How self discovery can supercharge your life
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Weekly Dose of Work Recovery Vol. 6.17.26
"Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves." - Thoreau
A note from me…
Self-discovery is the fuel for work recovery. We have to take time to get to know ourselves to recover from what work takes from us. In a way, I guess you could say I'm like a dog with a bone.
Because this is the theme that I've been circling for weeks of writing the Work Recovery Journal for you every Wednesday, and at the most basic level it's about the tug of war that exists in our work world.
It's the tension present in how we perform for others versus what we truly desire, especially in our careers. Many folks refer to that as their "people pleaser" or "good girl" habit. But I think it goes deeper.
In the course of my career, I've noticed something I can't unsee in many working women, and it's the way midlife career women look outside themselves for answers about what to do with their one wild and precious life.
I've come to believe without a shred of doubt it's because we weren't taught to trust ourselves fully as children. Our emotions registered as too much (stop crying for heaven's sake). We learned our needs were a nuisance (go outside and play). And the things we actually wanted for ourselves got filed under not now, because the adults had other things to do.
So we entered the workforce striving so hard to be the best little worker bees, and we got real good at following direction while ignoring our own needs and desires.
I can call it out because it was me. I abandoned my own needs and desires so hard I got a gold star in it, with several C-suite titles and work-induced PTSD, anxiety, and depression as the extra credit.
Now of course it's more complicated than self-abandonment alone, but I can promise you that my own healing from my work wounds took longer because I had no idea who I really was after I left law firms and legal.
So I did what a lot of us do when we leave something that hurt us. I went looking for the next thing to be good at. New title, new mission, new version of the gold star. The packaging changed. The pattern did not.
What finally moved the needle wasn't another goal. It was getting curious about the person who kept chasing them.
Who am I when no one is evaluating my work?
What does an ideal work day look like, before I filter it through what others need or want from me?
What lights me up, regardless of whether it makes money or is impressive enough?
These questions felt hella indulgent at first.
And it's because we've learned that self-knowledge is a luxury you earn after the real work is done. But I've come to believe the other way around is where the magic happens. You can't recover from what work took from you until you know what was yours to begin with.
Said simply, you can't rebuild a self you never got to meet.
That's why I keep circling this and why Executive Unschool's entire mission is built on power combo of work recovery + self discovery.
Recovery isn't only rest and restoration, though that matters too. There's a lot healing that comes from the slow work of reintroducing yourself to the parts you set down somewhere around your first performance review.
Self-discovery is the fuel for work recovery because it gives the recovery somewhere to go. Otherwise we heal just enough to function, then pour ourselves right back into the same cycle that wore us down the first time.
So this week, before you work harder on anything, try one quieter question:
What do I know about myself now that I wish I'd known at 25? Sit with it.
That's the work too.
Sincerely,
Bree
P.S. Join the waitlist for Be. a self-guided three week masterclass to get to know yourself better – the real you underneath the work you do with self-discovery and work recovery
This week's did you know…
Same résumé. Same AI. Same credentials.
Yet somehow James was "strategic" and Emily was "concerning," which is a reminder that many organizations don't have an AI problem nearly as much as they have a mirror problem where the same bias against women shows up time and time again - both by the developers and again in recruiting rooms…
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