Show Notes
As you’re making your way in your engineering career, as you’re pursuing your goals and manifesting your vision, you’re also encountering a number of challenges. We continue our series on career challenges for women engineers with today’s episode on trances.
(See previous episodes on other challenges, such as why women leave engineering, the late career plateau, upward mobility, getting good feedback, and handling feedback.)
Even though you don’t have total control over the challenges you face, there are things you yourself can do to get through them or get around them or maybe even get rid of them.
Today’s episode is about a different kind of challenge. It’s the challenge of getting out of your own way. It’s the challenge of learning to be your own best advocate. The challenge of how to be a believer in you.
The issue is one that you may not be aware of. Or maybe you are aware of it, but don’t know that you can do anything about it. In a way you are in a trance. Let me explain.
During your life history, you’ve had a certain upbringing. You grew up in various circumstances. You’ve been exposed to environments. You’ve heard stories. You have lived and learned.
Consequently you have thoughts. You have beliefs. And you tell yourself stories based on all of this.
And all of this has influenced how you view yourself. The level of confidence you have in yourself. Your perception of how you stand among others. Your value and self-worth.
If you’re a woman and an engineer, some of these influences came from biases, conscious and unconscious. They came from precedence, conjecture and culture. From unknowns, fears, and skepticism.
They came from phrases like “you can’t” and “you shouldn’t” and “what makes you think…?”
So what likely has come out of that is a more fragile perception of yourself. A less-than regard for yourself. What probably has come out of that is doubt, hesitation, uncertainty, qualm, suspicion, and a strong inner critic.
Biases have influenced others about you as a woman engineer. But biases have influenced you about you as a woman engineer too. Those biases can be unconscious and trance-like.
Victoria Castle wrote about this in her book The Trance of Scarcity. And transformation expert, Tara-Nichole Nelson, writes about the trances of fear, scarcity, and unworthiness in her Transformation Tuesday blog.
Most people are living under the trance of fear without even knowing it. When you are in the trance of scarcity you believe that there is never enough and that you are never enough.
When you’re in the trance of unworthiness, you feel you have to overwork or be stressed and hard on yourself in order to be worthy. When in fact, as Ms. Nelson says, “You are worthy of a life that feels and is good to you. Period. Without doing or proving anything.”
Why is this important? Why do you care about trances? Because these underlying thoughts and beliefs – these trances – are holding you back. They’re undermining who you want to become. They’re keeping you from being your whole self, your best self, your intended self.
Sometimes these underlying thoughts and beliefs can lead to distorted thinking patterns or cognitive distortions, like the use of all-or-nothing assumptions, overgeneralizations, and “should” statements. They are a sign that you are entranced.
Maybe you’ll recognize some of the signs indicating that these trances are having an effect on you in the workplace:
- You hesitate before speaking up or offering your idea.
- You immediately degrade yourself after a decision.
- You stand in the back.
- You hide your achievement or downplay your ability.
- You believe your approach is inferior to someone else’s.
- You refrain from expressing your skills and strengths.
- You belittle how you look, sound, or feel.
- You believe you can’t do, don’t deserve, or are not good at something.
- You’re reluctant to take on a new challenge.
Trances are a huge reason why women engineers struggle with confidence. Why your career vision is limited. Why you stay in one place for too long. Why you don’t get as far in your career as you hoped.
A significant part of my work as a career strategist is helping women engineers awake from these trances. I can help you recognize what’s holding you back, rebuild your confidence, and create a more inspiring career path.
If some of these trance effects are ringing true for you, be sure to check out my signature program.
How to Break Out of the Trance and Renew Career Possibilities
Your thoughts create your world. Your thoughts become your emotions, which become your behaviors, which become you.
I read an article by Kevin Anderson in the Spirituality & Health magazine about word play and cognitive therapy. Dr. Anderson shares some great concepts that are relevant for our discussion today.
He says, “Unhelpful thoughts can appear to be The Truth when we’ve rehearsed them for a lifetime.” In the spirit of cognitive therapy, you can change your thoughts. Change your beliefs. Change the story.
You can find new, true thoughts to displace the old, ineffective thought patterns and get to a more genuine reality. Here are 3 steps to waking up from unhelpful trances:
- Build Awareness – Become more aware of how you think of, speak of and act toward yourself. Notice the positives and negatives. Observe and contemplate the effects.
- Challenge Your Thinking – For each problematic thought, ask yourself, is this true? What are the facts? Separate truth and reality from opinion or assumption.
- Rephrase and Reframe – Engage in more compassionate self-talk. Rephrase your thoughts and words as if you are speaking to a good friend or colleague. Reframe to see your true self with ability, potential and value.
Here’s an example of how to apply the 3 steps:
During my career I often told myself “I’m not ready to take on that more challenging job.” Once I became awarethat I was doing this, I questioned that thought. Why do I think that? What am I basing that statement on?
I realized that I was telling myself “I can’t take this step up because it feels too new and different and unknown.” I assumed I didn’t know enough (aka, wasn’t good enough) and therefore was not capable.
So then I rephrased and instead told myself, “This feels new and unknown, and a little scary. But I have enough skills to do it, and I can learn what I don’t know.”
I think all women engineers can benefit from this exercise. We’ve all been influenced by our pasts and environments. We’ve all been entranced to some degree.
After you’ve practiced these 3 steps, do an assessment of the results. Notice how this changes your image of yourself. But also notice how it changes others’ images of you.
Does it improve your interactions with colleagues and teammates? Does it allow you to present yourself more professionally?
Probably. Because it nurtures self-respect. And self-respect is a characteristic of great leaders. We see it as a positive in others. It’s easier to trust people who have it.
As you are building your skills as a professional, an engineer and leader, take on the challenge of breaking through your trances. You’ll find that it has long-lasting personal and professional benefits. It builds courage and confidence. It opens up possibilities.
Recap: The challenge introduced today is how to break through trances – like fear, scarcity and unworthiness – that hinder your engineering career. We talked about how those trances are mostly unconscious and develop throughout our lives.
We discussed the effects of the trances in your engineering career. And we closed with 3 steps you can take to break out of those trances and open more possibilities for you.
Next time on Her Engineering Career Podcast we’ll take a deep dive into your energetic center. Tune in next time for Episode 22.