Happy weekend, friends! Vulnerability time (meep) bringing you a recap of some things that happened this week and my honest tl;dr reflections on them:
2 snow days that led to canceled plans, a canceled workout class, & canceled jury duty. A forced opportunity to not leave the couch? I fully embraced it and channeled my inner hibernating bear saying no worries see y’all in the spring!! Only half kidding.
A very off day arguing with my husband. That tough combination when you’re in a bad mood and so is your partner (oof) not feeling aligned which then snowballs into a bigger disagreement. We argue in such a healthy way, calmly putting it all out there, taking turns, and once we’re through it we feel relieved and closer. Fights with past partners were unhealthy, so the stark contrast makes me acutely aware of how arguing should feel. Might have to write more about that one day.
A mid-week mental breakdown. We just had such a great long weekend visit with my parents and I felt sad when they left, so I think this was part of it among several other things piling up. I had one of those good ugly cries after trying to push feelings down all day and eventually got so overwhelmed I just snapped, there was no other way out than exploding. I carried my sobbing with me into the shower, then used my towel warmer (thank you Stef for this gift that keeps giving, it helped), had a little CBD, then went to bed. It was cathartic and I woke up feeling like I was a new person.
Prepped our finances and initial steps to buy a house. Twitching with a little deja vu from 2022 when we first tried this and then said nah nvm, this market is insane let’s just rent in a dream neighborhood instead (btw, best decision ever for us that year going to 8 friends’ weddings and planning our own). Maybe you’ll come along this house hunting journey in a future post since I’ve started jotting down our early steps of deciphering the foreign language that is homeownership. And maybe I’ll send out a round up of what we’ll learn from fam along the way in this process (shout out Jimbo the best financial advisor, Lor knowledge & design queen, Marge and Annaugh our experts in this wild space).
Binged that Netflix twin study “You Are What You Eat” & researched plant based meal ideas. Our sweet friends Hil and Matt recommended watching, and afterwards it kept me up late with my head spinning on how much we didn’t know about the meat industry. I mean, I knew enough to be scared to watch it (problematic in it of itself I know), and I’m glad I did anyway. The doc is really well done with lovable real life stories and brings in lots of different angles to make it more informative and enlightening vs. all doom & gloom. Curious to see how alternating some of our meal staples will go.. I don’t think we can flip the switch fully but we’ll slowly introduce and see.
Continued to adore dry January. Trying this for the first time and alongside my sister in law for accountability. We’re both finding ourselves really proud of our restraint. It’s been interesting to notice how often I typically default to drinking no matter what the circumstance, and it’s felt great opting for other drinks and other ways to spend time with people. Shout out to Amanda for introducing me to the best mocktail: tart cherry juice with cherry vanilla olipop and some lime. Trust us, it is so good.
A work snafu on the front end, a work victory on the latter end. Won’t get into details but let’s just call it a classic miscommunication that had me feeling like shit at first, and evolved into a major lesson in damage control when it happens: don’t get hung up on who might be to blame, apologize directly, discuss it face to face (even virtually), come up with solutions, take it as a forcing mechanism to stay aligned proactively. The end of week victory on the other hand was a long time coming and I’m so moved by my incredible powerhouse leaders that lift me up. A little more on that below :)
SO…
Following a luxuriously long lazy lounge in bed this morning, I was so excited when I got up and felt motivated to put pen to paper for the first time all week. I felt pulled to write about the real deal of what went on and about a topic that really struck me: common attributes of strong advocates at work.
Rewinding to 2021, I had this undeniable gut feeling I should accept the offer to work at Facebook because it would grow my career trajectory. I was right, and two of the biggest reasons I can say that are the company culture and the people. I’ve been fortunate to have incredible advocates in my past work experiences too, and there is something very special about how I continue to learn from new advocate dynamics. It’s not management, it’s not quite mentorship (those are hugely important too), but in essence it’s the concept of having people in leadership positions vouch and see potential to the point where they advocate on my behalf. Examining these relationships, I’ve seen 4 main throughlines in advocates over the years and up to as recently as this week:
Regular coffee chats with them make me better at my job through the way they communicate, think about things, and share their insights. Good old osmosis.
They encourage me to push outside my comfort zone and into demonstrating confidence. One example: helping me refine “yes, and”; as well as “no, here’s why”.
Instead of taking credit on a project we collaborate on, they bring me into the spotlight and make sure my work is known and celebrated by others.
Without fail, they always help me see the big picture and to examine how my work should be connected to growth and things I enjoy doing, WITH personal life balance as a priority in the mix.
Envisioning what my advocates would say, I’m taking a moment for self compassion. I love writing and I also love my job right now. Making space for these two identities felt challenging this week and my 9-5+ won my undivided attention because there was so much going on.. which honestly felt good. This might happen for the short term, so I will write and reflect when I can and in moments it feels just as good as the day job.
My role scope is becoming larger, I’ll be hiring soon, and I’m giving it my all pushing for a promotion this year, so I feel pressure to be at the top of my game (noteworthy: at the moment, it’s the kind of pressure that feels like positive growth and fueling me, not depleting me). I’m not always crushing it but I love how I’m stretching so much day to day to turn mistakes in to part of my strengths, intentionally upleveling myself, looking around corners, and trusting my intuition as a subject matter expert who has worked in people experience for the past decade.
To wrap this up, I’d love to hear if you’re with me on any of this - have you been hibernating, having breakdowns, and/or beaming from advocates this week too? Wherever you are, I hope you take care of yourself by doing one thing you love that’s just for you. For me, it was writing you this post on a slow Saturday afternoon.
Have a beautiful weekend.
xo Jess
Love this!
I look forward to your writings every week and you never disappoint.
♥️