Karen was facing two big decisions in her life and neither of them seemed easy to her.
Karen was a star salesperson for a big regional manufacturing company that was going though growing pains. Because of this, the commission plan where she worked changed at the beginning of the year and that meant trouble for her.
Not only was she making less money than she had before, she also had been assigned jobs she didn’t want to do that brought her no commission.
In other words, she felt royally screwed by the company where she’d worked for several years.
She felt the urge to look for another job but she’d been with this company so long that she was afraid to start over somewhere else.
Karen was angry going to work each day and brought her anger home as well.
She knew something had to change but she didn’t want to take that first step.
On top of that, her husband had started pulling away from her a few years ago and she’d chalked it up to middle age and both of them being busy at work.
When she’d ask him about it, he’d denied that he had distanced himself from their relationship and told her that everything was fine.
Well it wasn’t fine according to Karen.
She was lonely and wanted her husband back the way he’d been when they were first together.
Thoughts of leaving their marriage constantly flitted through Karen’s mind but she was at a loss of what to do next.
–>Here’s a way to get back to trusting and loving<–
She didn’t want to leave her husband but she wanted more out of their life together.
Faced with trying to decide what to do in her job and her marriage, she started wondering what her “deal breakers” were in both these situations.
Karen thought she had a clear idea of what a deal breaker was and what it wasn’t, but as she thought about her situation, she seemed to just get more and more muddled, confused and unsettled.
She wanted to be able to be more decisive about these really important parts of her life and when she realized just how stuck she was, she reached out to us for some help.
After having a couple of coaching conversations with us and taking some time to reflect on her life, she saw something new about deal breakers and how to move past her stuck places with clarity.
Here are 3 ways she used to identify the deal breakers in her life and how she got unstuck…
1. Let go of the turmoil in your mind caused by rehashing the pros and cons of the situation
At the beginning of the year, Karen had sat down with a sheet of paper and had listed pros and cons of staying in her job and leaving it.
She’d also begun to mull over pros and cons of staying in her marriage but she couldn’t come up with an answer.
She could tell that the overwhelm she felt wasn’t helping her decide!
Instead, when Karen stepped back, she saw that the turmoil that she constantly seemed to be creating was keeping her from seeing anything clearly.
She saw that her deal breakers wouldn’t be found in her “thinking,” but rather would be in the quiet that was inside her.
She decided to take a break from all that thinking and trying to figure it out and simply do something she enjoyed.
She took her camera and went into the woods she’s always loved and for an afternoon, lost herself to the joy of being in nature.
2. You’ll know deal breakers when you see and feel them–but they may not look like you think they will
One day, one of Karen’s co-workers mentioned that another company was looking for people with her skills.
At that moment, Karen had the inner knowing that she’d like to apply for that position.
She didn’t know if she’d get it or not–or if she’d even want the new job–but she felt a strong “yes” that it was right for her to apply. And she did.
It seemed effortless and the next step.
She didn’t look at it that she would be leaving her current job in disgust but rather it seemed that applying for this other job was a natural thing to do next.
As far as her marriage…
Karen didn’t feel a clear “yes” or “no” about leaving or staying in her marriage like she did with the new job.
3. Be open to seeing a new way of looking at the situation
As Karen looked with new eyes at her husband, she saw that they both had stopped being kind and considerate to one another.
They’d stopped doing the nice things like even saying, “hello” when they came home each evening.
Karen saw that at least for her, she’d allowed her anger in her job to bleed over into her relationship.
Once she saw this, she found herself being kinder to her husband and to her surprise, he was kinder toward her.
She didn’t know if they’d stay together over the long haul, but she did know that she wasn’t ready to leave until she’d made some changes and saw what happened.
If there are deal breakers that you’re struggling with in your life, especially relationship deal breakers, take a different look at these situations.
Allow yourself to see something new and different.
Allow your inner knowing to point the way.