won’t have self doubt, I’m not saying to not have fear. I have all of those things in spades. What I’m saying is that you need to make the conscious decision not to let them stop you. Have fear, but do it anyway. Don’t let others make you listen to those inner voices more than they deserve to be heard.

Often, we say to ourselves in these moments, ‘Who am I to…….’. The way I respond in these moments to myself (and don’t laugh – or do because it sounds ridiculous) is by saying ‘I am Dream Fucking Cloutman-Green and I am because I can’. It’s my mantra and combined with my ‘Get Psyched’ mix it has got me through a LOT of days and moments of self doubt. Find the thing that works for you, and don’t let others pressure you to be less, and sure as hell don’t pressure yourself to be average.

Let’s change the conversation

The change starts with us, every interaction we have, every moment when we choose jealously or fear of failure over joy for someone else. I am not a saint, I sometimes have that moment when someone declares great news where my brain flashes the ‘what about me’ message to my eyes.  The things is that response isn’t based upon reality because a) there are more than enough opportunities for everyone to succeed, therefore someone else’s success doesn’t come at a cost to you and b) even if it did cost you just because we are trained into thinking everything is a competition does not make it so. Therefore, I hope that despite what my initial reaction in my head might be, I would know that it was built on false thinking and that joy was always the correct response. This isn’t Highlander. There can be more than one (lovely 80s reference for those of you who are old like me – to the rest of you, YouTube it).

We change the conversation by being aware of the way we have been trained to think and behave towards each other. Not by denying that that taught behaviour exists, but by acknowledging it and actively dealing with it each time it rears its ugly head. Every time we respond initially in the moment, in our minds, with less than joy we need to course correct. Ensure that words out of our mouths and our body language demonstrate that joy, but also take some time afterwards to understand why it triggered us in the way it did. Being open with ourselves opens the door to reflection and learning in order to improve who we are. Nothing changes by accident, each and every one of us needs to put in the work.

So my final thoughts are:

• Let’s actively welcome in the good rather than looking for the bad
• Let’s choose to celebrate with the four people that see us and raise us up rather than focus on the one person who can’t
• Let’s acknowledge our journey, our progress and not get distracted by the stumbles along the way
• Let’s fertilise the soil rather than beheading the outliers so we all grow healthier and better to achieve our potential

All opinions in this blog are my own

It’s 7:30 on a Tuesday night, and I’ve just come off a Clinical Senate meeting. It’s late and I’m tired and I’m having quite the shame spiral. Let me explain why. I talked. Sounds a bit silly when you write it down, but it’s the truth. The problem is that no one else did very much, and I’m never sure that I either have the right to speak or that I make any sense when I do. This means whenever I go to these things and contribute, I never really know whether my actual job in the room is really to be seen and not heard. As a person, I know I should talk less and listen more, and so when I do speak I have a tendency to destroy myself with guilt when it’s over. So, as I sit here writing this on the tube on the way home it seems to be a good time to work through some of these processes ahead of a week full of, what will likely be, situations that could result in the same self recrimination.

Trained into a way of thinking

I don’t know about you, but when I was growing up the ‘be seen and not heard’ response was pretty much embedded. Good girls, good children do not make waves or draw attention to themselves. We are often trained into a certain way of thinking about how our presence in those rooms should be. As we become more senior or spend increasing amounts of time in meeting rooms, especially in meeting rooms where we don’t really have relationships with people, this can cause a certain amount of cognitive conflict. Our presence in the room is to contribute, but we don’t necessarily understand the unwritten rules associated with that contribution. How will we be judged? What measures will be used to benchmark our contribution? Will we be judged if we speak too much or too little? Who are the key decision makers in the room? In the absence of this knowledge, at least in my case, I default back to those childhood rules. Thus uncertainty of the rules can lead to me starting to shame spiral when the meeting is over. I don’t find this such an issue when I’ve developed relationships with the people in the meeting, or when I better understand the relationships and my role. I also find it less of an issue during in person meetings, it may just be that it’s easier to read some of the body language in the space when face to face. When I leave the room, and I feel like I do tonight, I try to tell myself to focus on looking forward to what I can contribute rather than looking back to behaviours of the past, but sometimes that is harder than it should be.

My mind is always so full of stuff

Where do some of these insecurities come from? I am horribly aware of the fact that I talk too much, that I talk over people and can be seen to not be paying attention or really listening. There are a couple of underlying reasons for this. The first is that my hearing isn’t that great, as I spend about 6 months of the year with varying levels of ear infection. This means that I spend quite a lot of the time completing sections of dialogue based on social cues, lip reading or extrapolation. The downside to this is that I often finish off sections of dialogue or meaning from other people before they finish fully articulating, or I think they have finished when they have only actually paused for emphasis or breath. This can mean that I end up responding before other peoples thoughts are truly finished. I really don’t mean it as rude, it drives my husband crazy, and most of the time I don’t even realise I’ve done it. Because I have an awareness of how rude this is, even if without intent, I therefore feel a lot of guilt in response – especially if it’s pointed out to me.

The second thing is that I’m not very good at doing one thing at a time, even in my head. I tend to have a LOT of thoughts flying around my mind at any one time. Sometimes that means I feel the need to get thoughts out of brain before I lose track and move onto the next thing. There are lots of things that I’m trying to do to get better about this, active note taking for example so that I don’t fear losing my train of thought. I do find that this is even harder these days though as I’m not only having multiple trains of thought at the same time, but I’m also trying to manage multiple work demands at the same time. This means my focus on being a good listening is often split between other tasks which I know is none ideal. I’m a work in progress. One of the things that enables me to be a success is that I can manage to spin a lot of plates, the down side to that is that I’m actually very poor at doing one thing at a time, and sometimes that makes me a less good listener than I’d like. Knowing these things about myself means that I tend to run action replays of all of the moments in meetings when I have succeeded less well and struggle, initially at least, to take the learning from the moments rather than the guilt.

Owning the invite

One of the things I try to remember when I feel like this is that I was invited into the room. For the Clinical Senate I had to go through an application and interview process to even be there. I was invited into the room because, no matter how I feel in the moment, someone felt like I had something to contribute otherwise I wouldn’t have been asked. The thing I have to remind myself is that there is no point in being in the room if you don’t participate, otherwise your chair could be better used by someone else. In many ways it’s not for you (or in this case me) to question your purpose. If I am no longer required, if I don’t perform up to expectations, if I don’t adhere to those unwritten rules, then there are people who can rescind that invite and mean I’m no longer included. This may be something that subconsciously adds to my fear, as the humiliation would sting, but it also something that has never (knowingly) happened to me and so I need to put it into that context.

Part of the other scenario where I really feel the pressure is when I’m in a multidisciplinary space, especially one that is not frequently occupied by Healthcare Scientists/women/Clinical Academics. I feel the pressure to represent all of those groups well and to not let others down. What I don’t want is for the others around the table to engage less with these super important groups because they’ve extrapolated from any failures of mine in the room, and thus impact wider engagement. At the same point I am a proud member of all those those less prominent groups and I have the opportunity to raise awareness and have been given a voice. It would therefore be a waste to get in my own way and not use it. This is the part where, if you put your rationale brain on, you realise that no one is likely to discredit a whole group because you talk over someone or asked a stupid question in a meeting, perspective and understanding that you are probably just not that important can sometimes help.

Who the hell am I

My imposter syndrome tends to kick in prior to me being in the room, I’m frequently to be found hiding in toilets ahead of face to face meetings psyching myself up. I tend to hit the shame spiral hard after I leave the room. When I’m in the room however I tend to be OK and pretty task focussed. Sometimes I’m so focussed on the intellectual question or balancing the evidence that I have been called ‘The Destroyer’ by a dear academic colleague – I’m hoping in jest, but from the look of my PhD students faces perhaps not entirely. I think this means that in the moment I can mostly hold my own, whoever else is the room. Once I’m in the room I worry less about how I got there, than what the discussion is before me. It also means that I sometimes ask the questions that people may not want me to ask, because I’m interested in understanding more and getting the answers. Most of the time I hope my curiosity comes across as just that, I am aware that when I’m puzzling over thoughts in my mind or putting pieces together I can have a face that looks intimidating rather than welcoming. Perhaps the scientific version of resting bitch face? I can therefore come over as an interrogator rather than a supportive enquirer which may impact how people respond to the query.

One of the other reasons I ask a lot of questions is that I spend a lot of time in mixed discipline, mixed professional rooms. I therefore have to be OK with asking the stupid question as I may not have the understanding of the others around the table. In these meetings people often use the same words. but in different contexts. I’ve learnt therefore that I have to be brave and ask the questions so that I understand enough to be able to contribute. I also sometimes feel that I have to contribute in order to justify the fact that I’m there, something that I know is not necessarily needed and may be driven by a need to prove that I should be there. Contributions however shouldn’t be driven by uncertainty about worth but linked to gaining clarity around task, in order to move things forward. Again, I’m working on it.

The importance of connection

The other thing, for me, about feeling uncertain and off kilter is that I will often try to deal with this by forming connections. As I said earlier, feeling more connected with the others in the room can reduce feelings of risk as you can get feedback and will be better placed to understand the unwritten rules. The problem with this is that I have a habit of oversharing when trying to connect. This probably surprises none of you, I’ve been writing a blog that lays bare my soul for over 2 years now after all. The other times that I tend to over share is when I read cues that make me think that the other person is not gelling with me, be that a different value set or just not pleased with what I have to say. This is a dangerous game, in searching for that connection, that shared experience, or shared journey, you can open yourself up to all kinds of responses and take a big risk in terms of your emotional wellbeing. Interestingly, when I’m in the moment and responding to the body language, or signals, of others I often feel comfortable. Again, it’s when I walk away from the moment and lose that reinforcement of connection that the self doubt creeps in and the action replays start.

Always the weird one

Let’s be honest. On top of everything else, my brain is a bit weird. I’ve gradually become aware over the years that I just see the world in a slightly odd way and therefore have a tendency to think a bit differently. This means that the comments and questions that strike me listening to a room full of people can come off as a little strange or out there when I vocalise them. It feels like there are two main responses to this, depending on the room. You have rooms where those who hear my oddness respond with equal curiosity and I get to walk out of the room feeling like I’ve made a difference. There are other rooms are not always so receptive to being engaged in what can be seen as a distracting train of thought. In these rooms it means I have a tendency to ask questions and see a sea of slightly baffled faces and then feel bad for asking the question or making the point. The response to such a moments is often to dismiss the comment actively by minimising it, or passively by just not acknowledging it happened. These are the meetings that I struggle most with. I feel like I’m there because I can contribute, because I think differently or have a different set of experiences, but that contribution is unacknowledged. I also think that despite this I need to continue to input and find my voice, even if it is hard, as if I’m not going to I should give up my space to someone else who might be braver in the moment. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I find it hard however.

Putting it out there

The long and short of these reflections is that, like so many things, you have to take a risk in order to achieve. You have to be in the room and take the risk of being seen in order to create change. Putting yourself out there by being in spaces that you feel less comfortable in, where you may not know the people or the rules well, opens you up to conflict and criticism. It also means that you have to face the fact that you are not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, rather than living in the fluffy land of denial (I rather like it there BTW). You have to have strategies that will allow you to deal with the consequences of that risk, or to allow you to come to terms with that the fact that some people will just not like/gel with you. We have to walk the walk, and know that sometimes disagreements and being in rooms with people who are not like us is required for us to get the best outcomes. Sometimes, it is only by being uncomfortable that we can find clarity of thought and/or purpose.

If life becomes too much it is always possible to remove yourself from the space, from the place, people or meeting that you are struggling to deal with. The thing is that by doing that you may not achieve all you could achieve, you may not grow and learn the most you can as a person. It’s always worth coming back to why you are in the room to start with. I’m not saying you can never walk away, just that walking away from something purely because it feels uncomfortable may not always be serving you or the room in the best way. I’m sure there are healthier ways of doing this than shame spiralling and writing a blog to process the thoughts that it triggers, but I don’t have any easy answers. What I do have is the faith that if you are invited into the room it’s because you have something to offer that room which is needed, and that by being honest about the challenges that we sometimes face maybe we can remove some of that uncertainty/risk that makes the room feel like it’s not for people like us.

All opinions on this blog are my own

Over the last few years there have been a number of, well let’s be kind and call them learning moments, for me about how life works. I guess I’ve spent my life being pretty naive and thinking that if my evidence was good that was all that was needed to win people over or for my version of ‘good decisions’ to be made. The transition from that to knowing that a lot of decisions are not made due to evidence but due to scenario, relationships and people has been harder than I can properly describe before cocktails. Recent events, including some of the Infection Prevention kickback on social media, has led me to take this post out of my drafts section and forced me to finish it.

My hope is that by putting this out there others will be more prepared than I was for some of the conversations they will inevitably have as leaders down the line.

Know your remit

Just before Christmas last year I walked into a room as ‘the expert’ thinking that my expertise would lead to the outcome which I had deemed to be the most sensible. Worse than that, I hadn’t considered my role in that room before I stepped into it. Usually when I’m in a room I’m there to make decisions, it’s what I spend most of my day doing. My upset therefore when the information I presented was heard but my recommendation was not acted upon was pretty visceral, this was high stakes stuff after all. I hadn’t spent enough time considering my remit before I went in. My remit in that room was as an advisor, it wasn’t as a decision maker. Therefore I had set myself up to fail. I needed to set my success criteria (more on this later) linked to my presentation of information, not about the decision itself.

That day was an object lesson in being an expert in one piece of the puzzle, but not being able to access the whole picture. Not because I hadn’t done my research but because often as advisors and not decision makers in a space we are not given the full picture to understand how the decision is actually being made. This can leave someone, like me, who works based on evidence base and data, feeling lost when a decision is made that appears to contraindicate what we’ve put forward. I find it especially challenging as often I am in the room as a decision maker, and the switch in remit from one to another is not always well defined. Trying to understand what role you are occupying before you enter a space is therefore key to both the outcome and your mental wellbeing.

Sometimes you also need to understand where your remit of influence lies. Something may be happening you don’t agree with but it is not within your remit of influence to change. Knowing when this is the case and acknowledging it means that you are more likely to be able to find a way forward. Can you offer a support role? Is it something that is right for you to be involved with, or do you not have insight or expertise in that area? In which case do you need to upskill or acknowledge your involvement might be unhelpful? If we wade in without being prepared we can make situations worse for those that are actually impacted.

Collect your evidence

Having said that having evidence and information will not always change the outcome it must be acknowledged that without it you have probably lost the battle before even entering the room.

Why is this? Well without information what you are doing is appealing to emotion. This may be a good thing in politics but is unlikely to be a successful approach when you are in a position to influence due to your expertise. Hearts and minds is an important moto for change but the foundation needs to be solid. It could just be the scientist in me, but I want to enter a situation with as much information as I can access to hand so I can flex my argument and respond to challenge and come back with data.

Another thing is that by going in with information you set the expectation that you anticipate data and evidence in response. This can help in situations where you expect to be fobbed off. It can also help in emotive situations, where instead of adding fuel to the fire you are removing the judgement/emotion and presenting just the information to respond to. It can also give a way out to both sides in terms of changing their position. It is a sign of good leadership to acknowledge new information and react to it. Remember this goes both ways however, and so we should also not use evidence that is sub-selected to maintain a dogmatic argument.

Talk to your stakeholders

A key part of gathering your evidence and sense checking your argument is talking to people who are involved. This is important for a number if reasons:

• Understand the landscape the decision is being made within
• Understand the drivers of the key decision makers, this will help you understand whether the decision is within your sphere of influence
• Understand the impacts of the decision, particularly on those you are engaging with
• Help you to identify evidence gaps or other holes in your thinking
• Help you to identify the potential consequences of speaking up for you and others

Its important when speaking to stakeholders that you speak not just to people who are likely to think the same way as you, this way leads to group think. You need to try and speak to people who are likely to disagree with your position, people who have a more strategic view of the landscape who may be able to tell you what you’re missing, and people who are likely to have influence in the room. The last are particularly key in terms of preparation as you are removing some of the unknowns. Best case, you may win over a decision maker so you know that they will support you, worst case you’ll be able to prepare for what streams of thought they might introduce during discussions.

The most important thing here is that if you are representing others as a leader, that you have spoken to those you represent enough to make sure that you are genuinely reflecting their position and thoughts within the room, not just your own.

Practice your argument

I can’t emphaise this one enough. If you are going into a high stakes meeting you need to practice your argument, preferably with others beforehand. To me there are a few reasons for this:

• Identify flaws in your chain of thoughts, or weaknesses that you can address
• Work through any emotion linked to what is about to happen before you get into the space
• Find the rhythm of what you are going to say, who you will look at when, how you will evaluate how your argument is landing and flex if necessary

These situations are often emotionally charged and for the sake of the outcomes you can rarely let that emotion, be it fear or upset, show. These need to be adult – adult conversations, as the situations are often complex. I found the infographic below, which is aimed at having difficult situations with family, but I think a lot of the questions can help formulate thinking around any difficult/high stakes conversation. Things like starting out by finding common ground are so important, people are much more likely to negotiate once you’ve established similarity. Therefore, practicing structure and order, as well as content, can make all the difference.

Pick the right when and why

No one wants to be the girl who cries wolf, who constantly involves themselves in issues that don’t involve them and become perceived as a meddler, or worse than that…..a drama queen *gasp*. At the same time there are things that you do have to stand up and speak up for, be that for your team, your patients or yourself. Knowing when and why to speak up is therefore key.

Let’s start with the why. Well firstly we’ve covered remit, is it something you have the facts and information about in order to appropriately escalate? Ideally, is this somewhere within your sphere of influence? If not you may be better placed in a support role whilst someone who fulfils the above does the speaking out. There’s also something here about authentic leadership and living your values. It’s not enough to say what your values are but you have to live them and follow through. When these three things align then it is definitely time to act.

The when can be more challenging as there are multiple ways this can play out:

• Formal meetings
• Informal meetings
• 1:1 discussions
• Email
• Public vs private

The right when/where can depend. Challenging bullying behaviour for instance may be best done in the moment but there are times when it might be better to pull the individual to one side to have a private 1:1 first. Some of this depends on what your success criteria look like and so you may not know initially until you’ve decide what it is you are trying to achieve.

Know your success criteria

This is one of those things I should have thought about more before going into the meeting discussed at the start of this post. Success criteria have to somewhat depend on your level of influence and decision making in any situation. In that case I had some influence and no decision making remit, the best I could hope for was to influence the discussion. Therefore basing my mental wellbeing on the outcome was foolish, as I had limited capacity to change the outcome. My success criteria should have been to go in and clearly define the scenario and give my recommendations as eloquently as possible. Then I would have left the room less disillusioned and questioning my role.

Success criteria can look like all kinds of things, depending on the situation:

• Influence the decision
• Achieve an outcome
• Shine a light
• Escalate to a more appropriate/different group
• Demonstrate support
• Achieve a change
• Identify support/supporters

Knowing what you are trying to achieve is a key part of developing a strategy and being able to prepare properly. Sometimes we can only achieve a statement of ‘this is not right’, other times you may be able to change an outcome. It is best to be realistic about what the best case scenario actually looks like and aim for that, rather than aiming for something unrealistic and achieving nothing.

Be prepared to pay the piper

#realtalk all of this comes will come with a cost. No one likes the person who is disruptive and speaks out, at least not in my experience. They may respect you for it, but they won’t like you. There have been times when I have sat down and had serious conversations with myself about whether I am prepared to live with the consequences. I’m usually more sure of myself when I’m advocating for others rather than for myself, as that usually aligns so strongly with my values. The times I’ve had to step up and advocate for myself have been both hard and terrifying. When I have conversations with people about advocating for others, I tell them I see it as part of the job. I am here as a leader, I am here to represent my workforce, I am paid to quite literally ‘take one for the team’ on occasion. If I then have to manage the fact that I am not always well liked for giving a voice to others that is a price I decided I was willing to pay before I took the job. If I ever feel like I don’t have it in me to pay that price then that is the time I need to reconsider whether I can fulfil the job role that I am in. The role is too important to not do it well, to not step up and advocate for others. If you can’t stand the heat then it’s time to get out of the kitchen.

Be bold, be brave

So here is the truth of the matter, speaking up requires you to be brave and be bold. It requires you to put your head above the parapet for the benefit of others, even if it comes at a personal cost to you. It’s worth it because you are living your values, it’s worth it because you are advocating for change and for the benefit of others. No matter the cost to you the impact you will have will out way it. It’s in these moments we know who we really are, especially when we fail. That said, all of it can be easier if you do the work beforehand to understand what you advocating for, so you have the data to back your arguments and to ensure that you are the right person to be in the room waving the flag. We are all much braver than we think and we are many, so reach out to those who will you hold you up and support you in speaking out for those that don’t have a voice without you.

All opinions in this blog are my own

It feels like the time of year when people start new things in their lives, new jobs, new courses, new career paths. So many people I’ve been speaking to lately are moving onto bigger and better things, with many of them starting their journeys as senior leaders both within academia and the NHS. I’ve spent some time talking to them about what I found might be different and some of the challenges about stepping up into a leadership role. Now, my journey to consultant and Lead Healthcare Scientist was not particularly linear so I may have some thoughts about this that aren’t universal, but after doing some thinking the below are what I’ve come up with in terms of how I think senior leadership roles are different and how my thinking has changed whilst in post.

It’s no longer all about you

First and foremost this is the most important thing that I feel is at the heart of what I try to make my leadership decisions based on. I’m now out there representing more than myself, I’m representing a team or even a whole workforce and sometimes therefore my wants and needs will have to take a back seat. I’ve been in meetings where I have given up something I want because actually it enabled something to happen for the wider good of my workforce. I personally don’t think there’s a place for selfishness once you are in a band 8 + position, although I’m also sure that I’m not perfect and probably don’t always make the best calls, it just means I make a conscious effort to keep it in mind. That doesn’t mean that sometimes things don’t work out so you get the best of both worlds, but when you are representing more than yourself you have to do exactly that, represent.

It’s no longer all about doing

One of the things that I think can be especially challenging when stepping up into a senior role, when you are more used to an operational or service provision role, is making the switch from being the person who does to being the person who sees. What I mean by that is that a lot if my job is about constantly having one eye to the future. Where are we going next? What are our current strengths and weaknesses and how do we manage them moving forward? What are the challenges coming down the road and what can we do now to prepare as much as possible? Not only that but once I have a path in mind I have to develop how we are going to get there and communicate that vision as broadly as possible. Obviously this isn’t done in isolation, it needs to always be an inclusive process, but a lot of the thinking sits with me. If you continue to only have an operational view, it can rabbit hole you into the present, it can then be a struggle to emerge for long enough to do that vision piece. So, although it may be comforting to get back to the bed side or to the bench, you have to make sure you’re doing it to maintain skills when needed rather than avoiding seeing the landscape laid out in front of you.

It’s no longer about picking and choosing who you work with

We all have people we love working with and some people where, because we don’t necessarily share the same vision, it is more challenging. As you become more senior you have less and less choice about who you work/collaborate with, those decisions are made due to the work and not due to personal preferences. This may sound odd but I genuinely believe that this is not only right but a good thing. If you only work with people who are easy, who see the world the same way you do, are you really working to reflect the wider attitudes of your staff? Although not easy some of the best project outcomes I’ve had have come from working with people who have very different attitudes, values and objectives. If done well and professionally these relationships enable you to have constructive challenge and see work or scenarios in a way you never would alone. They may not lead you to change your direction but they will always help your thinking as to why, and often help you to develop and articulate your arguments in a way you may have not gotten to on your own. Best case, you’ll get an outcome you couldn’t have achieved on your own, worst case you’ll have clarified your thinking. This doesn’t mean that I don’t (as someone who likes to be liked) find this a particularly challenging aspect of leadership, it’s just that I also really see the value in it. Hiding is no longer an option.

All those people you thought were on top of it probably weren’t

If you are like me you probably spent a lot of time in previous roles being amazed at how productive your seniors were and at how much they achieved. Now I’m probably biased here, but rather than judge myself harshly I’m going to extrapolate instead that all those people I looked up to just covered up their failures better than I do. My experience of stepping up to leadership is that you will have more work than you can manage at any one time, you will never clear the decks and you probably won’t ever ‘finish’ anything. That’s because you will move from a task based role to one that is much more far reaching and often conceptual. Some days I really miss just being able to spend a Friday doing 16S rDNA sequencing, unless I screwed it up I knew that at the end of the day I knew that I would have achieved something and that I would then action a patient result. Now most of my days are moving things forward by inches, or if I get to the point where I get a task off my list it is so rapidly replaced by something else I barely notice it, let alone have satisfaction as a result. This isn’t to bemoan this way of working, it’s just different and if you come from a very task orientated role it can be a little demoralising at the start as it can be hard to see progress. It’s really worth therefore finding other ways to track your progress so that you can still find a way to visualise it. I sometimes try an annual wish list for instance where I check in over a period of months rather than days to see how things are coming together.

You will spend more time than you thought possible on emails and calls

It’s currently 6pm and I’m just trying to get some words down here before I leave work. I have spent since 8am this morning trying to recover from the email backlog from 3 days off work last week, I’m proudly down to 283 which need actioning. Email is the quicksand of my working life, when combined with days that often have meetings back to back from 8 – 6, they are almost impossible to keep on top of. The main thing I’ve tried to develop are some tools to try to ensure that I don’t miss anything devastating and urgent. That said if it is devastating and urgent you should probably be calling rather than sending me an email. I’m quite up front with people. If your email comes in whilst I happen to have a window and I’m staring at an inbox you will probably get a response within 5 minutes, if not it could be 5 months. If you need a response send it at least 3 times, preferably with a red flag and then at least it will get to the top of my to do list. At the height of SARS CoV2 I was getting upwards of 600 emails a day, thank god that’s reduced, I just couldn’t keep up. Over time I’ve also tried some strategies to protect my diary where I can. My fab IPC team suggested a 1.5 hold in my diary every day for urgent meetings so that they should (almost) always have a slot which they know is theirs to put it meetings when needed. I also try to go to less meetings that are just for information and not for action, otherwise to be honest I would never manage to eat or go to the bathroom. Feeling out of control is therefore pretty normal and it’s about strategising so you keep on top of the key things. You will also develop language that will help you cope and politely deflect some of the things that could be handled by someone else. I used to feel bad about delegating, but actually a lot of the time it offers development and learning opportunities for others. If done appropriately it will not only buy you a little breathing space but it will enable others to continue their own career journeys.

Sometimes it’s your job to be the shield

One of the things that comes with being the one to develop the vision is that you also (often) are the one that can see the storm approaching. This one for me goes hand in hand about the role no longer being all about you. Sometimes it’s my job to stand in the front and take the hit, sometimes that’s being shouted at by a family for the tough call, sometimes it’s dealing with the response of other senior leaders. This is why it is sometimes lonely being in a senior role and you will need support for you as an individual. Senior roles are often not that linked up and so you won’t necessarily have someone who is doing the same post as you, you will therefore need to be pro active in building your own support networks. These will also help with the visioning piece as the more connected you are the more pieces of the jigsaw you will see. The more you understand the drivers of what is going on in any particular situation the more you will be able to respond with understanding, and the greater the chance of improving a situation rather than making it worse. There is no getting away from the fact however that sometimes you just have to don your big person pants, stand your ground and deal with whatever has come your way with as much integrity and grace as you can muster.

There are weights you don’t see

I recently took hubby away for his big birthday to Disneyland Paris. Towards the end of the holiday I looked at him and I suddenly realised how different I felt. For 6 days I had not been Dr Cloutman-Green, I’d just been Dream. I’d made no decision bigger than what I wanted to eat/drink or what ride I wanted to go on next. I felt stones lighter and so much freer. I hadn’t realised the weights I’d been carrying with me. I don’t know how much of this is COVID but I find there is an unseen, and some days unbearable, weight that I carry with me and that I don’t even realise it’s there until I put it down for a while and take off my healthcare hat. This may just be a me thing, it may be a pandemic thing, but if you get afflicted you have to make sure you that you put the weights down from time to time and do whatever it takes to make you feel free again, for me it was going to a mad hatters tea party!

You will always be more than your job, you will have other roles (mother, wife, carer, sister, father, son, brother etc) and we can’t always sacrifice these for a job that can become all encompassing if we let it. In the long term it will make us poorer both at the job and as human beings. Some of these weights we will put upon ourselves and so need to work on ourselves to resolve. You will not have all the answers on day one in your new role, you are constantly going to learn and develop, in fact I hate to break it to you but you will never have all of the answers. You will fail at things more than you’d like. This is part of life, it’s part of leadership and it’s part of learning. It’s OK. The sooner you come to terms with that the sooner you can remove an unnecessary thing that might weigh you down.

I for one didn’t realise any of the above, in fact I didn’t even really realise I was a senior leader, it kind of just snuck up on me. I think the capacity to influence and lead change is worth so much more than the challenges that come with it. For me as a Trust Lead Healthcare Scientist I get the immense privilege of seeing so many people develop and flourish, who will hopefully one day give me a job, I wouldn’t change it for the world. If you have just stepped into a senior post or are thinking about it I hope the above helps and makes your realise you are not alone in the challenges you face and that overcoming them makes us better, even if the path is sometimes bumpy. For those of you not yet at that point I give you the advice that I wish someone had given me, enjoy the freedom, enjoy focussing on you and your career pathway, enjoy making choices that are your own and don’t be in too much of a rush to get to the top of the mountain.

All opinions on this blog are my own

I don’t think that anyone enjoys being disliked, but some people are much better at dealing with it when it inevitably happens than others. That’s because trying to please everyone people is frankly exhausting and ultimately futile as people are so varied as to make it impossible. I don’t know about you but after 2 years of COVID-19 I’m too tired to do it anymore. I think having reached acceptance that I can’t and won’t be everyone’s cup of tea has come with a feeling of freedom, so I thought I’d share some thoughts of how I got here.

How do you know if you are a people pleaser?

For many years I didn’t realise that everyone wasn’t like me. It meant I also didn’t understand why some people were able to behave like they did (not always badly but with independence) without suffering the crippling shame spirals that happened to me. So how do you know if you are a people pleaser? Some great examples are below.

You may not be a dyed in the wool people pleaser all the time. It’s true primate behaviour to become more extreme in this behaviour during times of stress, meeting new groups or in high stakes situations. Which is why I suspect that for me it’s been made worse by COVID-19. Being aware of your tendencies so you can undertake a review of whether or not they are helping you is key. For instance I have a tendency to over compensate initially when I’m annoyed at someone whilst I process that irritation. This can lead to me having less good outcomes in the long than if I’d taken a more neutral stance, as I am guilty therefore of sending mixed signals.

Playing well with others

This pleasing people can be especially challenging when it comes to working on group projects or when running events. I’ve been running events and working in groups/teams for most of my life and for all of my NHS career. Most of you won’t know this but for many years, even in my spare time, I ran role playing conventions or live role-playing events for dozens or even hundreds of people. The main thing that I have learnt in my time doing these is that it is actually impossible to please everyone. The things that were one person’s highlight will inevitably end up on the list of another’s persons disappointments – especially when events reach a certain size. Everyone is different and therefore it is almost impossible to tick the boxes of everyone attending.

When I was putting myself through the ringer and getting upset about the not universal love for a freeform I’d spent a year and over 150,000 words writing a good friend turned round, hugged me and whispered in my ear ‘remember the rule of thirds’.

Now I had never heard about this but on follow up questioning it turns out as follows:

• A third of the people will love it
• A third of the people will be ambivalent or think its OK
• A third of the people will hate it

You will hear most from the lovers and the haters but what you actually need to know is how many of the ‘good enough’ people there were. If you manage to get over over a third you are probably doing something right (unless the extras all come from the lovers category). Those are the people you won’t be able to judge the numbers of unless you specifically go out there and seek their feedback – otherwise you respond to the most vocal and may react incorrectly.

The thing is as I go through my career I think the last part is really becoming a key part of my thinking. Am I or do I respond to the things that are shouted loudest or do I take the time to actually evaluate the situation that is beyond the noise to make an action plan which may work for the quiet majority?

It isn’t just about groups

I’ve started off talking about groups but obviously people pleasing can have challenging aspects in 1:1 settings. In fact overcoming people pleasing tendencies in these 1:1 settings can be key to maximising your own effectiveness both at work and at home. I’d like to state for the record that this is very different from me advocating for selfishness. We should absolutely all be team players, but it is important to also ensure that you have the capacity and reserves left to be the best version of yourself so that you deliver as fully as possible.

Below are some of the things I’ve been thinking about/learning in order to handle some of these 1:1 settings better.

Set your success criteria without bias

When I have someone in front of me asking for something I find it incredibly challenging in the moment to say no. Especially when each individual request doesn’t feel unreasonable or large. This year though I’ve been trying to move towards not seeing these 1:1 moments in isolation, but rather to measure them against a holistic whole of what is happening in my life. One important step towards being able to judge whether taking something on is people pleasing or appropriate, is to set boundaries and measure your responses against these.

These decisions can be very challenging in the moment and so one of the things I’ve started to do is to set my own success criteria, before I start projects, but also for my year. These are not another rod for my own back but are a way of checking in with myself about whether something is going in the right direction and whether the decisions I’ve been making are actually serving me and the goal.

It’s important to do this before being in the moment. When I’m in the moment emotions and other pulls can make it difficult for me to evaluate. By having a list that is done before I get into the situation it enables me to have made an unbiased set of judgements that are more reliable for me to use as benchmarks.

One example of this happened recently. This year I had promised myself and my family that after the last 2 years of work coming first I would start to regain a balance where actually my family would be my priority for a while. In May we had some news that meant that this was even more important. In that moment I was able to go back to my list and goals and re-evaluate commitments against my stated aim for this year. Although it was sad I then stepped away from a number of things I was agreeing to that were interfering with my top goal for the year, spending time with my family.

I’m aware other people may think I’m barmy to have to do things this way, but I really easily slip into a default of yes, and in many ways that’s great and where I aspire to be. Not at the costs of my main goals however.

Communicate and manage expectations

If you are going to do this though, communication is key. One of the reasons that I can get more drawn into things than I originally intended is because either myself or the other side haven’t accurately communicated their expectations.

One of the things I dropped in the above example was being a school governor. I only started the role in September 2021 and I had been told that it involved 3 2 hour meetings a year. This I had decided I could manage even in a pandemic and that giving back to my community was sufficiently important to me that I could make it work. Then the mission creep occurred. Suddenly it was 3 meetings a year plus a governor monitoring day per term, then that plus, as Health and Safety governor, I needed to do an inspection visit per term, and finally I became governor with responsibility for science teaching review. Suddenly my 3 evening meetings a year were replaced by at least 2 day visits a term plus the other meetings. Something that was simply incompatible with my goal for this year. In previous years I would have just made it work, I’d signed up after all. This year I reviewed against my goals and found that it just didn’t fit with me achieving the things I’d prioritised for my life so I quit.

The lesson for me from this is that we have to be very clear in communicating our expectations and what the situation will actually look like. That works for both sides. I should have been clearer about the commitment I could actually make and they should have been clearer about what they needed. So many things in my career have been subject to mission creep and I’m trying to be much more aware when I take on new things what they should look like and how much variability from that I’m prepared to accept.

You can’t fix everything

One of the situations that I know is a real challenge for me and my people pleasing tendancies is when I’m presented with a situation where I feel like I should help or ‘fix’. At times like this I become a real helicopter friend/manager and I try to ride in on my white horse and make things better (mixing my metaphors all over the shop and I don’t care – see that’s what I call growth). It comes from a good place, I don’t like seeing people upset or struggling. The problem with this is that a) I often then take on unexpected extra work as part of the response and b) I actually take the learning away from the person I’m trying to help. There is a big difference between assistance/support that enables learning and development and ‘fixing’ which then takes the learning experience away, although fixes the situation in the short term. I struggle to know when in the midst of these situations when to step away or hold my ground to allow space for development to occur and how much help is too much.

This brings me onto something I’ve mentioned previously. It is sometimes just not possible to please everyone. Sometimes you have to have the courage to be disliked and honestly this is definitely harder 1:1. This can happen for a number of reasons: sometimes it’s because it’s a collective decision and not everyone in the group is going to be on board, sometimes you have to make a decision that is in the best interest long term but may not garner immediate approval or understanding, and sometimes (especially in IPC) you make difficult decisions on the basis of safety. I have found this the most challenging aspect of leadership, but I have come to one conclusion and that is I need to acknowledge the noise but not be deafened by it. I have to put it into context to be able to deal with it. If I believe that have done all I can, communicated/collaborated as well as I possibly can, then I have done the best I can in the moment and I have to put my people pleasing aside.

Remember context is key

You can only control you, your responses and what you have decided to put out there. You can’t control how it is received and you definitely can’t control the responses of others. Often these responses are not even about you or what you have put into the world. They will be intrinsically caught up in the perceptions of others, their prior experiences and their current emotional state. Fundamentally it is not all about you and you have little to no control over the people you are trying to please. The more we recognise this, the more we can put our energy into focussing on success criteria and moving forward in the wider landscape.

I’ve found the below image really useful in addition to checking against my success criteria. If my only motivation in saying yes is to please, then actually my answer is really no and the sooner I deal with that the better it will be for all involved.

People pleasing isn’t a zero sum game, by prioritising something over something else there is always a resource cost. If you like me have spent energy for years trying to please in situations where you have little or no control of the outcome my plea is to stop. Think. Why I am doing this? Is it actually helpful? Does it align with my values? Does it move things forward? If the answer is no, then the answer is no. You are allowed to decline, you are allowed to choose where to focus your energies, you are allowed to have your own goals. So say it with me now ‘No’ ‘Thank you for thinking of me, but I can’t right now’ ‘It isn’t the right time for me right now, but please do contact me again in the future in case I can help then’. Your world will be a better place for embracing the power of N O, you will succeed more, do more and in my case I will get to spend time with the people I love who are, after all my reason for being.