Toxic ties: breaking free from your inner critic

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Did you ever have a best friend that was in a relationship you didn't think was good for her? Maybe they were controlling or needy, but for whatever reason, your friend stayed in the relationship?

Today on the podcast, we're going to talk about toxic relationships. No, this isn't about your friends relationships, or romantic relationships, or even friendships. It's about the toxic relationship you might have with yourself.

In this episode, I'm walking you through 4 types of toxic relationships that are likely holding you back from living an ambitious and balanced life. I'm describing them in detail and then walking you through the three requirements to severing ties with these toxic alter egos. 

Topics in this episode:

  • Toxic relationships with your work self and how they hold you back. 

  • 4 common toxic work patterns that drain your energy. 

  • How these toxic dynamics create stress and imbalance in your life. 

  • Powerful strategies to build self-confidence, clarity, and resilience. 

 Show Notes & References:

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Transcript

Intro

Did you ever have a best friend that was in a relationship you didn't think was good for her? Maybe they were controlling or needy, but for whatever reason, your friend stayed in the relationship?

Today on the podcast, we're going to talk about toxic relationships. No, this isn't about your friends relationships, or romantic relationships, or even friendships. It's about the toxic relationship you might have with yourself. 

In this episode, I'm walking you through 4 types of toxic relationships that are likely holding you back from living an ambitious and balanced life. I'm describing them in detail and then walking you through the three requirements to severing ties with these toxic alter egos. You ready? Let's get to it. 

Welcome to the Ambitious and Balanced Working Moms podcast, your go to resource for integrating your career ambitions with life as a mom, I'm distilling down thousands of coaching conversations I've had with working moms just like you, along with my own personal experience as a mom of two and sharing the most effective tools and strategies to help you quickly feel calm, confident, and in control of your ambitious working mom life. You ready? Let's get to it. 

Hello, working moms. Today was such a fun, amazing day. It was the kickoff of the fall cohort of ambitious and balanced. And this cohort is just filled with some amazing women that are all wanting to create sustainable work life balance and live a priority first life. 

And today we talked all about that idea of sustainability. Because what I see so often happens when people go about trying to create work life balance is that they're able to do it for a short period of time. It's sort of like when you kind of start a workout routine, right? For a while, you're just simply able to push yourself to get up, go to your workout class, go on your run, whatever it is, even when you don't want to. 

But for most of us, that motivation sort of wanes over time. And when it does, so does the commitment and so does the drop off, right, to working out. 

And I find that strategies to creating work life balance and living priority first can sort of feel very similar. Where at first you feel really motivated. You can sort of push yourself to hold to your boundaries and stick to your work hours and put your phone away and not answer emails at night. And you could sort of push yourself for a while, but eventually you sort of go back into old habits once the motivation sort of wanes, right? 

Sustaining work life balance.

Today, what we talked about in ambitious and balanced as we sort of launched the group for the fall is we talked all about sustainability and what it takes to truly sustain work life balance. And for some of these women, this was like their eye opening moment for them to really think about what's required, not just to hold to their boundaries and stick to their priorities today, but to do it in the long term. Right? 

And ultimately, that's what this group is all about. It's about equipping you with the tools that's necessary to create sustainable, sustainable work life balance and to always be able to live your priority first life. So I'm just so excited for these women and the investment that they've made in themselves that they're learning a skill set that literally is going to change the rest of their life. So fun. 

All right, so let's jump into today's topic. I want you to imagine this, okay? Your friend is in a relationship with someone that is consuming all of their time and their energy, right? They don't call you much anymore. They don't want to make an effort to connect or see you as much as they once did. 

And when you are with the person that they're dating, you can see that they're so needy, right? That they don't honor your friend or respect your friend, and they don't kind of honor her activities and her time and her friends, right? It's all about him or whomever the partner is and, and their circle of friends and so forth. 

Maybe you, you can, I mean, this feels sort of like college. It sort of feels like your early twenties. So maybe you can look back and think about that time of your life when your friends were dating and maybe you had a friend that had this sort of relationship. 

I certainly did back at that time. Or maybe there are friends that are in a similar situation, similar relationship and so forth. You can see that this relationship is not good for them, right? When you, as a friend, look on the outside, you can look in on it and go, this is not good for them, a good fit for them. They don't, they're not a good match. 

And it can be very confusing why your friend might choose to stay in this relationship. It's like they're sort of blind to the reality of what's going on. All right? 

Can you imagine that? Imagine maybe you have somebody in mind. Maybe this has happened in the past, even if it was 20 years ago or whenever, right? Imagine that. 

Right now, I want you to imagine that it's you who is in that relationship, and you are the one that is in the toxic relationship, but not with another humanity. It's with your work. 

4 toxic relationships with work.

Today on the podcast, I want to talk about 4 toxic relationships that you can have with work that is likely causing you to feel out of balance and completely exhausted and stressed. 

And I like to use the analogy of a relationship sometimes when I'm talking to my clients, because it is something that we sort of all can understand because we've all had or are currently in different types of relationships, some of which are very healthy and some of which might not be so healthy, right? 

And it's easy when you're feeling stressed out by work and like, work just seems to be never ending. It's easy to blame your job, right? Or to use the analogy of a relationship, it's easy to blame your partner. 

But when it comes to creating sustainable work life balance that you are completely in control over, it's not about the job or the boss, or the colleagues, or the project you're on, or the season of the year.

The problem is in the relationship dynamic that you have with your job. 

And I might take it one step further and say it's not about the relationship you have with your job. It's about the relationship you have with your achieving self, with your worker self, with the person that is working in this job, right? As if there's like an alter ego there. 

And if you're listening to this podcast episode right now, and you're struggling with stress and overwhelm, and you're struggling to create a life that feels balanced, likely at the heart of that is some flavor of a toxic relationship that you have with your achieving self. 

So I want to talk today about four toxic relationships and describe them for you. Okay? 

A new perspective.

My goal is for you to not feel bad about yourself. This is not to shame you in any way. It is to bring a new perspective as to why you're feeling stressed out and out of balance. Because when you have better understanding, you're going to come up with a greater solution or a better solution on how to fix that, on how to reverse that, right? 

If you think about being in a toxic relationship, whether that's you or it's a friend, if someone is in a toxic relationship, what it takes to move on from that relationship is a bit of recalibration, right? 

Cultivating a new way of thinking, some new mindsets, some new confidence, some new beliefs in yourself. It creates, creating new habits, focusing on rest, focusing on fun, focusing on healing. 

There's a lot of effort, intentional effort, that's required in order for you to heal from a toxic relationship. And ensure that you don't go back into another one. And so the same is true as we talk about your relationship with work or with your work self. 

If you choose to change your relationship dynamic with your work self, it's not going to happen overnight. There's going to have to be some intentional effort required in order for you to not fall into old, toxic, habits or behaviors that have you over prioritizing work in a way that you don't want. Right? 

So I hope this analogy is really helpful to you and it gives you sort of a different frame of mind. 

Sometimes when we use analogies, our brain can, like, see something or connect to something in a way that just talking about it would otherwise not. Right. And so the goal here is to just bring a new flavor, bring a new perspective that's going to help you be able to identify within yourself the behaviors and the connection that you have to work that probably isn't very helpful to you. 

Let's talk about toxic relationship number one. 

A controlling partner.

I'm calling this the controlling partner in a romantic relationship, the controlling partner wants things done their way. And there's a lot of guilt. There's a lot of guilt tripping that they put on you when you don't do things their way or you don't prioritize them in the way that they want. Right? Which makes you sort of always feel like you're letting them down. 

The people pleaser.

If you're in a controlling partner relationship with yourself and work, you likely struggle with people pleasing. Right. You are sensitive to the way everyone else feels. You don't want people to feel let down. And so your time does not often feel like your own. 

You feel like you're in a constant rotation of meetings and taking care of other people's priorities and making sure everybody else is happy, and it doesn't feel like you have a lot of choice. Right. 

Time feels very controlled. Your priorities feel very controlled, not by you, but by something else in this case. And there is a lot of feelings of, like, have to, like, obligation to the things that you do. That's a very controlling partner relationship. 

The energy vampire.

The second toxic relationship, I'm calling the energy vampire. If you are in a romantic relationship with an energy vampire, they are very needy. You never seem to be able to give them enough time, enough energy, enough validation for them to feel secure in their relationship with you.

If you are in an energy vampire relationship with your works self, you never feel enough. You are constantly seeking out validation from others. You're second guessing your decisions. You're looking to other people to validate your decisions. You struggle to advocate for yourself, to speak up for your own ideas, your own needs. 

You sort of feel like an imposter all of the time. Sort of just wondering when somebody else is going to find out that you're not really good at your job or you really shouldn't be in this job, right? And that you're nothing good enough. 

Overly dependant.

Toxic relationship number three is called overly dependent. In a romantic relationship, if you were with somebody that is overly dependent, they, feel desperate for you all of the time, right? There's this almost smothering feel to them that they can't be alone. They need a lot of validation from you, and it feels like you have to do absolutely everything for them in order for them to feel happy. 

If you are in an overly dependent relationship with your work self, you can't seem to just let work go. It's like you always need to do one more thing. You need to check one more thing off your list. You need to send one more email, pick up one more thing around the house. Work is sort of overly on your mind all of the time, and without it, you feel sort of lost. You feel like you have no idea who you are following me. 

You see where we're going with all of these relationships? It's good, right? Okay. 

The critic.

The last toxic relationship is called the constant critic. Now, in a romantic relationship, the constant critic is always pointing out your failures. They don't seem to see things that you do good ever. They only point out the things that you are doing wrong or not doing enough or not kind of meeting their standard in some way. And because of that, you're always failing. Right? And they seem to have this obscene, like, expectation of you that you're just never going to be able to live up to? 

If you are in a constant critic relationship with your work self, your negative inner dialogue is very strong. 

In order for you to feel really good about the work that you do, it has to be like a huge win, like a really big project that you completed that you can celebrate. 

Otherwise, most of the time, you never feel like you're doing enough. You're in a constant state of meetings in order to prove yourself. You're taking on projects and things that you wouldn't otherwise have time for because you need people to know that you're good. Right? There's this constant need to fill this bucket as if you haven't proved yourself already. all right, those are the four. 

So what toxic relationship are you in? 

Or at least that you have, like, some strong flavor of there's no shame or guilt if you are in one of these toxic relationships with yourself. No one goes into a romantic relationship with someone knowing that they're toxic, right? No one does that. 

Time to make change.

So if you're in a toxic relationship with yourself and you're treating yourself poorly, or you're kind of whipping yourself in such a way that is causing you to feel terrible and stressed and undervalued or controlled, now that you see it, it's time to make the change, right? 

But likely you were never going to see it going into it, because we have rosy sets of glasses on all of the time. We're not able to see that part of us. 

Staying out of fear.

Often people that stay in toxic relationships, like in romantic relationships, even when they know it's toxic, they do so out of fear. 

  • They fear that this is the best that they're ever going to get in a relationship. 

  • They fear that they don't deserve anyone better. 

  • They fear maybe even for their own safety. 

  • They fear who they are apart from this relationship. 

  • They fear what other people are going to think of them because they can't make the relationship work. 

People that are in toxic relationships stay in toxic relationships out of a lot of fear. 

And people that stay in toxic relationships with them and their work self, they also do so out of fear. They fear becoming less successful. They fear being lazy or being seen as lazy or complacent. They fear being seen as less than or not a good team player. They fear that the thoughts of them being an imposter are actually true and that they aren't actually very good at what they do. 

Fear is never a good reason to stay.

Here's the thing. Fear is never a good reason to stay in a toxic relationship with yourself, right? Fear is never a good reason to do almost anything, generally speaking. 

Fear is what holds you back. 

Fear is a part of your safety brain. Fear has you self sacrificing. Fear has you playing it safe. Fear has. It has you staying sort of in your comfort zone, right? Because it keeps things the status quo, which is always the more comfortable thing to do. 

To live an ambitious and balanced life, it requires you to make decisions for the life that you want to create in the future. 

The goals that you have for both your career and your family life, right? It requires you to live a life that is full of competing priorities, which is very uncomfortable, right? Because you have so many good things going on for you in your life that you want to put time and your energy to. Those priorities are constantly in a state of competition that's a good thing. 

That's a full life. That's an ambitious life. It's the all in kind of life that you want. 

And if you want to continue to go after that kind of life and go after your big goals, you cannot stay in a toxic relationship with your work self out of fear. 

How to get out of a toxic relationship.

To get out of a toxic relationship with yourself, it's going to require 3 things. These are all the things that I do with you in coaching. It's the process that I walk my one on one clients through. Okay. 

Unshakable view of self.

First, you have to have an unshakeable view of self, where you believe in yourself and how amazing and how valuable and how capable you are. No matter what, no matter what anyone else thinks, no matter if you fail from time to time, your view of yourself never changes. That's the first thing. 

Clear priorities and goals.

Number two, you have to have crystal clear ideas of what your priorities are and what your bigger goals are for you as a successful working mom. Because when you can see with that level of clarity what your day to day priorities are and what your bigger goals are, that toxic relationship with yourself is not going to make sense anymore. Right? You're going to have to cut ties with your toxic self in order to go after that big life. 

Emotional resiliency.

The third thing that's required is emotional resiliency. You have to be able to overcome the fear of, failure or the actual act of failing of you trying and not getting to your goals. You're going to have to get over that fear of letting people down or being disappointed in you and not being able to do everything for everyone and having to be selective with your priorities every day. There's a lot of emotions that are gonna come with going after a really big, ambitious life. And so you're going to have to build up emotional resiliency every single day. 

If you are looking for a guide or a coach to help you change your relationship with yourself so that work is not your whole life and your inner critic sort of calms down and tames down so it's not so overpowering and so heavy and holding you back all the time. If you want that, I got you. 

This is the exact work that I do as a working mom coach. And if it's you, now is always the time for us to talk. 

You can reach out, book a free breakthrough call to connect with me about coaching one on one to create for yourself a level of confidence where you have that unshakable view of self. 

To get crystal clear on your day to day priorities and your bigger goals and to build up a whole toolkit of emotional resiliency. I can walk you through that entire process. I would love to connect with you on a breakthrough call. 

You can do that by going to my website, www.rebeccaolsoncoaching.com/book

All right, working moms, until next week, let's sever ties with our toxic self and let's get to it. 

Rebecca Olson