56· One Year On
Podcast show notes
Wow, it’s been a whole year of Frustrated and Exhausted!
In this episode, I’m pausing to reflect on what this journey has meant, both for me and for all of you listening! From the first episode to now, it’s grown into something so much bigger than I imagined.
We’ve created a space where women in leadership feel understood, supported, and inspired to tackle the unique challenges we face.
I’ll share some of the most powerful moments and lessons we’ve explored together.
Whether you’ve been here from the start or just stumbled across the show, this one’s for you.
Here are the highlights
(01:46) Personal Achievements
(03:11) Reflecting on Personal Growth and Learning
(07:18) Embracing Uniqueness and Individuality
(09:13) Cultivating Resilience
(12:04) The Role of Growth Mindset
(13:34) Future Plans
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Ruth
Welcome to Frustrated and Exhausted, the podcast for women in leadership, where I help you fulfill your ambitions without sacrificing your sanity or your resilience.
Hello and welcome to this extra special episode of Frustrated and Exhausted. This week we are celebrating a whole year of Frustrated and Exhausted which I honestly can't actually believe. I can't believe it's been a year. When I started the podcast I genuinely didn't know where it would go, what it would be like, I was as nervous as anything about seeing what saying what I think a bit more and putting myself out there and really you know kind of questioning would anybody listen and I think a lot of podcasters feel like that when they first get started. But here we are a year later, many, many 1000s of downloads. We've been listened to in around 50 countries now around the world from Europe to the Middle East to South America, I think every continent pretty much just about, not quite but just about we've been listened to on now and I want to thank everybody who's listening for listening and for sending me messages and for engaging and for giving me your ideas for other topics and for, yeah just showing up really and I hope that what I've been able to do is create a place where we can share stories, where we can maybe feel a little bit less alone because sometimes it can be a little bit lonely as a woman in the workplace and sometimes we feel like we're the only ones feeling like this or experiencing these things and I hope that some of the stories you've heard on the podcast have really shown that that's not the case, that there are systemic issues that lead to the challenges that women face in the workplace and that that's not our fault either, so we don't need to carry all the guilt all the time.
We expect a lot of ourselves. Others expect a lot from us as well very often and that kind of adds to our sense of pressure sometimes. But also what has amazed me in this year are the stories of women who are achieving incredible things, who are juggling all the plates and dropping some here and there but that's okay and actually giving ourselves permission for that to be okay too is really important.
I also really want to thank all the guests I've had this year, I've had the fortune, the great fortune, to speak to lots of really interesting people who've all had stories about their own journeys into leadership roles, in some cases in their own businesses, in others and every single person has shown up with their own perspective, their own stories. They've shared those very generously, the things that they've learned, the bumps along the way and you know I think that is really powerful. Every single one of us has that kind of wisdom in us and we don't always recognize it. So just taking a moment to really recognize that as well.
And what I've also been trying to do semi-regularly on the podcast is really just throw in some episodes with, with some prompts with maybe some opportunities to reflect a little bit with some questions for you because I'm a coach and that's what I do, I ask a lot of questions and I get curious but really trying to kind of create a place for a little bit of reflection as well because that's how we all learn. It's how we learn about ourselves, it's how we learn from each other as well. So hopefully that combination is kind of working for you. I'm thoroughly enjoying it. I have really loved this year, and I genuinely wasn't entirely sure what that would be like and whether I would when I started out. So it's been a great experience and I just want to send loads of love and gratitude to everybody for all the support and the engagement through this year.
The other thing that I wanted to do with this episode is really highlight a few of the common themes that come up again and again and again in the podcast, and I'm talking about themes that are positive, messages that we really need to take away and think about and pull into ourselves and act on in order that we can all kind of go for forth in a really positive way in our lives and in our careers.
So the first thing that comes out again and again and again in the conversations that I've had this year, both on the podcast and outside of it, is the power of knowing yourself for women. I really think that actually that sense of you know we never feel confident all the time, nobody, well unless they're maybe slightly deluded, nobody feels confident in every single situation. We all kind of go into new experiences and maybe feel a bit like oh uncertain, am I going to manage this? Is this going to be okay? But when we know ourselves, when we know what's important to us, we know our values, we have that sense of a moral compass, we know the rights and wrongs and we know what we stand for, then again and again in the stories that people have told this year, again and again that seems to be the root of what allows them to be more courageous to step forward, to do the next thing, to try, to be prepared to fail, to take a risk, is knowing that fundamentally, no matter what is thrown at you, you're going to be okay because you know who you are. There is something really kind of grounding about that and something that it's like a deep sense of personal security that comes from that sort of knowing yourself and that's why you know as why I harp on about reflecting and thinking and all of these sorts of things and giving yourself space to do that because it leads to fundamentally feeling more confident, not to say we won't make, still mistakes make mistakes, not to say there won't be moments where we're absolutely petrified, but we're prepared to put ourselves in those positions to be a bit scared, to take a risk, to take a chance, to step into the unknown and try new things. That investment in ourselves, whether it's through coaching or therapy or development programs or whatever, however you want to do it, it could just be thinking, reflecting, time with yourself. It is fundamentally important if you want to grow and feel good and feel like you're on solid ground with what you're doing.
The second thing again comes up a lot, and I think for most people it takes time to get to the point where you're prepared to do this, so if any of these stories have allowed people listening to shortcut that a little bit then amazing, because a lot of us spend a lot of our time conforming or trying to be like other people or trying to emulate other people. You know we compare ourselves constantly to other people and you know that can lead to almost a sense of paralysis, and it leads to us sort of masking a bit about who we truly are in the workplace and outside of it as well, you know we all learn this stuff in the playground at the end of the day. And so again and again guests have had these messages about actually embracing who we truly are, embracing that uniqueness, what is it that makes you different from everyone else? Because that's the thing that's going to make you stand out in a crowd. It's going to be the thing that makes you memorable. It's going to be the thing that makes people seek you out, or say oh she'd be perfect for that job or that role? Wouldn't she be good at this or I must go and speak to her about this. She'll have an interesting take on it. And you're going to feel better as well, I think that's it. It's, it's, it's sort of a double whammy really. It's if we can actually embrace who we are and show up as we are, all our little quirks and weird bits and strangeness and you know that might be just a personality thing, it might be neurodiversity, it could be anything at all but the things that make you uniquely you, actually embracing those frees us in a way, it frees us to be who we truly are which feels much better, it helps us to show up much more authentically in our roles, whether they're leadership roles or otherwise, and people connect with that, they they know when you're pretending, on some level, nothing might be said but on some level they won't connect in the same way if they can see that you're not showing up as yourself. And so embracing that uniqueness not only feels good but it has some serious benefits too.
The third thing to think about is resilience. You know people call it by different names but fundamentally it's that ability to shift and change with the circumstances. It's the ability to learn from the tough times and keep stepping forward. It's that ability to keep showing up and you know we all hit times in our lives where we need to step back a bit, we need to repair, we need to heal, we need to rest and that's part of resilience too is recognizing that. You know all of what I said so far about knowing yourself and embracing your sort of unique strengths and who you are plays into that resilience. It helps to build it. There's no doubt that women's career journeys can be tough and at certain points in our lives you know whether it's when we're having a family, whether it's caring for parents, whether it's when we're doing all of those things at the same time, there are certain kind of crunch points when things can be really hard and of course life happens and things can happen to us out of the blue that we've not been expecting. And so we really need to focus on cultivating that resilience for the tough times. And you know I've had some critics who've kind of come out of the woodwork and said to me we shouldn't we need to focus on resilience, we need to focus on the systemic issues. You know why do you keep talking about resilience all the time? Well because the systemic issues are not fixed yet. That's why I keep talking about resilience. Because for women it is harder. For women of color it's even harder still, for women who are disabled or you know there's some sort of other intersectionality going on there. It's harder and harder and harder to kind of get ahead to really fulfill your own potential because you've got some of these things kind of making things more difficult for you. And so unless women keep focusing on their own resilience and people like me keep talking about the need to do that then it can sort of fall by the wayside. And so yes I'm going to talk about the systemic issues but I'm also going to talk about the need for women to keep looking after themselves. To keep putting their own needs first because that is really hard to do at times. It's something I personally struggle with a lot and we need to keep focused on it. The system is not going to be perfect for a very long time and so we need that resilience and so I'm going to keep talking about it. So that's my answer to that one really, it's come out in all the stories guests have told about their difficult times and what they've learned from them and that is often a need to focus on looking after yourself, looking after your own needs and that might look very different in different circumstances but really taking care of yourself for the long term.
The other thing, and this underpins everything else, really, is cultivating that growth mindset. It's cultivating that mindset of curiosity and learning and not liking failing, nobody likes to fail but knowing that when we do there's always stuff to learn from it and that we can learn and implement and move forward, and that that is how we are going to be better and stronger and more completely ourselves in life. And that mindset underpins our ability to know ourselves, our ability to be emotionally intelligent, our ability to understand other people. You know we can't understand other people unless we understand ourselves and sometimes that can be hard. Sometimes we have to look at things about ourselves that we don't like much and that can feel counterproductive if it undermines kind of confidence, but at the same time unless we do do that, unless we address the failures, unless we kind of look at the things that we don't like about ourselves, unless we're aware of them, we're aware of the things that trigger us, or yeah we really kind of have big responses and reactions to emotionally, unless we can do all of those things and bring that sort of stuff together and keep doing it, we're going to stay in a very fixed place and we're not going to grow and we're not going to develop and we're not going to learn. We're not going to take those risks and chances. So growth mindset is really, really important to kind of underpin all of this.
Those are the really key things. I mean I could go on, there was so much richness and variety in the conversations that I've had this year. I am grateful for all of them and just to reiterate again very grateful for all of you lovely people listening. I'd love to hear what you think about this first year. I'd love to hear about what you'd like to see next year. I may even have a man on the podcast next year, that'll be interesting. So we'll be doing sort of some different things but yeah, I would love your feedback and any comments or ideas for episodes, just give me a shout, I love to hear from people.
Take care and we'll see you again next week.
Thanks for listening to this episode of Frustrated and Exhausted. Hit the follow button for future episodes. You can also follow me on Instagram at Resonate Leadership and LinkedIn at Ruth Alexandra Wood, I'd absolutely love to hear from you.
Frustrated and Exhausted is brought to you by Resonate Leadership and the wonderful team at the Podcast Boutique, I'm your host, Ruth Wood. Take care and speak to you soon.
