16: Trusting Yourself at Work as a Sensitive Striver
With Melody Wilding, LMSW
Do you feel overwhelmed and underappreciated at work? In this episode, I talk with Melody Wilding, LMSW about trusting yourself at work and:
• Balancing the strengths and liabilities of being what Melody calls a “Sensitive Striver”
• Trusting your intuition as a valuable source of information
• The key to speaking up in meetings starts by building relationships and taking care of your nervous system before the meeting
• Living with an honor roll hangover from your school days and how that could be contributing to burnout as an adult in the workplace
• Why overperforming and perfectionism often harm your chances of advancement at work
• Strategies for setting boundaries at work and what to say when you’ve overcommitted
• Creating a “me manual” to help you communicate how you work best while establishing reciprocal relationships with your supervisors
Melody is the best-selling author of Trust Yourself: Stop Overthinking and Channel Your Emotions for Success at Work. Named one of Business Insider’s Most Innovative Coaches for her groundbreaking work on “Sensitive Strivers,” her clients include CEOs, C-level executives, and managers at top Fortune 500 companies such as Google, Amazon, and JP Morgan, among others. Melody has been featured in The New York Times and Wall Street Journal and is a contributor to Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, Psychology Today, and Forbes. Melody is a licensed social worker with a masters from Columbia University and a professor of Human Behavior at Hunter College.
Keep in touch with Melody:
• Website: https://melodywilding.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melodywilding/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melodywilding/
• Facebook Community: https://melodywilding.com/community
Resources Mentioned:
• Get a free chapter from Melody's book, Trust Yourself: Stop Overthinking and Channel Your Emotions for Success at Work, here: https://melodywilding.com/chapter
• Trust Yourself Book by Melody Wilding: https://bookshop.org/a/63892/9781797201962
Thanks for listening!
You can also follow "SensitiveStrengths" for behind-the-scenes content plus more educational and inspirational HSP resources:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sensitivestrengths
If you have a moment, please rate and review the podcast, it helps Sensitive Stories reach more HSPs!
This episode is for educational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for treatment with a mental health or medical professional. Some links are affiliate links. You are under no obligation to purchase any book, product or service. I am not responsible for the quality or satisfaction of any purchase.
Episode Transcript
Melody Wilding: 0:00
you have more control than you think to shape what's happening around you and I think that's important for HSPs and sensitive strivers to hear, because we often feel at the whim of everything that's happening around us. We often feel, because we're more sensitive, that we can't handle these situations. We can't handle the stress, we can't handle the demands. But you can if you are taking care of yourself and treating yourself in the right way.
April Snow: 0:37
Welcome to Sensitive Stories, the podcast for the people who live with hearts and eyes wide open. For the people who live with hearts and eyes wide open, I'm your host, psychotherapist and author, april Snow. I invite you to join me as I deep dive into rich conversations with fellow highly sensitive people that will inspire you to live a more fulfilling life as an HSP without all the overwhelm. In this episode, I talk with Melody Walleting about how perfectionism contributes to burnout at work, how setting boundaries and honoring your sensitive needs actually benefits everyone, and learning to trust yourself and speak up at work when you're a few steps ahead. Melody is the best-selling author of Trust Yourself, stop Overthinking and Channel your Emotions for Success at Work, named one of Business Insider's most innovative coaches for her groundbreaking work on sensitive strivers. Her clients include CEOs, c-level executives and managers at top Fortune 500 companies such as Google, amazon and JP Morgan. Melody has been featured in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and is a contributor to the Harvard Business Review, fast Company, psychology Today and Forbes. Melody is a licensed social worker with a master's from Columbia University and a professor of human behavior at Hunter College.
April Snow: 1:58
For more HSP resources and to see behind the scenes video from the podcast. Join me on Instagram, tiktok or YouTube at Sensitive Strengths or sign up for my email list. Links are in the show notes and at sensitivestoriescom. And just a reminder that this episode is for educational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for treatment with a mental health or medical professional. Let's dive in. So, melody, how has your relationship to your sensitivity changed since you've discovered?
Melody Wilding: 2:50
that you're highly sensitive. I feel like discovering I was highly sensitive was like pieces of a puzzle coming together, and, most of all, it was very reassuring and it was very relieving to know that nothing was wrong with me, I wasn't broken or somehow defective, and also that I wasn't alone, because I think I felt like I was the only person who struggled with some of the things I struggled with, and so it was really nice to know that I was not alone, and I think the overall feeling was it actually allowed me to be much more objective about challenges I faced, even strengths that I had, because I realized this is part of my biology, it's part of how I'm wired, it just is, it is just a fact that is neutral, and having that self-knowledge just changed so much about how I could manage myself my day, the types of environments I put myself in. Yeah, I think it also led to a level of acceptance too, again that I didn't have this level of shame over everything.
April Snow: 4:05
It is neutral, isn't it? It is a fact that we have this traits and it comes with certain qualities and gifts and things to offer. I'm wondering would you mind sharing one of those gifts that you've noticed over the years that you bring to the table?
Melody Wilding: 4:28
you've noticed over the years that you bring to the table. Yeah, I am very intuitive, so I think the idea of being very aware of the environment, changes in people's body language or different dynamics. I'm the person where we could go out to dinner with a bunch of people and I could say something was off and my husband will say I have no idea what you're talking about. And then a few weeks or months later, oh, that person is leaving their job or what have you? Something comes up where it's like see, I knew something was off there. So just being able to sense those shifts in the environment has been incredibly helpful and again, something that I thought everyone can do this. But what I've learned over time is often the things that come easy to us. Those are our strengths, those are our gifts, yet they're the very thing we discount as unimportant, exactly.
April Snow: 5:21
It's true. I hear this from so many clients that I work with. I've had this experience myself where we assume our experience is the universal experience which makes sense. It's the only experience that we know. But if we look closer, especially for sensitive, we all have different gifts and strengths, but for sensitive people, we bring a certain qualities to the table, and intuition is a big one. Right, being able to sense something in a room and not knowing, maybe, why. You know it, but you know it, it's true. And it can be difficult to trust that, to believe it, when, like you said, when others around you, like your husband, are not picking up on it. So how do you lean in and say I know this is truth for me, I know I can trust my intuition. How do you lean in and say I know this is truth for me, I know I can trust my intuition? Yeah, how have you been able to do that?
Melody Wilding: 6:10
Yeah, it's such a great question because it's very ethereal, right? Intuition is not and especially when you hear the word intuition it's been used often very mystical context, but in psychological terms, intuition is really just the collection of all of your experiences and the data you've taken in, and, as more sensitive people, we're not only scanning the environment and taking in more bits of information. We're also processing that more deeply and so thinking about it that way that this is not some magical quality I have, but it's really a strength of being able to tap into, synthesize, make connections and conclusions out of my past experiences. That has made it so much more concrete for me and a strength where now I can lean into it and know, based on my experience there's been a pattern here in the past. Does that mean every situation is going to be like that? No, but it helps me predict and also, especially as a coach in this line of work work being able to sense what's going on.
Melody Wilding: 7:28
For people to read between the lines or notice someone's tone of voice shifts when they start talking about a subject, being able to sense like there's something going on here and actually speak to that and say, hey, I noticed when you talked about this aspect of your job. Your voice got really flat. What's going on with that? And that could unlock a huge aha for someone to say, oh, I never realized that before, and so just having the enough courage to do that over time and have it go well again gives me confidence in that. You know what, if I try it and I put something like that out there, what is the worst that could happen? The person says, no, actually your perception is not right, but nine times out of 10, it just adds so much to my relationships, my work, whether it's personal or it's professional relationships, my work, whether it's personal or it's professional, absolutely.
April Snow: 8:30
There's two opportunities there. One is to help the person deepen their own insights about themselves, being a mirror for them. Or two, it allows you to understand them more and let them explain, process their own experience, inform you of that experience. So for me it's open. Either way, whether you get it right or wrong, there's still a deepening and a knowing. I love that and I appreciate that. You said intuition is also often objective, based on data, not always, but when it's true and we can lean into that, and recognizing when that intuition is correct and recognizing how often we get it right and not dismissing that so good.
Melody Wilding: 9:08
Yeah, and when I talk about this with my clients, we also. We often talk about it as the skill of discernment, and discernment is making sense of a situation and, most of the time, figuring out what's truth here or what's right for me in this situation, and there's a reason my book is called trust yourself.
Melody Wilding: 9:31
Yeah, and it's because many times with sensitive people, we've had our experiences invalidated our entire lives. Stop being so sensitive. You're taking things too personally, aka your perception of the world is not right. Look at it a different way. That it really is a muscle to discern what do I want in this situation? What am I feeling? What do I think is right here? Is is really a muscle you need to rebuild and practice. Yes, exactly.
April Snow: 10:04
It is all about learning to trust yourself and it does take practice. It takes time to unravel those messages. You're too sensitive, you're not enough of this or that. Yeah, and it's possible to do that. Yeah, so I know another label or another way you identify as a sensitive striver, which I love. This term, it's one I identify with myself. It's one you've coined during your work with your coaching. Can you describe what that means for folks who aren't familiar?
Melody Wilding: 10:31
Yes, the simplest way to describe it is a sensitive striver is someone who is highly sensitive. And add on the high achieving piece. High achieving doesn't necessarily mean you're in the C-suite, you're gunning to climb the corporate ladder. High achieving means you are very driven, you set a lot of goals for yourself, you may have big goals and ambitions for your career, but it's really what I have found is many highly sensitive people are also very gifted, right, very highly intelligent. And that drive, that level of inner drive, can come with tremendous strengths.
Melody Wilding: 11:14
But again, much like all of our traits, there's a flip side to it if we are not able to recognize it, or we don't have the tools or we're not able to manage it correctly. So sensitive strivers tend to. Again, they have the high sensitivity aspect where they feel and think things deeply. But they may also struggle with what I call the honor roll hangover, which is the A plus gold star student mentality of I have to get all the A pluses, I have to be the rule follower, the good boy or girl, and so there's a mix of people pleasing in there as well. Perfectionism also tends to come into play a lot Over-functioning, where you are taking on more responsibility than is yours. So again, it's the plus sides and downsides.
April Snow: 12:03
I know a lot of HSPs do overperform, overfunction, whether it's at work or in their family life, and their relationships and every aspect of their life Wanting to, I think, buffer against a lot of that criticism we've faced throughout our lives in different ways and you talked about there's a lot of gifts to being a sensitive striver. I'm wondering if you could speak to for those HSPs who think and feel so deeply and often forget that value that they bring at work. Could you speak to what some of those gifts are?
Melody Wilding: 12:36
Yeah, and I'm sure you've come across this stat, which is that managers tend to rate people who are more sensitive as their top performers, and it's precisely for a lot of the reasons we're talking about. Sensitive people tend to, ironically, be great at things like sales and marketing because they understand other people's needs, they're very highly empathetic and they can connect with other people. We tend to be conscientious and thoughtful. I think a lot of sensitive people would label themselves as risk averse, when in fact, we tend to be strategic risk takers.
Melody Wilding: 13:16
We tend to be thoughtful and considerate about what are the upsides, what are the downsides? Here, let's make the best choice possible. We also tend to be very diplomatic communicators because we're considering what's the impact of our statements before we say them, and we're often not the people in the workplace who are speaking just to be heard. We are speaking to add value and to add nuance to a conversation. I think one thing I've also seen, too is that sensitive strivers tend to be the people that see problems or see opportunities a bit earlier than others, which sometimes they may second guess themselves because they'll say I see this, but no one else does. Why isn't anybody else saying something? And it's often because you're one or two steps ahead, and so when people tell me that, again, that's another aspect to lean into that you have that unique perspective to speak up about. So don't always second guess yourself on those things.
April Snow: 14:21
It goes back to trusting your intuition, remembering all the times where you did see something, one or two steps ahead, to help you maybe gather the strength or the bravery to speak up. Because I know I get asked this question a lot is how can I speak up more in meetings? How can I allow my voice to take up space at work when others aren't seeing things the way that I see them? I wonder if you have any thoughts on that. I'm sure that's something you've dealt with in your coaching.
Melody Wilding: 14:49
All the time, yes, all the time. A couple of things. I think speaking up in meetings actually happens way before you even get into the conference room or join the Zoom call. Okay, you even get into the conference room or join the Zoom call. And for us, as sensitive people, on April you can tell me if this has been your experience too. But I find we need to feel a level of comfort and safety with the people around us, definitely, and yeah, and if we don't feel that, or even if we don't feel we have enough context on the people in the room, the situation, we're more hesitant to speak up.
Melody Wilding: 15:25
Yes, and so getting to know the people in the room, whether many times, a lot of folks that I work with probably you work with work in very matrixed, cross-functional environments. They may be in rooms with people that are in levels of positional power above them, or that they've only met on Zoom a few times. Let's say, bring a decision, or you need to present something to people in the room having the meeting, before the meeting, to debrief them on hey, here's how I'm planning to present this. How does this land with you? What questions do you have? So I can make sure I address them, so you feel more confident going into that and your mind doesn't spiral and fill in the gaps with all negative perceptions of what could happen. So, getting comfortable beforehand, so you feel more comfortable speaking up in the moment and, as uncomfortable as it can be, challenging yourself to speak up early on. So being one of the first, I would say first three, three to five people to speak in the meeting.
Melody Wilding: 16:45
And again, this isn't about just talking for talking sake, but it's about overcoming your own fear, because the longer the meeting goes on, the more likely that it is all the good ideas will be out on the table. You'll feel, you'll convince yourself people have checked out I shouldn't say anything now and the more your resistance will build. And so if you speak up early on, it builds your confidence with saying something early and you don't have to say something groundbreaking. You can ask a thoughtful question, you can build on what somebody else has said. John, that was a great idea. Something else I considered is XYZ. So there's something here around letting go of the perfectionistic idea that it has to be this breakthrough share that nobody else has ever considered or thought of. Take that off, but you get used to using your voice and get other people used to hearing your voice as well.
April Snow: 17:47
Exactly, you can be the connector, at times, the mirror at times. Just to help bolster this conversation, I appreciate that permission to allow it to be imperfect and also to support your sensitivity. We're great at building relationships as HSPs and that's something we can do one-to-one in shorter bursts, if you said those 20 to 30 minute coffee breaks or chats, and then preparing ahead of time is so crucial. So your nervous system is familiar with what might happen. I know Dr Aaron talks about this a lot. Get in the room, if you can, before you have a presentation. Familiarize yourself with the person that you're going to be talking with. Go to the restaurant ahead of time. If you have an important dinner, how can you take away as many unknowns as possible? So important and you can do this all in the workplace.
Melody Wilding: 18:39
Yeah, and if I could add to that Please.
Melody Wilding: 18:41
Yeah, this is exciting the workplace, yeah, and if I could add to that. So, yeah, I love the point about try to make it as real as possible. That's something. So I do a lot of speaking and something I've started requiring when I speak in person is that I have the ability to get in the room at least two hours, if not the day before the event, because I've had too many situations where my first time seeing the stage, seeing how big it is, where the screen is 15 minutes before I have to give my talk, and that just that sends to your point that the unpredictability just sends my level of stimulation through the roof and then I can't show up in the best way. So that's a great example of understanding your wiring, being able to ask for what you need, which is a perfectly reasonable request. And one other thing I'll add to the suggestion of try to settle into the room, lowering your level of stimulation before you get into these types of situations.
Melody Wilding: 19:41
So everyone is very busy, we're all stressed out HSPs and sensitive strivers more, and if you go into a meeting and your level of stimulation is already at an eight or a nine out of 10, any little situation is going to send you into that really debilitating fight or flight state, and so if it's five deep belly breaths, I have some clients who create a pre-meeting protocol where, okay, I have my notes, I have my water, I've checked, I have the right Zoom link, I've had a bio break, and that's their warmup ritual that calms them down, gets them in the zone.
Melody Wilding: 20:24
And then one other very practical thing is try not to have back to back to back to back to back meetings. I know that is easier said than done, but if you have the ability to even take one hour meetings, make those 50 minutes or 55 minutes. 30 minute meetings, make them 20 or 25 minutes. So you have just that little bit of buffer where you can catch up on emails, you can take a breath, and you and I know from being therapists for so long that there's a reason our sessions are 50 minutes or 45 minutes Exactly.
Melody Wilding: 20:59
So we have a little space in between and I've just found that has made that just small little shift has made such a huge difference for so many people I work with.
April Snow: 21:09
It's true. If you said work with your wiring, know your nervous system, it's going to be more impacted by stipuline input and I think this is the thing that people don't realize that my clients are always really astounded by. It just takes a little right, that differential susceptibility where we are more impacted by the positives. Five, 10 minutes makes a big difference. It doesn't sound like a lot but it can be groundbreaking when you have that throughout your day. Just take a moment to decompress, to check in, so you're not worrying about what emails have come in during that last meeting or the you know the three back-to-back meetings. Yeah, what little tweaks can you make so important? I love that.
Melody Wilding: 21:53
Can I add one thing to?
April Snow: 21:53
that Please do.
Melody Wilding: 21:54
Yeah, please do. Which is yeah, yes. Literally physiologically, it makes a huge difference. Literally, physiologically, it makes a huge difference and I think also psychologically and emotionally, it's a very strong signal to yourself that you matter right. I respect myself enough to do these things and I always like to tell my clients that self-trust is built by the promises you keep to yourself Because, again, all of us are many sensitive strivers or HSPs. We will put everyone else's needs ahead of our own, which sends the signal to yourself that I'm not important. Everybody else is more important than me. And it's not necessarily. I like to say you don't need to. You don't need to prioritize your needs over others, but you don't need to necessarily put yourself first. You need to make yourself equal to other people. At least give yourself that your needs are just as important as other people's, and you need to send your that signal to yourself as well.
April Snow: 22:59
We often do put ourselves at the bottom of the list, and then the perfectionism, the guilt takes control, and then we're constantly feeling overstimulated, even burnt out, which has very significant impact on the way we're able to work. So, yeah, how can we signal to ourselves it's okay to put yourself on an equal plane? And I think that's the worry is, we often think, oh, I'm putting myself ahead and that makes us uncomfortable a lot of times as HSPs, but we're just putting ourselves at the same level. That's it.
Melody Wilding: 23:31
That's exactly. Yes, exactly. It's not about superiority, that's right.
April Snow: 23:36
It's just about getting our needs met. So how do we do this? So when you said, you said a lot of supervisors, managers, will rate their HSP employees the highest, which makes sense. We're bringing a lot to the table. How do we communicate our needs and these gifts to the people that manage us if we're in that?
Melody Wilding: 23:56
role. Yeah, I am a huge advocate of having what I call the styles conversation, which is, with your manager, the other key people you work with, having a conversation about how you work, you and them, so you have the opportunity to share. These are some of the preferences I have. I know for sure I'm speaking me personally as Melody that I am the type of person if April, before we met today, you sent me the questions Thank you, that is the most I can ask. I like to show up prepared, I like to know what I'm walking into, and so, if someone is able to communicate with their boss, wherever possible, I like to be able to show up and make sure I'm making my best contribution and to help with that. Having the agenda or having questions I can prepare or even just thought starters, is really helpful for me, all the way to things like when, in terms of feedback, if you ever have to give me feedback, it helps me If you could start by telling me what's going right before we get into what could be better. Or I have some people that will say I don't mind if you grab me at the end of a meeting and give me some feedback then, whereas other people would say I would actually prefer to meet once a month and talk about those things. This is where it's on us as HSPs to figure out what actually is going to allow us to do our best work, whether that's how we want other people to communicate with us, give us feedback, what are our boundaries around our work hours, what type of work we really enjoy doing don't enjoy doing. How do we learn best? What does it look like when we are at our best versus not at our best? All of those sorts of things it can be really helpful to think about.
Melody Wilding: 25:50
And I call this putting together a me manual, so basically a manual of me.
Melody Wilding: 25:55
You don't necessarily have to share that and say to your boss here's exactly all of my demands and everything I want, but think of it as a conversation starter for that. And it can be really helpful to then ask your manager if I have a question I need to ask of you. What's the best way to do that? Do you prefer email? Do you want me to pick up the phone? Should I text you? Those little things can go so far to number one teaching people how to treat you, because we do that through our behavior, but also taking away so much second guessing from I don't understand why this person is being so short with me, why every time I email them they only send me back one second. They don't even say hi, how are you? And understanding that may just be somebody else's style, whereas you, as an HSP, may have a higher preference and drive for context and connecting with someone before you get into the business of things, and so it can just take away so much of the taking things personally or reading into situations.
April Snow: 27:09
You're highlighting again that there's an equalness here or quality here. It's a reciprocity. It's not me coming in with my demands. This is what I need to work, which is you also want to bring some of that, but also asking how do you work best? How can we collaborate here? How can we support each other? What do you do when someone is short on an email and you like context and there's maybe a different style? Can we navigate that? Is that workable?
Melody Wilding: 27:39
Absolutely. Yeah, depends on the situation, of course, always, but absolutely. And I should also add to that that, as sensitive people, we may have to flex our style here and there to get people to hear us more, more concise. Maybe, dominant communicator, you, as an HSP, may need to adjust a little bit to lead with your bottom line, instead of saying here's how we got to this decision, here's the people I consulted, here's the history of this you lead with. This is my request for you. Are you able to do this? And then from there, you could say what other information do you need? And then you can get into all of the particulars. And so I think it's just. It's about knowing who you're dealing with and how to speak with them, so that you get what you need out of the exchange.
April Snow: 28:41
That you're stacking the requests slowly and introducing new levels. This is the first step. Here's what I need, and then what do you need? And then we're building from there slowly, letting more of that me manual content out onto the page. Yeah, it's amazing, exactly.
April Snow: 28:58
And that's how all relationships are. The best relationships are the they're reciprocal. There's compromise, we're working collaboratively together. It's not one-sided. So we're bringing that same concept to work. That empathy, that guilt, that perfectionism, the tendency to overperform drive you. How can you manage that and not slip into burnout? How can we allow more of our needs to show up and less of the guilt driving the show? How do we do that?
Melody Wilding: 29:38
Yeah, there's a chapter in the book where I talk about setting boundaries, and one of the tools for that is what I call the four feelings test, using our emotions as data, and I'll just focus in on one of the four feelings that's most important, which is resentment. Resentment is a very strong emotional signal that you have let a situation go on for too long or you feel undervalued or overlooked, and that is a very sure sign that you need to start setting some limits. Have a hard conversation, start saying no and I say that because many times I work with so many people that don't even know where to start. They feel so overwhelmed and burned out that they can't even prioritize what needs to come off their plate or what needs to change. And so use your emotions as a signal to help you prioritize what needs my attention the most. So you may feel resentful. I see this all the time where people will have said to a colleague sure, I can help you with that, yep, I can sit in on that committee. Or yep, I can pitch in with that project. And it's now six months, a year later, and every time you see an email come in for that, your blood just boils. That is a very good time sign, rather, that it's time to reset the dynamics. To say, when I initially agreed to this, I had the bandwidth. The situation has changed, so I'd love to work with you to create a plan so I can transition off of this within the next four weeks, because these other projects need my attention. So really starting with that, I think, is a great place, and just building on that.
Melody Wilding: 31:27
There's one technique I love we use this all the time in my coaching programs which is the positive no, which is a nice person's way of saying no. Basically, I can't do X, but I can do Y, so it's offering a reasonable alternative. So at work, that may be, I can't get everything to you by the 15th, but I could buy the 30th. How does that sound? It could be negotiating the timeline, the scope. It could be offering to help in some smaller capacity, but it's looking for a workable compromise, because in the workplace you have to be a team player, right, but there's a line there you don't want to be a team player to the point that you hurt yourself. So the positive no straddles that line of I want to pitch in and help out, but I want to set some limits about around how that's done.
April Snow: 32:30
Right, I love that. Yeah, there's. It's not black and white. There's room in the middle, there's some gray. If you do find yourself in a place of I've taken on too much, I've over committed, there's a way to back out graciously. I'm just saying things have changed. I love that permission. You don't have to keep pushing through and maybe risk burning yourself out or feeling sick or resentful and dreading. Every time you have to go to work or address a certain project or team member, you can say you know what, something's changed and I think it's beneficial to both parties to be honest about that. You're not going to do your best work, you may harm the relationship in the long run and that there's other ways to say yes, the positive, no compromise, I can't do this, but I can do this instead. I think that makes it a lot easier and we don't have to fully commit. Maybe we partially commit and sometimes we may just need to say no, that's right.
Melody Wilding: 33:30
That's right and, like you, said how can you say no in a way that's in integrity, where people respond to how we show up. And so if you show up very apologetically and say, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, and the other person responds to that, but if you show up with strength and say thank you so much for thinking of me, unfortunately this isn't something I can fit in. Can I refer you to a colleague or can we look at another way I may be able to support on this? This isn't something I can fit in. I have project A on my plate. I hear that project B is important. What would you like me to deprioritize? That's such a more grounded, coming from a position of strength that people respect and you will, most importantly, that you'll feel better about people respect and you will, most importantly, that you'll feel better about Exactly.
April Snow: 34:30
It is a position of strength to be honest about what capacity you have and what you can successfully complete. I think everyone will respect that information.
Melody Wilding: 34:35
I have worked with so many sensitive strivers over the years that come to me after receiving performance review feedback or after not getting a promotion or a big project, precisely because they are told we don't think you know how to prioritize or we see you taking on so much, we're not sure if you can handle more, and so I just I offer that for anyone out there who feels like I'm trying to do all the things. I raise my hand for everything and again, we're taught on a roll hangover. We're taught work really hard and you'll get noticed and rewarded.
Melody Wilding: 35:15
But, ironically, the higher you rise, the more you go in your career. Being able to say no again, strategically and selectively, actually shows your leadership qualities more than just indiscriminately saying yes.
April Snow: 35:31
It's true, discernment is the true strength, yeah, yeah, and it's about quality of work, not quantity of work. That's going to drive the needle forward. I think there is that misconception that we need to do everything, we need to show up everywhere, and that really dilutes what we have to offer. So if there's one message you could leave listeners with who are highly sensitive, potentially sensitive strivers, who may be struggling with work and wanting to implement some of these ideas, what message would you leave them with?
Melody Wilding: 36:00
I'll go back to that phrase. You teach people how to treat you. Yes, because it's so central and if you think about it, we're all teaching people how to treat us every day. If we are constantly responding to messages at all hours of the day, you teach people that you're always available right. Or if you're always volunteering or changing your schedule to accommodate other people, you teach people that you are willing to do that and that your time may not be that important. So think about that. Of course, relationships are always two-way streets, but you have more control than you think to shape what's happening around you, and I think that's important for HSPs and sensitive strivers to hear, because we often feel at the whim of everything that's happening around us. We often feel, because we're more sensitive, that we can't handle these situations. We can't handle the stress, we can't handle the demands situations. We can't handle the stress, we can't handle the demands. But you can, again, if you are taking care of yourself and treating yourself in the right way.
April Snow: 37:09
I love that takeaway you have more control than you think. Coming back again to that trusting yourself, trusting what you have to offer and being discerning about what you commit to and just checking out making sure you're finding some balance there. So, mellie, I want to thank you so much for this conversation, so many amazing takeaways and so much more to dive into. I know that you offer a free chapter of your book Trust Yourself. That I will include in the show notes for folks, along with your website and social media. Could you tell folks just a few? We mentioned it a bit, but could you tell folks a little bit more about the?
Melody Wilding: 37:44
book, yeah, and thank you so much for having me. This has been a lot of fun, it's been great. Yeah. Trust Yourself is really the culmination of my over a decade of coaching. I really wanted to give sensitive strivers a roadmap to being able to turn their sensitivity from something that feels like a liability in their careers specifically to something that feels like an asset, and that is an asset. So it is very practical, it's very tactical. There's lots of exercises and scripts and worksheets inside of the book. So if you are someone that relates to that intersection of high sensitivity and achievement, then it really is a roadmap for overcoming, overthinking not people pleasing getting out of perfectionism so much more.
April Snow: 38:35
It truly is a roadmap. I agree, it's just. For me it was groundbreaking because there's no other book like it and one that was really needed for the HSP community, so definitely recommend. Thank you for that, melody.
Melody Wilding: 38:47
That means the world coming from you. So thank you, thank you.
April Snow: 38:58
Thanks so much for joining me and Melody for today's conversation. What I hope you're taking away is that honoring your needs at work is more possible than you think and that your instincts are valuable and need to be heard. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to the Sensitive Stories podcast so you don't miss our upcoming conversations. Reviews and ratings are also helpful and appreciated For behind-the-scenes content and more HSP resources. You can sign up for my email list or follow Sensitive Strengths on Instagram, tiktok and YouTube. Check out the show notes or sensitivestoriescom for all the resources from today's episode. Thanks for listening.
