EPISODE 042 | When High Performers Need a Reset

Raise your hand if you’re your own worst critic 🙋‍♀️

As someone whos been on both the giving and receiving end of coaching, I have developed a fairly strong skill set in terms of self-coaching. But what happens when that self-coaching fails to incorporate proper boundaries?

This week is all about recognizing when you, as a high performer, are in desperate need of a reset. I was inspired by my own experience as well as hearing what others in my circle are going through so this week we’re really diving deep.

BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU’LL DISCOVER: 

• How to respect both your business and “life happening” in a way that makes you feel good.
• Why you should be looking imposter syndrome right in the face instead of sweeping it under the rug.
• That your biggest enemy isn’t others, it’s yourself (comparing yourself to others, of course!)
• The secret to stopping, looking back, and celebrating how far you’ve come.

If this episode has resonated with you in any way, I’d love it if you’d leave a review and share your biggest takeaways. Or DM me on Instagram @OTsGoneRogue and share your business journey with me, I’d love to chat with you. 

Transcript

00:00 - INTRO

You're listening to the OTs Gone Rogue podcast, where we inspire therapists to think outside the box and do things differently. I'm your host, Melissa LaPointe. My passion is in helping OT entrepreneurs have a bigger impact on the world while building a life they love and doing transformative work that lights them up. On each episode of the show, I'm going to share tools and tricks to help you flex your entrepreneurial muscles and grow your business from the inside out. I want to see more OTS step up as visionary leaders, change-makers, and influential CEOs. So let's get started.

00:53

Hey, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the OTs Gone Rogue podcast. So today's episode is very near and dear to my heart. As someone who does a lot of coaching as someone who has worked with a lot of coaches, meaning I have been on the receiving end of a lot of coaching, I have developed a fairly strong skill set in terms of self-coaching. So coaching myself, now it's something I still have to work on. I'm also my own worst critic. So it's definitely there's a balance to be had. But this is something that the topic for today is all about when high performers need a reset. And how I decided on this topic is in part based on my own personal experiences, but also hearing more about what others are going through. I identify as a high performer, and we'll talk about what exactly that is here in a moment. And I know a lot of my listeners identify as being high performers as well. If you tuned in to episode number 46, I was sharing about my summer. So these last 90 days rather than last 6065 days, we have been experiencing a lot of turmoil self-inflicted. So we've had a lot of ups and downs, my work environment, there's been a lot of changes, we've been diving into house renovations combined with travel. And we're now I don't want to say we're settled in our home. But when I recorded our last episode, I was thinking I could see the light. But it's still been quite the process getting settled. And then to top it all off, I ended up getting COVID again. So I don't know how many of you out there know someone who's had COVID Four times. Well, you do now. Yes, my fourth time. So I had COVID Once in March 2020. The end of March. So end of March, early April before I was vaccinated, and since I've been vaccinated, so I've had my two vaccinations, I've actually had COVID Three times. So

03:17

we got it again. My son and I my husband, once again was immune, but my son and I got COVID in September.

03:25

It's still I'm still there's some residual effects.

03:31

The focus of this episode is not on COVID. But it was really

03:36

there was a moment in the middle of September that I wanted to bang my head against the wall and was throwing my hands up in the air like Are you freaking kidding me? My son has been in school for days now. Because last week, we also had to go on a road trip. So my son and I had to travel to BC Children's Hospital, which for us is about

04:02

500 600 kilometers away, like it's a full day travel to get down there. And then it's a full day back and then we had our appointments. So my son had his follow up appointment. I talked about this quite openly in the very first episode of the podcast. So my son five years ago, was diagnosed very suddenly from the onset of symptoms through to needing brain surgery. So he needed a sub occipital craniotomy, they identified a tumor the size of a lime in his precious six-year-old brain. So he went from being a healthy six-year-old to, you know, it happened very, very quickly. Like a matter of eight weeks from the symptoms showing up through to it being quite a situation and we had to go down and have emergency surgery, great outcome, amazing outcome and

05:00

But it was time for our follow up. So we had COVID, at the beginning of September, 2 week of school, we were out, finished our isolation period and had a few days in between, we were still able to go down to our appointment, thank goodness. So this was his routine MRI. So two years ago, we had his last one, and he was due for his next. He's been doing amazing, we had no concerns, but there's always that small part of my brain leading up to these MRIs where we're going down to get medical imaging, to make sure that the tumor is not growing back. And there's always a small part of my brain that starts chirping at me, what if, what if it's growing back? He's old enough now that he's asking questions, you know, why did it grow? What would happen? If it grows back? What would they want to do what I ever need surgery again, and I'm, of course trying to encourage him to talk about this and process it and have these conversations. But there's also a small part of me that's dying on the inside, because these are my worst fears. So that was happening last week. And it's I function well, but my anxiety definitely creeps up. And my nervous system was also a little off from having COVID. So the worst of it is over there still, you know, I still have some lingering things going on with COVID, just like I did in the spring. But it really gave me pause in terms of, Oh, my goodness, I need to get my head back in the game. And I need a reset. Now, the good news is that this is all going down at the end of September. And as an entrepreneur, I very much have been leaning into looking at my year in 90-day increments, in quarters. If you're new to entrepreneurship, this may be a new way of looking at your year, but I highly encourage you to adopt this rhythm. So there's something to be said about a 90-day quarter I have an entire masterclass on 90 day quarters why it's beneficial in terms of goal setting in terms of really connecting the bigger vision, our y with the what and the when and the how. So 90 days is just a really nice chunk of time where it gives you wiggle room to course adjust. It's long enough to give you that wiggle room. But it's short enough that you are seeing results that you can see the end point. So every 90 days, since I have been in business since 2013. My goodness, that's coming up on 910 years now. So we're at the nine year mark. Unbelievable. But looking at like every 90 days now my first couple of years of entrepreneurship, I didn't know this, it was a skill, it was a habit I had to build. But now it is something that I practice each and every 90 days, I go through a quarterly planning session. And it's a reset. So while Personally, I really needed a reset, I also just needed to have a moment where I could pause and take stock of what was going on, shake my head, kind of shake it off a little bit. And reset, you know, get focused again, when I am working with a lot of my clients. So let's come back to this high performer piece. Some of you may be listening to this thinking, okay, is this episode going to apply to me? Am I a high performer? I'm just getting started in entrepreneurship or I'm not where I think I should be or where I want to be. So maybe I'm not a high performer. And I want to speak to that for a moment because generally with high performers, no, it's someone who goes above and beyond to achieve their goals. It's someone who takes initiative who is focused on improving themselves. So they are invested in personal growth they are invested in professional development. A high performer is someone who has a strong skill set they are highly capable. Now we can have a whole other conversation about impostor syndrome, because there may be days that those high performers are doubting themselves because perform you know that imposter syndrome can sneak up. But generally with our high performers, they are highly capable. They set big goals they go after it but there is also a perfectionistic tendency and they can be hard on themselves. They have really high standards. I attract a lot of high performers as clients. I am certain that there are a lot of you listening

10:00

Now as occupational therapists with an interest in doing something different and thinking outside the box, no different ways of being an entrepreneur different ways of generating revenue outside of clinical work, even just in who is attracted to occupational therapy in the first place, there are a lot of type A personalities out there. And there are a lot of high performers. And when things don't go as planned, or when a lot of curveballs get thrown our way. It sucks. It can be really challenging. It can be like, there's a lot of mindset work that has to go into getting yourself back on track that inner dialogue, that inner critic, you know, when things get off track, when you are not getting the A pluses that you strive for, when things are not going according to plan, it can be quite challenging. So this is why it's important that every 90 days, we have a moment where we can go through this reset. Right now sometimes it just happens in life, right? I probably should have done a reset the first of September. But then I had a few more curveballs thrown my way where now here I am. And I don't think I actually finished my story of last. So we had to go to our children's appointment last week. And the results, everything is great. By the way, I should have finished that. I didn't mean to leave you hanging on that. But that MRI came back positive, like it came back everything is good. And it was just this moment of deep breath. We got the thumbs up. It's been five years now we're in the low rate of reoccurrence. So statistically speaking, once you hit that five year milestone, our neurosurgeon as much as I adore him,

11:47

it was awesome to say, you know, to hear him say things are great, we don't need to see you for three more years, you've hit another milestone, don't come back for three more years, everything is good, there's a very, very low chance at this point that that tumor will grow back. So now I feel much more in a position to do a reset. So I've been going through this personally, this reset I've recommitted to another program in terms of my own health and well-being so a women's health program, I have been going through and resetting my next 90 days. So we're coming up on another quarter. So q4 is just around the corner. And I'm going to share what I do to reset, but also what I guide my clients through as well. So hopefully you can take some tidbits away from this episode. And it will help you to take a breath, take inventory of your surroundings and refocus for the next 90 days. So I'm going to share four tips or four strategies that we always include in our quarterly planning sessions. So the first one is to reconnect with your why. So whenever your that monkey brain is chattering away, like what are you doing? You're not cut out for this? Oh, my goodness, you're never going to make this work. Why are you You know that comparison itis? That is a time that we want to reconnect with our why so reconnect with our vision? Why are we doing this in the first place? What is motivating us? What's encouraging us? What's when we wake up in the morning? Like, why do we want to think outside the box? Why do we want to do something different? What is our dream? What is our vision? For me, my Y is really to show other OTS what's possible outside of clinical work, and to help them to boldly pursue their dreams. That is my why that is what lights me up. That is when the going gets tough. I can come back to my why. And I feel really empowered. What may seem scary is not so scary anymore. Like you know what, you can do this and when we're reconnecting with our why it's about the long game, right? It's really about that. No, what is that long game? And yeah, there may be some blips on the radar to get to the long game like to get to that destination. But that's okay, you know, what can we be doing today? So slowing down and again, reconnecting with your why you will be surprised how much clarity that gives you in what you're doing. And as you're moving forward, you know, in terms of making decisions in alignment with your Y. The second strategy, and this is more of an exercise. So this is something that I do each and every 90 days. So I take a piece of paper, I fold it in half, and then I fold it in half again. So it's folded twice. So the page is divided up into quarters, right? So you have four quarters

15:00

It's top left quadrant is I do a brain dump on my wins in the last 90 days, these could be business wins, these could be professional wins, they could be personal wins. Right? So what went well, what were my wins? You know, sometimes I'll set a timer, write that down, do a brain dump.

15:24

Then, on the bottom left quadrant, I do the same thing, but I write down my disappointments or my losses. So what didn't go so well, in the last 90 days, brain dump, get it out

15:41

the next step to this, so go back up.

15:45

And I'll stretch this out, like 30 minutes, you know, I give myself ample amount of time to do this. So then back up to that top left quadrant, our wins. Then in the top right quadrant, I reflect on the lessons that I've learned from those wins.

16:05

What information did I gather from those wins? What insight did I gain from those wins? So each of those wins? I'm then going to the top right quadrant and I'm writing. Now again, what were the lessons, the insights, what wisdom did I gain from that?

16:24

Then you're doing the same on the bottom right. So the bottom left is your disappointments or your losses, each of those disappointments, each of those losses. I don't want to say failures. But each of those things that I like, and thumbs down didn't go so well. What did you learn from that? What insight did you gain? What lessons did you learn?

16:50

Take some time and identify that. I had a lot of lessons that I learned in the last 90 days.

16:59

Some things that didn't go so well. But it really solidified my desire to have a director of operations. For example, I have a small team. But I'm still the head honcho, so to speak, right? Like, you know what, with the chaos this summer, and I'm not getting any younger, my parents aren't getting any younger, like, we're going to have curveballs thrown our way, there's going to be more things that happen. That's life. How can I best prepare for that? Oh, you know what, Okay, time to lean in to a Director of Operations. Right? And how can we keep things going? Where if I have to step away?

17:41

Business doesn't have to slow down, right? What might that look like? What might my business look like in order to support that role to support that position? Where do I need to be as a CEO? Where do we need to be in terms of revenue? What does that look like?

17:57

When you go through this exercise in terms of wins, losses, and then the lessons you're going to be able to identify what's working well, and what are your areas for improvement? Right? No judgment, just going through and doing this exercise and getting this out, you're going to gain a lot of insight.

18:17

Right? That was your second one. So first one is reconnecting with your why. Second one going through this brain dump with your wins your losses, and your lessons.

18:30

The third tip, or the third strategy is around goal setting. So every 90 days, you get to reevaluate from your past 90 days, you know, did you have

18:45

two three goals? Like you don't need extensive amount of goals. But what did you have set as goals for your business? What projects did you have on the go? And even in terms of projects? When I first started in business, I thought having a lot of projects meant I was a good entrepreneur. So I would have 1012 projects. I remember my very first business coach, she had me write down how many projects I had on the go, and I thought I was gonna get a gold star, because I got back to her with 11 projects.

19:18

With a two-year-old underfoot, working part time, not a strong support team, like oh my goodness, no wonder things were falling apart in my world at that time. So she helped me to understand you know how to simplify and really, three projects per quarter is lots. So when we're goal setting,

19:39

I often talk to my clients on the difference between goal setting as an entrepreneur and goal setting as a therapist, goal setting as a therapist, that's the gold standard like that's what you're basing your client work on. That's what you're basing your reports on you're discharging, everything happens around those

20:00

goals. And that's what you strive for. Whereas goal setting as an entrepreneur,

20:08

you're setting those goals. And then you're letting go of those goals. Let me rephrase, you're setting those goals. And then the emphasis isn't on if you're hitting those goals, the emphasis is on, are you moving in that direction? Are you making progress? You know, you've set those GPS coordinates. Okay. Now, in the next 90 days, are you making decisions in alignment with those GPS coordinates? And that's what we get to focus on? Are you actually moving forward? Are you taking those baby steps towards those goals?

20:48

So every 90 days, we have the opportunity to define our success plan.

20:56

This is where I want to encourage you to get very clear on your definition of success. What does success mean to you in the next 90 days,

21:08

I want you to be very careful of comparing yourself to others. This is again, a great opportunity to think about, you know, comparison itis. Often we get caught up in like timelines. Oh, my goodness, I thought I would be farther ahead. Or How often have I heard someone say, Oh, my goodness, I'm so behind? How many times have I said that to my coaches? I'm just so behind on things. And that's when they may say, behind, like, what timeline are we operating on? Where did this timeline come from? And I know I'm getting better at challenging my clients know, behind what Who are you behind? We're all on our own timelines, you know, who did someone come up and give you and, you know, assign due dates and tasks. A lot of times these due dates are self imposed their due dates that we have made up, we have decided and we have the flexibility to adjust those due dates. Of course, there may be times where yes, you want to stay in integrity with what you've promised someone, but there's often wiggle room in these due dates. So every 90 days, we have this opportunity in terms of goal setting in terms of defining our success plan. What does success mean to you, not to this person on Instagram that you're comparing yourself to, not to this other OT entrepreneur who launched her business at the same time as you did, not to this person who you deem to be your competition and how fast they're launching things. We never know what's going on behind the scenes for other people.

22:48

This is comparing the front end of our business to the back end of someone else's, like you don't know what's going on for other people. And we are all on our own timeline.

23:01

So you now have the opportunity. We have a new quarter coming up. What projects are you going to be focusing on?

23:10

What is the status on projects you were working on in q3,

23:16

getting clear on your success plan. Getting clear on your goals. Whenever we talk about goals, it's really important to have an income goal. So a number focused revenue-focused goal as well as an impact goal. So with an impact goal that may be more related to how many people you want to reach or how many clients you want to bring in, or no, it could be related to

23:46

an email download, like there are different things. It could be launching a program, it could be making an upgrade to a program launching a website, right? Like there are other goals that are really important in our business that may not be tied into a direct revenue goal. So at least one income goal, at least one impact goal. No more than three goals for your quarter.

24:12

Right. Then getting clear on okay, you have these goals you have those GPS coordinates you've identified know what's working well, what's not going so well. You've identified your wins, your losses, your lessons learned, taking a moment, and what obstacles do you now have to overcome to get you to those GPS coordinates?

24:39

To bring up this is where sometimes we may see like, oh, wow, I've put a lot on my plate. Maybe this isn't realistic. Maybe this is why I'm getting overwhelmed.

24:50

I know I'm guilty of that. Sometimes when I put it on paper and then start to translate it over to my planner, like ah, I'm doing it again. There's those high performers

25:00

sneaking up on me. Because then all was served me well. Right. But again, new quarter coming up, we have the opportunity to do a reset. We have an opportunity to revisit our goals. Don't beat yourself up. If you didn't hit your goals from q3, you get to decide which goals are you carrying forward? Which ones are you letting go of? Which projects got completed? Which projects didn't end? Do they need to move forward? Or can you let them go? You get to decide.

25:31

Right? Okay, so that was your third, our third way that we're going to be doing a reset,

25:39

setting these goals.

25:42

The fourth and final one. And this is an important one, this is a powerful one is pausing. And reflecting how far you've come. An analogy that I use in my groups is that we are climbing a mountain. And for anyone that's ever gone on a hike up a mountain, when you first get started, it can be a bit intimidating, you're at the very bottom, you're looking way up and you see how far you have to go, you start to question, Can I do this? Am I ready for this? Do I have the right resources, the right supplies, the right supports.

26:19

And then we start climbing that mountain, climbing that mountain climbing that mountain and we're looking up and we're looking up. And just when we think we've hit the peak, we realize that it's just a tiny little hill, and then you get a view of the full mountain, climbing up, climbing up climbing up. And we're often so focused on how far we have to go.

26:40

That one thing that a lot of high performers don't do often enough, is pause and turn around and reflect or acknowledge how far you've come.

26:55

This is something I did last week.

27:00

I went through my old journals, I have a business journal. So I use moleskin journals, I'm obsessed with them. And I have one for each year that I've been in business. And I pulled out my in the early years I had one for would be maybe two years in business. So I had a journal from 2015 2016. So I got started in 2013. And then 2015 2016, that's when I started to work with a business mentor.

27:29

And I started going through my journal last week, to get a better idea of

27:36

how far I had come. And it was fascinating. I don't give myself enough credit for how far I've come what I thought were wins. With that no, just in terms of my basic level of knowledge and understanding. It was pretty fascinating to see. And I was able to acknowledge, I was able to celebrate the growth, the personal growth, the professional growth. Now as a CEO, as an entrepreneur, my interest even in how I understand different concepts and how I approached my business, it is such a difference.

28:16

So pausing and reflecting how far you've come.

28:22

One exercise that we often go through and talking about this mountain that we're climbing. So you have this mountain, you are climbing up this mountain, you have your GPS coordinates. And

28:39

now fast forward to being at the top of this mountain. Fast forward to the destination. So you've set these goals. So let's take these 90 Day goals that you've set. Now, fast forward to the end game, and I want you to visualize that you've achieved these goals.

29:01

Fast forward to being at the top of this mountain.

29:06

What are you doing to celebrate? How do you know that you've achieved these goals?

29:13

What are you doing in terms of just think of what's around you when you've reached these goals?

29:22

What are you telling others?

29:24

If you were doing a high five, you know, what would you be saying to yourself? What does it look like? What does it feel like? Really put yourself in that position? For me I like to journal this out and making sure I'm journaling in the present tense. So it is December 31 2022. I am celebrating tonight that I have boom boom boom, list out my achievements lifts list out these goals that I've reached.

29:58

Get super clear

30:00

on how that looks how that feels, what exactly is going on, that you have reached these goals?

30:09

Then what you're going to do

30:13

is like you're visualizing yourself on top of this mountain, you can think of me right there with you celebrating, right? I'm bringing out the champagne. If you don't drink champagne, that's okay, I'm bringing out sparkling water, we are fist pumping, we are high fiving, we both have the biggest smiles on our face like you did it. This is amazing. I knew you could do this.

30:35

Now, I'm going to give you an opportunity,

30:39

you have the opportunity to send a message to the version of yourself that's climbing up that mountain.

30:50

Right. So you as the person that is like has achieved these goals, that feeling of euphoria. Now you have an opportunity to send a message to the version of you. That's at the bottom of that mountain. What would you tell her?

31:08

What would you be saying in terms of words of encouragement in terms of No, letting that person know, like, from the future version of you? What would you be saying?

31:24

What would you be telling them?

31:27

So think about that.

31:32

Write, this is a very powerful exercise. Okay, so those are my four tips or my four strategies, if you too, are in need of a reset. We have this beautiful opportunity every 90 days, to reconnect with our why

31:56

to review our wins and our disappointments because there are lessons to be learned from both. You have this new opportunity to reset your goals. So to get more clarity on where you're going in the next 90 days, right decide what you're bringing forward with you and what you're leaving behind.

32:20

And you have this wonderful opportunity to pause and reflect on how far you've come. So celebrating the growth, the trials, the tribulations, you know, all the work that you've already put in on this journey. Please pause and celebrate that.

32:41

All right.

32:43

That's it for today's episode.

32:47

I hope that you resonated with this. I know that there have been some ups and downs. I'm not alone in having some bumps on the road this last 90 days. But just like everyone else, this is an opportunity for me to reset to get focused. I'm right there alongside you. And yeah, we're in this together. So lots of great things still, we have lots of opportunities still in this next quarter in this next 90 days. So time to get back on track and focused on all the great things yet to come.

33:24

Alright, that's it for today, folks. Take care, and we'll be back in a couple of weeks with another episode of the OTs Gone Rogue podcast.