Beyoncé Goggles: A Guide To Feeling Less "Stuck"
Have you felt “stuck” lately? I have.
Bringing new meaning to “adding insult to injury,” this summer I sprained my ACL and I was feeling stuck. Not just because I couldn’t plug my laptop charger into the wall or change my son’s diaper without first playing my own personal game of Twister down to the floor… but because I was summarily benched from the physical activities I love—and which had kept me sane during these insane times.
Streaming workout classes were my daily lifeline to The Before Times. Listening to music and audiobooks on 6:30AM walks around the neighborhood were a cherished part of my new COVID19 routine. These were small rituals that had a huge impact on each quarantined day.
Now I couldn’t walk and, without them, I honestly felt really down. Before I knew it, vicious self-talk started up like, “Randi, you’re having this kind of a reaction to wearing a brace and healing an injury? Get it together, people are dying.”
One of the hardest parts about getting “stuck” is that— like I quickly did —we often make it a double whammy. We beat ourselves up for being “stuck” in the first place: why can’t we just figure this out? Why can’t we just get over it?
If you’ve ever asked yourself these questions, you are not alone. I hear them all the time from the successful, high-performing women I work with daily: it’s so easy to be so hard on ourselves.
Here’s the problem: like a vacuum, that negative perspective of “stuck” starts sucking us deeper into its myopic worldview, when what we need most is to change our perspective.
So how do we break this vicious cycle?
I decided to try something I often do with my clients when they’re feeling “stuck” in their work lives: trying on different perspectives for size.
Think less “glass half-full” vs. “glass half-empty,” and more about channeling The Best Boss Ever to deal with a big decision at work or putting your Beyoncé goggles on (yes, I said Beyoncé!) to bounce back from something tough. In fact, Beyoncé and The Best Boss Ever are real perspectives that my real clients have used recently to get "unstuck" in real work situations. Here’s what it looked like:
The Best Boss Ever: A few months ago, “Renee” stepped into her first significant people management role. So much for any grace period, just a few days in Renee was confronted with some big decisions and was feeling “stuck” on making the right call. She wasn’t confident she had the experience or acumen to make these decisions for her team. We tried on a few perspectives and landed on “The Best Boss Ever.” A real person named Sarah, she had been Renee’s best boss ever and was somebody Renee looked up to immensely. As we tried on this perspective for size we asked questions like: what might Sarah do next? What are some of the questions she would ask? How might Sarah see the situation? From there, we devised a strategy on next steps. This wasn’t an attempt at blindly parroting Sarah’s leadership style. Quite the opposite in fact: looking at the situation through the lens of “The Boss Boss Ever” reminded Renee how much she already knew about great leadership and people management, giving her the confidence boost she needed to take decisive action in a thoughtful way.
Beyoncé: After being let go from her self-described “dream job” due to COVID19 budget cuts, my client “Eve” was feeling like “a complete failure who'll never get hired again.” When we had gotten on the phone that morning she was sobbing, “Randi, I'm in a state of raw emotion.” Eve wasn’t just stuck, she was hurting. After spending some time processing the pain of “stuck,” we started trying on different perspectives for size. I warned Eve the next one I was going to ask her about might sound wacky: was she game? “Sure,” she said, with the first laugh I’d heard from her all morning, “What do I have to lose?” So I asked Eve how one of her idols, Beyoncé, would handle the situation: if we could put on our Beyoncé goggles, how would she see the situation? What might Beyoncé do next? "Listen,” Eve said after a long and contemplative silence, “if Beyoncé can come back with her most epic album of all time, Lemonade, after what Jay-Z put her through [with his infidelity], I have to believe I'll land on my feet. Maybe I’ll land somewhere even better." After another long and contemplative silence, Eve let out a huge exhale and began laughing again, “Okay, Randi, let’s make my version of Lemonade!”
Let’s be clear about something: trying on different perspectives isn’t a silver bullet for solving all of life’s problems instantaneously. Like Eve’s declaration on making Lemonade demonstrated, it can however, be pretty effective at getting us “unstuck” enough to make our next move.
Want to grab your own pair of Beyoncé goggles? Here are five tips you can use to try on your own perspectives the next time you’re “stuck.”
Take time to explore “stuck.” As author of the must-read-book for women, Playing Big, Tara Mohr writes about, we can never fully eliminate negative thoughts or feelings, “The practice is in quieting that voice, not banishing it.” That’s why, though it may sound counterintuitive, to start moving beyond “stuck” we first have to give ourselves permission to explore what “stuck” means in our current situation. This doesn’t mean letting ourselves get sucked into its myopic worldview. It means getting curious about what exactly we’re stuck on. For example, in Renee’s case we explored questions like: what was she actually afraid of and which parts did she worry she’d “fail” at? In Eve’s case, she was hurting. We could have never put on our Beyoncé goggles without acknowledging that real sadness first.
Ask curious questions. With each perspective you try on, ask open-ended, curious questions about what it’s like to “be” in each perspective and what you might “do” from each point for view. Avoid yes/no questions or questions that have a right/wrong answer. For example, what did Eve see through her Beyoncé goggles? And what might The Best Boss Ever do if she were in Renee’s situation?
Try on at least three or four perspectives for size. Two options are an ultimatum, three options or more are a choice. Not every perspective will resonate and that’s totally fine, which is why we always want a few good options.
There are no “right” or “wrong” perspectives to try on, so get creative. What happens if you’re “stuck” on what perspectives you should try on to get “unstuck”? Here are a few categories you can use to brainstorm your own perspectives.
People in your life who you love or admire: this is where The Best Boss Ever fit in for Renee.... think of a friend, partner, or mentor: what would this situation look like from their point of view?
A real-life hero: this is where Beyoncé fit in for Eve… think of somebody you look up to, who you don’t know personally. Earlier this year I was coaching a woman who was frequently “stuck,” always putting other people’s needs before her own. She also idolized Oprah, the Queen of self-empowerment. So we started asking: WWOD, what would Oprah do? While the WWOD question elicited a giggle every time, it proved to be an effective check against the bad habits that were getting her “stuck” in the first place.
Characters in your favorite story: I asked you to get creative, right? One client who is a Harry Potter superfan tried on the perspective of Dumbledore to brainstorm what she could do if she could “magically” change a particular work situation. Others have channeled their favorite Power Ranger or a vintage cartoon character from the 70s.
Retreat to simplicity: Power Rangers a bridge too far? You can always retreat to simple perspectives like Appreciation by asking questions like: this is really hard, but what can I appreciate about this situation right now? Or Observation: if I was an anthropologist, looking in and simply collecting data points, what would I see? This one in particular had been a game-changer for me when I was feeling “stuck” with my ACL injury: helping me get to the root of why I was feeling stuck in the first place.
Take one small step forward. Once you’ve settled on a perspective that’s resonating in this moment with this situation, your action plan should be one small and achievable step forward from that new point of view. For example, once Renee settled on The Best Boss Ever, her small step forward was simply making a list of the information she needed to gather before making any decisions. For Eve, the action with her Beyoncé goggles on was updating her resume.
Is experimenting with different perspectives a little out of the box? Absolutely—and that’s exactly the point. So don’t get stuck on being “stuck” and report back to me: while Beyoncé goggles can work well, I love hearing about new perspectives. So keep in touch about which out-of-the-box point of view got you exactly where you needed to be.
Randi Braun is a coach, consultant, speaker, and the Founder of Something Major. Get in touch with Randi via email or social (below). Copyright 2020. All rights reserved.