The Therapy Edit - One Thing with Alice Olins on how to have confidence in challenging times

Episode Date: December 30, 2022

On this guest episode of The Therapy Edit, Anna chats to the founder of Step Up Club, Alice Olins. Alice's One Thing is not to fear challenging time, a poignant and reassuring message as we head into a New Year.Step Up Club was built on a foundation of openness, inclusivity, individual focus, empathy and a female-focused community spirit, Step Up Club empowers everyday women like you to unlock their best, happiest selves.You can find out more about Step Up Club here and they've given listeners a free month in the club using code TTEONEFREE - Here's the link to sign up https://stepupclub.coAlice is also the author of the best selling book: Step Up: Confidence, success and your stellar career in 10 minutes a day. You can buy it here https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01CHNXBJE/?ref=exp_thestepupclub_dp_vv_d

Hello and welcome to The Therapy Edit with me, psychotherapist, mum of three and author Anna Martha. Every Friday, I invite one guest to tell me the one thing they would most like to share with mums everywhere. So join with me as we hear this dose of wisdom. I hope you enjoy it. Hi, everyone. Welcome to a guest episode of The Therapy Edit and all of you, moms, juggling work, thinking about work, then this episode is for you. I have with me, Alice Olin. She is on Instagram as a step up club. She is an entrepreneur, a coach, a media expert, an author, a public speaker

and a mom of three. And what I love is that Alice is passionate about supporting women in building confidence, knowing their worth, one of my favorite topics, and overcoming ongoing obstacles that get in the way, all in the context of that kind of work, life balance. She has a bit called step up and she runs this amazing female professional development community where people just support and educate each other. She shares a lot of her wisdom in there and her aim is to support women through navigating change and finding meaningful progression in their workplace and just to be there happier working sales and I love that. How can you be the happiest working you with what, with the situation that you find yourself in? So hi, Alice. How are you today?

I'm good, Anna. How are you? I am good, thank you. And what does it feel like hearing all of that? It's like a little, kind of a little snapshot of your working life, isn't it? It's good. I like to hear all of that stuff because it reminds me of the reason and the essence of what I do because, you know, I'm sure you know as well and I can appreciate that running a business and just managing the many facets of life and work. you sometimes forget the important bit. And so actually hearing the important bit is a lovely reminder. And it makes it all worthwhile to sound extremely fleshied. No, it must be, yeah, kind of hearing it all kind of listed out. And what of all of the things that you do from kind of the corporate work, the coaching, the media, the writing, what's your favourite thing at the moment that you're just loving,

pouring some of that passion and energy into? I love being in spaces with other women. So sometimes that is in a one-to-one capacity. I have lots of one-to-one clients. And I absolutely love the slight unexpectedness of, you know, turning up, kind of knowing their backstory, knowing their progress to some degree. But often something will land in between two of our sessions. And it's that adrenaline bit of trying to piece together what's been, what we know about, each other and how I can support them up and out of difficult situations or just help them to be more objective about where they are and what's going on. So I love the kind of one-to-one stuff. But I also love hosting group sessions. So again, often with our work, if we're doing like a virtual co-working, I don't know who's going to turn up in the room. And so it's curating those conversations and holding a space where people feel relaxed and engaged and support or women, rather, feel relaxed, engaged and supported and are ready to get busy doing the work.

And then having a bit of chit-chap in the blend as well. It is about work, step-up club. But it's also about being human. Like I often say it's for the woman behind the job. So it doesn't really matter what the job is or even if you are working at, you know, if you're not working, but you have aspirations to work. It's about you as a woman and the power that you have and unlocking that power and finding that joy, like you said, as well. So I'm a people person. I'm a words person because I'm a journalist by trade. But truthfully,

I feel best when I'm engaging with others. Yeah, that's so powerful. And I was reflecting on this the other day. And do you think this to be true that not too long ago, the working day was kind of so much more, it was so much more compartmentalized. Like I remember leaving my computer at work. And then that was it. I'd leave the office and I'd go the next day. And I had my work self and my kind of outside of work self. And I just think, there's so much more merging now, isn't there? And it's, it sounds like you're offering people, those tools to kind of navigate that and to recognize that we do bring ourselves into our work, it isn't as compartmentalized and maybe perhaps it was never really meant to be.

Yeah, I mean, I think, right. I think, look, we need to be careful about blending too much and bringing, not bringing out bringing too much of ourselves because I agree that we should be able to be our whole full selves and bring that person and be respected for being that person and bring you know our idiosyncrasies our brilliance our chat about love island whatever it is on that day because that's who we are and we are kind of you know we have myriad things going on inside our heads inside our bodies inside our lives at any one time we do need to be careful obviously about giving too much to work but I think that is actually a different point and I think you can bring your whole self, but not give your whole self and all of you.

You know, just remember. The boundaries, the boundary word. I'm trying to avoid that word, but now that you've brought it to the conversation. It's so helpful, though, it is because it's like there is more of emerging, but actually, you know, to keep ourselves mentally healthy, to keep our workspace, something that we can enjoy. And, yeah, it's those boundaries. And they're going to look very different now to how they would have looked, you know,

not even a generation ago. And I bet that's probably, you know, a lot of the work you do is supporting women in. For sure. Reassessing those boundaries. I'm also remembering that those things like everything to do with work and life, it's important that we reassess them regularly. And often I find when I work with women that one of the main obstacles

to being able to progress or to feel happier at work is that we haven't or they haven't looked at things afresh. So maybe they are working to outdated definitions of success or maybe they're trying to squeeze an old value or an outdated value into something or maybe some new values have come to the fore that they haven't actually articulated to themselves. And there's a tension between something they feel very deeply, but may potentially subconsciously and the way they're working or the company that they're working for. So it's so important that we think and that we have time to reflect and again reflecting it's such an overused word but the thinking time is so important and I think as women we're so busy

especially as working mothers we are you know we are at capacity pretty much all the time and for me carving out time to think and sometimes that thinking time is when I'm shoving washing in the washing machine it's not that everything has to be elevated to you know, I don't need to light a candle and, you know, have a cup of tea to do thinking time. But it's being conscious about there's something that's niggling or there's something that's not right and I'm going to think about that or talk it out. Just give myself some space to look at whatever the issue is that from a different angle. Yeah. So it's that kind of that monitoring, isn't it? And I think if we want any relationship to thrive, then we need to be

doing that, you know, whether it's a partnership or a friendship or a relationship with work. It's, yeah, it's that reassessment. And yeah, so the question that we ask here, which I'm really excited to ask you, is if you could give all the moms one piece of advice, one thing, what would that be? Okay, so my piece of advice is to embrace discomfort. I feel very, very strongly that we are conditioned to have an immediate relationship between discomfort and negativity. And by that, I mean that the inner critic, the physical feelings of discomfort, so that might be stepping out of your comfort zone and suddenly feeling fearful and sweaty palmed or that something's not going right or having a repeated negative thought about something.

is part and parcel of growth. And what I want to encourage more women and particularly more mothers to do is to be able to view that as a vessel to somewhere better. And I think the irony, I suppose, for mothers particularly, is that the act of becoming a mother is the biggest, most ultimate step into the unknown for the first time, certainly.

physical discomfort, mental erosion, and all of the, you know, let's caveat here, I love my kids, I love being a mum, it's the most nourishing, important part of my life. But it took, which it takes courage to take that leap. And I think because of all of the rasmatars around getting pregnant, and I mean, I, my oldest is nearly 11. So there was no like gender revision. situations going on then. But, you know, all of that kind of excitement around, which is totally what, you know, it's important, all that fun around pregnancy, I think takes away that vital part of I have taken a leap into the unknown and I can harness that for the rest of my life. It's part of who I am and it's something that I can refer back to at other times in my life.

And remember, I've done this before. And I think, we diminish that leap and the importance of that and the discomfort because we get sucked into potentially, you know, the minutiae of having a newborn and then the craziness of having a toddler. I'm currently putty training my youngest and, you know, it ain't easy. He's a three-anger and it's just, you know, boom, the whole time. But, you know, we don't elevate the importance of that kind of leap and that discomfort. And I feel like, we can take it and use it elsewhere. And specifically, for me, obviously, that's in the workplace.

And so that's my kind of first point. And the subset of that as well is if you are feeling uncomfortable and you are getting those kind of fearful thoughts, perhaps that's because you are already playing bigger. And it's the same point made differently. again, if we are nervous about something like you have a conversation or you reach out to someone who you've never spoken to before and then afterwards you spend, you know, two hours going, did I say the right thing or, you know, what was implied by that?

Actually recognising, hang on a sec, this voice, this kind of critical, you know, gremlin that's sitting on my shoulder, this is because I've done something important and I've done something that is different and I've stepped out of my comfort zone. And it's a reframe, but it's such a powerful reframe because then you can link those actions and thoughts together and say, look at me, I am playing bigger, I'm coping with discomfort. I'm welcoming it and it's getting me somewhere better.

So I often now, and this has been something extremely gradual in my life that I've realized and feel extremely passionately about. I've been through, sadly, we lost our first child who was still born on his due date. So I had, I was, you know, I had the ultimate discomfort in my life. I mean, you know, that's an understatement, obviously. But what it taught me is that shoots grow from those times and obviously never wishing that extreme discomfort on anyone. but the same happens when things go wrong, you know, and just remembering, and I suppose this

is the kind of last bit of advice, it's like, when you're in a situation where things are going wrong or you're losing control or that negative voice is going, stop and say, I am somewhere difficult now, recognize it, own it, and harness it and say, but if things weren't feeling difficult, if things were just the same, I wouldn't be going anywhere. You know, the status quo doesn't deliver us. Discomfort does. And so it's a big reframe and it's a, but it's, it's so powerful. And it really helps to be able to say, it's okay that I'm feeling like this. I don't want to feel like this. It's horrible. Yeah. Perhaps it's getting me somewhere better. Yeah. I mean, thank you so much for sharing that. That's incredibly powerful. And I think, you know, thinking of that

metaphor of grief and our world offers so many distractions, like I've worked with so many clients who have, you know, done anything the world offers in order to not feel that kind of that stretching and that all that comes with that. And actually it just, we get stuck. And I think, you know, leaning into that discomfort is something that is, you know, we have to really consciously choose to do sometimes. And it can feel quite scary, especially in a world that is saying, but you can do this, but you can take that. And then. you don't have to feel it and actually it doesn't go anywhere i mean grief is very patient it will just wait and and i also thought as you were talking of my son and he gets these growing

pains in the night and they're really uncomfortable but he wants to grow he's so excited to kind of get older and it's that you know it's the good growth comes through physical and sometimes physical emotional it might be your heart is literally kind of groaning and yeah that encouragement to kind of step into that. And I was also thinking you probably help so many women across that transition of, I know that this isn't right where I am, but the thought of changing and moving through that maybe loss of a job and stepping out a familiar place, that's uncomfortable.

So we can also just avoid some of these steps in life that could lead us somewhere really great as well. There's an amazing psychologist called Ominia Ibarra and she's, I think she's a professor at the London Business School or something. Anyway, her kind of area of particular interest is around identity. And so, in a sense, it sits adjacently to this. And what she talks about is like when you're evolving your identity, when you're moving forward, she calls it the betwixt and the between. The betwixt and between, that's what she called it. And she, her kind of metaphor is we get stuck in our.

safe harbor and we can't go anywhere when we're anchored into the safe harbor and the betwixt and the between is our choppy waters and we have to navigate and feel those waters to be able to get to where we want to be and I often that kind of comes to mind it's like if I'm stuck if I'm anchored down I'm not going anywhere if I'm going up and down and it's feeling bad I'm definitely going somewhere and I don't necessarily know where that place is and it's slightly being fatalistic about I trust myself and I've made good decisions before or things have come right in the end and so I'm just going to not just I'm going to go with this because this discomfort is leading me somewhere and I think that's I love her analogy around it as well well that that's

amazing it's reminded me of this piece of writing I read years ago that stayed with me and it's talking about you know the transition when we're feeling like we're just we're just being stretched and I think it talks about the seed and inside there's kind of like this it kind of gets overstuffed for a while it's kind of really kind of stretching against the outer layer and then suddenly it bursts through and it's saying you know sometimes those times you feel most uncomfortable and at sea at the times where actually you're kind of you're me you're about to push through you're moving through and I think yeah it's about trusting that yeah and remembering if you're a mom you've done it like you've done the old one I love that

that use that and remember that don't just diminish oh i had a baby you know it was a nightmare i've got baby brain and you know all of that stuff that we just default think and actually think i'm a warrior like i've had a baby and i've birthed it his him her and you know raising it and and that's i can use that as fuel for so many other things in my life that is incredible and i think it's such a good metaphor because you literally are just stretched don't you your parts of you just feel a bit broken when you're really heavily pregnant and everything just can feel a bit effortful and you're kind of in a way wishing the days away whilst knowing that one day you might look back to this point and wish that you'd made the most of it and it's just you know in retrospect you know

there will be that retrospect but it's hard in the moment but you've got a goal and you've got an aim yeah and I think it is important to say it's hard to do this it doesn't just happen and it's but only you can do it for yourself and you can do it by checking yourself and questioning that voice and having another voice and going, hang on, I don't, I'm not listening to this one. This isn't serving me. Actually, I'm just going to, I don't know, you know, travel those choppy waters and I'm not going to let the kind of voice tell me I shouldn't. Yeah. And reflecting back sometimes, I guess, on those moments as you said that, you know, you journey through that and you've come out the other side and there's something better. And I think with pregnancy, you know, you hope with all your

heart that you'll have a baby. So you know that you've got this kind of goal and you've got this thing that you're working towards that moment. And actually, I think sometimes when we step into those times of transition and we feel that we're in that betwixt stage, we might not know what's happening around the corner. We might not know what that looks like, but then it's reflecting on those times in your life where you know that it's come. Yeah, powerful staff. Thank you. That's my pleasure. Thank you. So to finish off, Alice, we have some quickfire questions for you.

What is a motherhood high for you? Okay, so this was so easy. I have two older girls, so they're nearly 11 and nearly nine, and then I've got a little Tara, no, he's gorgeous, a three-year-old bonte, and the experience of raising two relatively closely together where you're just in the thick of it, and then having a big break, and then having, like seeing as a parent, the joy and the, all of that good stuff that you

get as a parent when you see your toddler doing cool stuff or your baby, or I see it now through the eyes of my own children. So the girls, Pearl and Tallulah, you know, they, they parent him, but they also, they get all the good stuff and the bad stuff. And it's just this incredible, I don't know, new layer to parenting to be able to see them as, as being able to see all the amazing stuff and all the crazy stuff it does mean that between us

we have no control over him because when he's naughty we all just laugh and he's just turned into this kind of king but he's kind which is good because that's his saving grace

so it's a different type of raising children but seeing your sibling your own children being kind of older siblings is an amazing thing to witness That's so lovely. It's had me grinning just at the thought of it. And what's a motherhood low for you? So my motherhood low obviously is losing our first son bare. So you don't get much lower than that.

Yeah. No, you do not get lower than that. And what's something that makes you feel good? I think it's probably being with my girlfriends. I think we talked about at the beginning. I'm a real people person. And I've got a lot. I'm very lucky that. I have a lot of really good girlfriends and I love to cackle with them and share coffees with them and do whatever we do these days. But just that is when I really escape stuff and just, you know, still have the, friendship is so important to me and I've got an amazing girlfriend. So yeah, just spending time with them. Yeah. That's, yeah, important, important and lovely to have. And how would you describe motherhood in three words to finish off. Okay, my three words are extreme, noisy and pure.

Extreme noisy and pure, powerful. Well, thank you so much. And for those that want to hear more from you and your amazing kind of warm wisdom, they can find you on Instagram at Step Up Club, but also is that where all of your community and they can find information about your work there? Yeah, they can. I'm also much better on LinkedIn these days. So if you are a professional bent, I'm also on LinkedIn as Alice Olin's and then linked to the Step Up Club there as well. Amazing. Well, thank you so much for your time and your wisdom today, Alice. It's great to talk to you. You too. Thank you for listening to today's episode of The Therapy Edit. If you enjoyed it, please do share, subscribe or review because it makes a massive difference to how many people it can reach.

more from me on Instagram at Anna Martha. You might like to check out my three books, Mind Over Mother, Know Your Worth, and my new book, The Little Book of Calm for New Mums, grounding words for the highs, the lows and the moments in between. It's a little book you don't need to read it from front to back. You just pick whatever emotion resonates to find a mantra, a tip and some supportive words to bring comfort and clarity. You can also find all my resources, guides and videos, all with the sole focus of supporting your emotional. and mental well-being as a month. They are all 12 pounds and you can find them on anamatha.com. I look forward to speaking with you soon.