Awareness On Its Own Is Not Enough (AKA Transformation Is Where It's At)

Welcome to November's episode of the Self-Sabotage to Success podcast. In this month's episode, I'm going to be casting my eyes back all the way as far as October. It was just a few days ago, but I want to talk to you about the fact that it was Mental Health Awareness Month and why I truly believe that we need to shift away from mere awareness into transformation and the most sustainable, action-focused mindset development work that can really impact us for years to come, not just merely a month.

Listen in to find out more. Hello and welcome to this month's episode of the Self-Sabotage to Success podcast. I hope you are doing really well. We are now in November as this episode has been pre-loaded And when I was writing it, it was still October.

But I wish you a really, really happy November. I can't believe this is the penultimate monthly episode of the year. Where indeed has 2022 gone? I hope you've had a wonderful year.

We'll be doing more of a reflection in next month's episode. But I wanted today to talk about something a little bit different. it's actually a topic which really merges the two parts of my business and in case you're a new or fairly recent listener to this podcast episode I'll remind you of my business which has two parts the first part is really where this podcast came to fruition and is where I work with purpose-led female entrepreneurs to help them push past those mindset gremlins and self-sabotaging thoughts and behaviors into absolute success with their own businesses.

So that's a core part of my business. The second major part of my business and an area of my work that has really been growing over the last couple of years is the work that I do with organizations where I work with predominantly but not only female talent and I go into organizations and help them really retain their best staff by bolstering their mindset, by giving them that sense of purpose, authenticity, self-acceptance, self-belief, self-esteem, all of those mindset power tools that I use with my purpose-led business clients, I also use with people working in organizations.

And because the two sides of my business have lots of differences, but also lots of commonalities, it can often be interesting how the two areas feed in together, how they differ and where there are some commonalities. And this week I wanted to talk about October having been Mental Health Awareness Month and including World Mental Health Day on the 10th of October And I also know that lots of my corporate clients including stakeholders and clients that I work with directly listen to this podcast So if you listening in and you work for an organization, the chances are you've seen quite a lot of noise about October having been World Mental Health Awareness Month and that World Mental Health Awareness Day on the 10th.

You've probably seen it posted on LinkedIn. Maybe you've had some internal communications, maybe there's been some events, some awareness sessions, and so on. If you work as a purpose-led entrepreneur, you might not have heard so much about it, depending on how much you use LinkedIn, who you're connected with if you're in a world that's very much centered around other empowered purpose-led entrepreneurs rather than empowered talent. But what's interesting for me is this year I've noticed a real shift in the work that I've been asked to do connected to October's events.

I've seen a real pushback and I love this pushback from just doing a simple awareness day, just rolling out something which gives a very top line introduction to something on the mental health and well-being sphere from maybe a session on self-care to maybe an introduction to positive psychology for example some awareness day talks that have been requested from me in the past and I think this is really interesting for everyone listening because there's a real sense and a real shift in the conversations I'm having that it's not enough to just do these surface level introductions, these surface level talks for your staff, if you're working in a big organization, but also on an individual level, there just isn't that transformation.

And this got me thinking about how this relates to all of my listeners, regardless of what side of the business, my business you fall on, because actually we do really need that depth. we're over the just skimming over the edges and understanding the very basics of mental health awareness of well-being of mindset and actually where the real transformation occurs is in that depth and I found that I'm being asked to create more individual programs where I go one-to-one with with talent in an organization and I'm also being asked to create more group programs where instead of just doing a one-off session about say imposter syndrome which is very popular and something I've done a lot of in the last year I do something which is more grounded in an experience that's more grounded in a transformation that gets people from A to Z and for example it might get them taken through my self-identity shift which I have an episode on and I'll link to in the show notes and is something that really does form the basis of all my coaching and all my group programs.

And I think this is really, really key because instead of awareness, instead of introductions, instead of ticking boxes, what we need in these difficult times is real action, is real transformation, where we learn how to challenge our pre-existing self where we learn how to grow our expectations of what we capable of of what we already achieved where we learn to see ourselves in a completely different light And as I said, that is something which I thread through my programs with Purpose-Led Entrepreneurs, but more and more, I am going through deeper transformations on a group or individual level with organizations.

And I think this is because there is such a need. There is so much challenge in the world at the moment that we don't want sticking plasters. We don't just want awareness day events. We want an awareness and a growth and a transformation approach throughout the whole year.

So I wondered how this might impact the purpose-led entrepreneurs out there. And it made me think about when you're kind of looking for a bit of buoying up, when you're looking for some motivation, often we can reach for a podcast like this one, or we can reach for a YouTube video and they are fantastic resources and they can really help us in the moment. But what I found with the clients, the purpose-led clients that I work with one-to-one is that we go so much deeper. We have so much more accountability when we're working together that you do get that transformation that just isn't possible when you're simply soaking up information.

So if that resonates with you, either as a purpose-led entrepreneur or as a stakeholder at an organization who is concerned about the retention and the development and the well-being of your people then do get in touch send me an email lucy at lucyorton.com or click on the link in the show notes and book onto a call with me and I'll be really happy to talk to you about the various solutions I have depending on where you're at and what it is that you need or your people need. And in terms of thinking beyond awareness months, in terms of thinking beyond awareness days, and this rings really true for dates like International Women's Day when we really want to move the conversation on so it's not just some fancy event that we put on once a year or something we think about once a year.

What I think is really key, and I know it's a buzzword, is sustainability. And I don't mean that in terms of ecological sustainability, although absolutely that is fundamental to our existence on this planet. And there's lots of amazing people doing good work in that area. But I mean it in terms of the sustainability of our own well-being and our own approach to our mindset, our work, our life and our happiness.

and when we can go deeper when we can really undergo transformation with the help of a coach with the help of a group facilitator we really do embed the learnings so much better than when we try to go it alone and that can be really challenging actually for some clients that I that I work with particularly on the individual level who have spent their lives with a soloist mindset which I've talked about on the podcast before and feeling like they need to just strive through to push through to the point perhaps of burnout because they need to figure it out for themselves and actually there is so much merit and so much sustainability in working alongside someone else having that accountability partner and if you working in a group program having the accountability of the people around you I think one of the reasons that working alongside someone else is so much more effective than trying to get past your mindset gremlins maybe that's perfectionism, maybe that's procrastination, maybe that's low self-esteem, maybe that's feeling like failure is not an option for you and overwork and overwhelm is the way forward, I think the reason that it helps so much to have someone in your corner is that it allows you to practice something, which is maintenance.

And I used this word in a presentation a few weeks ago. I said, this is such a powerful and such an unsexy word. Maintenance. It really sounds like something we should be doing to our car, something we should be doing to our shed or our house.

but actually when we can maintain our mindsets and when we can practice that with someone who's going to check in with us who's going to follow up who's going to make sure that you're doing the things that you laid out that you planned for we are able to start embedding some amazing habits and again that brings us back to moving away from awareness where we know there's an issue where we can sense that there's something that we're doing with our mindset maybe we're recognizing that we catastrophizing we're recognizing that we're overthinking and obsessively thinking about something but once we can move away from that awareness into maintaining a healthier mindset into maintaining a more consistent approach and using tools and tricks to really feed that into daily life we can really see that transformation take hold which again feeds into the sustainability of the mindset transformation and moves us away from simply knowing there's a problem, from simply knowing that there's something we're struggling with, into action and into that true sense of transformation.

Well, this brings me to the end of this month's podcast episode and I hope you found it really valuable. I hope if you're a purpose-led entrepreneur, it's made you think about the importance of that partnership, about the importance of sustainable mindsets, about the importance of asking for help when you need it to get rid of those mindset gremlins and that sense of self-sabotage in the work that you might be doing. And if you're a head of people or you're working within an organization, I hope that it's made you think about that depth of transformation that you really want when you're working with suppliers.

I would love to hear from you and see if any of my individual or group programs or any bespoke corporate solutions that I can create will help you help the people around you or help yourself and your amazing purpose-led businesses. So I wish you an incredible November. I'll be back for the final podcast of the year in the first week of December. And I look forward to speaking with you all then.

In the meantime, don't hesitate to reach out if you want to book a call.