This was the thought bouncing around in my head as I headed into a meeting that I knew was going to be tough. I hate confrontation, I don’t know many women who like it. As women, we constantly try to make everyone around feel good, and confrontation does the opposite of that. I will avoid confrontation, I will hide from it, I will do what I think is the easy way out: keep my head down and stay quiet. But as a new business owner and leader, I can’t keep quiet when things aren’t right. I have to step up, I have to lead, and I have to confront.
In my past, when I would confront someone or I was being confronted, my hot head would come out. When you care so much, you are so passionate about what you are doing, it can be hard to keep your cool. Similar to times like these when the markets are so uncertain and bouncing all over the place, it can be hard to keep your cool! I’ve grown so much this past year, the struggles I’ve had to face were so much harder than I could have ever imagined. I’m sure God does this on purpose, if we knew how hard it would be, would we really go for it? I’ve had to step into this leadership role and look out for our women, our women advisors and our women clients, and our women employees. Stretching myself so much has left me with this constant feeling of not being enough. This must be the lesson God needed me to finally deal with. I’m not a good enough advisor, boss, mom, wife, friend, mentor, partner, and I feel like I never will be. It has been so hard on me, especially during one of the hardest years in the stock markets.
But then I remembered to turn to God when I struggle, and I heard Him say: you are enough, because you are My child. I don’t think God tests us or that the world tests us, I think we test ourselves. It is our own stories and beliefs that we struggle with, and once we turn to God, they are all taken care of. Maybe not how you want them to or when you want them to be, but they always are. You are still standing here aren’t you, so you are still succeeding in life. You are enough because you are here right now with God. So going into this meeting, this confrontation, I had to put aside my feelings of not enough and step up as a leader. I confronted someone who wasn’t doing their job and completely disengaged when we faced a challenge. I realized after the meeting that this person was playing into this story that I wasn’t enough because to them, nothing was ever enough for them. And when it wasn’t enough, they didn’t step up or show up, they instead went MIA on me. This is when the trust is broken beyond repair between me and this person.
As I write this, it is no surprise that it was time to let go of this person from my life, a person who was playing into my old script of not being enough. I have to shed people who play into old, limiting stories and beliefs to make room for more growth. If you are on a no growth path, we will not be able to work together. You become stagnant energy that only holds the ship back, you become a weight, a burden, and we cannot have you in our community of growth. I cannot apologize for this, I won’t apologize for you not stepping up. When I work with people, we are a team. We are both in it together, but if I want it more than you, then it will never work.
It is amazing when you break through a limiting belief, you will face a confrontation like this in real life. You have a choice: to fall back into old patterns or confront to move past it forever. So many times we view the confrontation as too hard, but avoiding it will only make it harder. At times like these, the past of least resistance is the confrontation…trust me you will feel better after it is all done. The weight will be gone, the chains broken, and time for you to fly!
