August 16, 2022

Pre-empting - An emerging protective behaviour you need to watch out for

14 minutes

Welcome to the SELF.STYLED.LIFE Podcast with Janelle Wehsack

In today’s episode we talk about pre-empting - An emerging protective behaviour you need to be aware of and why it's so important.

My favourite personal example of pre-empting occurred last year, in 2021. I knew I wanted to spend more time in my coaching practice. But I also wanted to keep working in my transformation role for a large Australian Bank. I really, really wanted the best of both coaching and corporate, which for me looks like working 4 days per week in corporate and 1 day a week coaching, at least for right now.

But I pre-decided that outcome couldn’t be a thing. I came to that conclusion on my own, without any input from my boss. You see, I just knew he’d say no. In fact, I was completely certain. I’d informed my husband, my best friend and my coach of the outcome. Truth be told, I probably even told the cat that my role is a big one, and that no one in their right mind would say yes to a program director showing up 4 days a week. I was adamant about it.

Thank goodness it eventually occurred to me that I’d made the decision without actually asking my boss for his thoughts on the topic. When I finally thought to have a conversation about what I wanted, I was surprised to learn that my boss not only thought I could fulfil my role working 4 days a week, but offered to find me a mentor to help me navigate my big job on a reduced working week. The answer I thought he would share was so different the actual answer - I seriously could not have been more wrong. He didn’t even need time to think about it…he agreed to my request on the spot.

So in today's episode, we'll be chatting about