Screw Success. Find Fulfillment.
Why I’m encouraging you to dig in to the life you want, not the life you’re told you should have.
I recently launched the Dig In Method at my firm, With Chela Inc. It’s our signature 7-step process to help women move from survive-mode, aka. Hustle, burnout, and never-ending to-do lists, to thrive-mode, a life that fits their vision, values, and purpose. I want women to ditch the pressures of what they should do, and focus on a strategy that allows them to do what they want to.
The Dig In Method, my method, is based in critical thinking. I definitely don’t equate digging in with hustling. In fact, I actively reject hustle narratives. Hustle is history here. When I say dig in, I mean critically dig in to what you want, the change you need, and the strategies you need to put in place to do it.
In life and work, we’re able to critically look at what creates and shapes an outcome. People, places, resources, politics; we look at every angle possible that can shape an outcome or a reality. For my work in strategy development and community building, I often have to dig in to the information and context of a variety of situations in order to have the information that we needed to think critically about how to be strategic.
This is the same for women looking to make change in their lives. We have to look critically at everything that can shape our outcome.
At our firm, we operate from what we’ve identified as the changemaker formula.
Informed intention + strategic thinking = elevated leadership.
I believe that a combination of informed intention and strategic thinking leads to elevated leadership. All of our offerings follow our changemaker’s formula because we’re in the business of working with changemakers. The Dig in Method is no exception. We help women gain the insight they need to set an informed intention to make the change they want. Women who identify that the status quo, that the norms in society, that the shoulds and should nots they’re fed are no longer going to dictate their lives are changemakers. The Dig in Method helps them get there.
Insight, informed intention, is the gateway to being able to gather and leverage information. This is the first step and it’s a critical one.
What’s so critical about it is that there’s the information we can see but simultaneously, there’s information that we’re blind to. This information is created and reinforced by repeating norms and the existence of rigid systems. Everything around us in our lives is funnelling information to the brain.
In fact, its less of a funnel and more of a waterslide. Information is sliding headfirst in swim trunks towards us. You see, the more you go down a waterslide, the wetter it gets. The wetter it gets, the easier it is to slide down. The information we receive is the same. The more we open our minds and eyes to receiving it, the easier it becomes to arrive at a conclusion. And in particular when we think about the concept of success, we ride that waterslide one hundred times per day. We’re flooded with images, stories, and tips for how to become successful. We are fed one very specific image of what success looks liked. And we’re also told that to reach it, hustle and burnout are normal, essential even. As Ariana Huffington reminds us, “it's also our collective delusion that overwork and burnout are the price we must pay in order to succeed.”
What’s so critical about insight to information is that it leads us to a deeper insight and allows you to set informed intentions. It’s critical to look to third parties to reach this point. When a third party, such as a coach or a strategist like me, who isn’t an intimate player in your life examines it, they can bring forward information and help deepen your insight. In my work, I help challenge women to shift their paradigms, question norms, and deepen their understanding, about what can happen in their lives. At this stage we’ve added more information to consider and asked critical questions to expand their information set, and sometimes some of this is only uncovered when a third-party collaboratively looks at it with you.
I am a swim coach, I train a team of athletes in our club. It’s difficult to be verbal with them because often communication needs to happen while their heads are in the water. Usually when they’re at the end of the lane, or are pushing off, I yell things like “kick” or “stretch,” to help them see what they need to do to improve. And it’s often the case that when I’ve told an athlete what they need to do, it’s usually not until they’ve gone to a training camp and heard it there from another coach that they’re able to truly see it. “The training camp told me I need to stretch more.” Right.
But you know why that is? It’s because I’m part of their normal. I’m in their inner circle and they need to hear it from an outsider to truly start disrupting norms and making change.
That’s what happens when a third party enters an arena of life. Whether it’s at the pool, within a municipality, or within your own work, a third-party is critical. Deepening information is important to do with others. Outsiders are the best at signaling opportunities you may not be able to see and they, if aligned to your learning or growth objective, will shine that light to empower and build momentum in your journey.
When I build a strategic plan, deepening information is my first priority. People hire an outsider because they want a perspective that’s fresh and new and by bringing in someone else who will bring that perspective, it simultaneously gives them permission to admit certain things out loud, whether they were hidden or not.
Sometimes we know something needs to change, we have a feeling that something is off. We’re afraid of change or resistant to finding the truth. We need to take accountability and digging in to that insight and deeper understanding of information is a key step to doing that. It helps us show vulnerability, especially as a leader. As leaders, we’re often the ones who are held most accountable, and when change is needed, the critical finger may point at you. But that’s ok, because finding a gap or shortcoming is normal and change is necessary. Sometimes our reaction to this reality is shame, because we feel we need to have all the answers when we don’t. Having a third-party to help you figure out your strategy to move forward, helps eliminate those feelings.
So the Dig in Method is meant to help you do that. It’s your third-party partner. I’m your third-party partner. I’ll help you move from information to insight to deep information to see things more clearly.
When I think of what I want women to feel when they join Dig In is that they’re diving in. Digging in and diving are parallels of the radical sentiment that we can live our lives the way we want, on our terms.
Digging in isn’t just about getting messy, it’s about overturning soil, it’s about freshening up your perspective. It’s about aerating and providing a new life, new openings for fertilizations, and ultimately, a path for new growth. And while the process can be messy and that dirt may feel uncomfortable, the signs of growth and change are worth it. We have to be ok with what we turn up and that’s what the difficult journey is. That’s why we begin with this step in Dig In because it’s the hardest part. And not everyone is ready to look, and even when they are, they’re not ready to see. We need to be eyes and ears open before we start the dig.
When you dig in with me, you’re doing more than just dusting off the surface or just sitting at the top of the waterslide, we’re moving deeper to intent. We’re sliding intentionally.
Intention is about setting the course of your heart and connecting that to your mind.
It’s knowing where to put the energy, knowing why that’s important, and knowing that it’s going to lead me to fulfillment. Screw success, find fulfillment.
Going in the Dig in Method is a lot like jumping off the dock. You’re running full speed ahead into water that might be cold, into water that’s dark and a little bit mysterious. Ultimately, after you cannonball into this river of life, I want you to be able to swim. I want you to be able to take the smooth, calculated strokes that are needed for you to cross the river, swim up current when times are tough, and float on your back and surrender to the relaxation and joy of life.
I want to help you take smooth, technical, calculated strokes but also to know what it feels like when you’re swimming in open water, free, floating, fulfilled. That’s what I’m here to do and that’s why I developed the Dig in Method.
“Technical is slow. Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast.”- My fave swim saying. We need to get technical with your strategy in order for you to smoothly and then quickly accelerate the life you want.
I want to help people cannonball in.
I want them to be ok with frigid cold water.
I want them to resurface and not just tread, but swim, float, put in effort in when the water is rough, but ultimately know that every stroke they take and every piece of effort they make is efficient, strategic, and doesn’t need to play into norms.
And the main norm we want to break is that hustle and burnout are a necessary by-product of living the life you want. Katy Leeson echoes this stating, “We NEED to stop glamorizing overwork… too many people wear their burnout as a badge of honour. And it needs to change.” No more burnout badges. No more one-size-fits all hustlers approach to success.
Busy isn’t better.
Hustle is history
Screw Success.
Find fulfillment.
Grab a shovel and dig in with me.
Chela
