So, do you love people and do you love helping? I suspect that you do. That’s the lion’s share of the people I find in my audience. We are the helpers. We are givers. We are the ones who love to love, to love on other people. Want to know a little secret? The hardest part about endeavoring to be a transformational coach is to remember I don’t have to be perfect. I don’t have any answers. I don’t have to have any answers.

But when my own personal life goes to hell in a handbasket, it’s hard to keep going. Have you ever had that experience where you look at your own life and you’re going, “Girl, please. Who should listen to you?” We’re gonna talk about how to keep going when everything doesn’t look perfect. Let’s get going.

Welcome to the Unlock Your Life podcast, a podcast for highly successful visionary women who want more out of life. If you feel that ache of unfulfillment in your soul, you’re in the right place sis. Join life mastery consultant Lori A. Harris as she teaches you how to stop living for others and finally put yourself first. Let’s dive into today’s show.

So it’s really interesting that one engages in work of being a helper. It’s so tempting to think that oh in order to be a helper, I have to be perfect. While everyone knows intellectually, one, no one is perfect. And two, in order to be a helper, you don’t have to be perfect.

In the age of social media and what people call cancel culture and everyone having their own little miniature glass microphone in their pocket, it can be tempting to shrink and shy away and refuse to offer the help that you know that you have and want to share. It can be really tempting to do that. But the truth is, we are not required to be perfect in order to be helpful.

So in this month of May, the month of vocation where we are considering our callings, I want to talk to you about how to keep going in the work while everything at home might feel a little shaky. Might feel less than perfect.

So I am a person, and frequently things come up. While I love serving my clients and when I’m actively engaged in the practice of coaching, I really love it. I don’t really have any trouble doing it. It’s in the spaces in between that sometimes things can get a little dark. Sometimes I can have a question about should I even be doing this? Who am I to say?

Those times usually come up when I’m in conflict with another person. Someone that I love, someone that I care about, and things are going less than perfectly. I have a desire that we experience more connection. I have a desire that our relationship experiences a healing. But on the way to that I can experience some sorrow about the state of affairs at the time.

It’s very tempting to engage in a practice of giving the situation more meaning than it deserves. Attaching meanings to the situation that are not accurate or true, and attaching meaning to the situation and its application to my life and my vocation.

As a person who is using this work as a transformational coach to expand my ripple, to help more people have more life, build a life they’d love, and experience more freedom, that is my mission. It can be tempting to think, “Oh, I am only allowed to do that when everything is going perfectly in my life.” Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever felt like I can only be helpful if everything is perfect for me? That is a paradigm, a thought pattern, a way of thinking that can keep us stuck, and keep us from offering our gifts to the world.

So if you have a calling that requires you to show up and to be a giver and to offer assistance to others, I implore you to resist the urge to require that kind of perfection from yourself. Instead, I have a few tools that I rely upon to keep myself in the game and to simply keep going.

What’s the first thing I do? I remember my why. I go back to why is the work important? Why do I want to do it? Who is it that I want to serve? When I remember my why then I’m reminded that I’m only here to serve. Only here to help those people who would find it helpful. So when I can remember my why, then I remind myself to stay in service, to move my ego aside, and to remember why I got into the business in the first place.

Secondly, I’m reminded we don’t have to do anything alone. Just as I provide coaching and assistance to my clients, I have a coach, and I get assistance for myself. So it helps me because it keeps me in integrity. It’s one thing to say this is really important work and you really will improve your life and experience a healing if you engage in it and talk about it. It’s another to model it.

So just as I love on my clients when things are going less than perfectly in their lives, I allow myself to be served in that way and have someone be prepared to remind me of what it’s true, to see me outside of the frame, and to help me gather myself and get to the other side.

Another thing that I like to do is to rely on and remember the training. When it’s tempting to go down the rabbit hole of everything is falling apart, everything is terrible. I remember the training. I remember the things that I would share with my clients, and I can self-coach myself, and remind myself of what I know to be true. I’m reminded that the training is inside of me. I can trust it. I can lean on it. I can let it help me when I don’t have the strength to hold it all up by myself.

There was a time when I was having a conflict, and I was upset, and I had to do a jury trial. I just didn’t feel like doing it. However, it didn’t matter because I was active and engaged. The training that was so deeply ingrained in me was so deeply ingrained that I could almost do it on autopilot. My brain would hear something, and if it’s objectionable, it would object even when I really just wanted to go home and be under the covers.

So allow yourself to be aided by your training. Whatever it is in your profession that you do as a helper, remember, you are a trained professional, and you can rely on the training to take you through and to be infused in your gut to make it possible for you to keep going. Again, don’t require yourself to be perfect. None of us are perfect.

When you can be honest and upfront with your situation, it’s far more valuable to the community that we serve that we share the truth of who we are and how we move through life using the tips and tools that we’ve learned and been trained in in order to help not only ourselves, but to help our clients as well. So be vulnerable, be honest, be authentic, be real, but don’t try to be perfect.

The last thing is remember you don’t have to know all the answers. You don’t even really have to know any answers. What we need to be able to do to help another person is just be one step ahead. So if you know the way and you’ve gone a little bit further on the trail and you’re a little bit higher on the hill, you have perspective. You have a vision, and you’ve gone a little bit further.

You’re able to offer a little bit of guidance. And that has value. You don’t have to know everything, but you can offer what you do know. Let yourself be that guide even if you’re only one or two rungs ahead on the ladder.

So as a person who is a member of this community endeavoring to have an impact, endeavoring to help people and to change lives and make lives better, be kind to yourself. Don’t require that you know all the things and have all the answers. Allow yourself some modicum of imperfection. Watch the growth that you will experience and be able to share in your practice as a helper and a healer.

The five tips that I gave to you in order to keep going when you’re experiencing a difficult time in your personal life that makes you question whether or not you have value in your professional life. Start with why. Remember why you want to do this work. Stay in service. Set your ego aside and remember, you love people, and you love helping. If you stay in service, you will be able to keep going.

Two, don’t go it alone. Just as you love to help other people and benefit by giving assistance and insight to others, don’t go it alone. Allow yourself to be nourished and assisted as well. Get the services for yourself that you encourage your clients to get.

Three, remember the training, trust the training, and know that the training will see you through. It’s deeply ingrained in you. You can rely on that and depend on that to keep you going. Don’t expect or require perfection. It’s not going to happen. It’s a trap to keep you from making progress, to keep you stuck.

So allow yourself to grow and experience growth that each of life experiences come to come and help you and to teach you. Get the learning, get the experience, and share the truth of your experience, the truth of your being. Be vulnerable, be authentic, be real, and watch how you grow and your clients continue to grow as well.

Remember, you don’t have to have it all answered. You don’t have to know all the trail. You just have to be one step ahead, a couple of rungs up higher on the ladder, higher on the mountain to enjoy a higher view to give some guidance to how far you’ve come and what to watch out for.

This is what we do as helpers. This is what we do as changemakers. This is what we do when we’ve decided that we want to expand our ripple, experience more freedom, and bring more people along the trail with us. This is the beauty of being a person in service. I know that’s what you love doing, and I love it too. I want to help all of you have a good, good, good experience.

This has been episode 46 of the Unlock Your Life podcast. Thank you so much for listening. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend. If you know someone who’s having difficulty keeping going or questioning their worth as a helper, remind them and give them a new perspective on why their work is important, why they are just the person to do it at this particular time. This is a great way to be reminded of the service.

You can share this episode with a friend. You can go to loriaharris.com/number46 and that will take them directly to the episode. If you’ve enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. You can also find information about me and my services there where you can sign up for my newsletter where I contact people once a week, let you know what I’m up to, how I’m helping, and who I’m serving, and who’s benefited from the work in the last few days.

Thank you for listening. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, go to Apple podcasts, follow, rate, and review the show. I’d love a five star review, and I’d love to hear from you on what you think might be helpful to make the show even better. Thank you for listening. And remember, it’s your life. Make it a great one.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Unlock Your Life podcast. If you want more information on how you can transform your life and do it quickly, visit loriaharris.com. See it on the next episode of the Unlock Your Life podcast.

This month we’re talking about vocation, vocare, your calling. If you are a person who has devoted your life to helping or healing, this week’s episode is for you. This is a pep talk for the helpers, and a reminder of the power of one. Let’s get going.

Welcome to the Unlock Your Life podcast, a podcast for highly successful visionary women who want more out of life. If you feel that ache of unfulfillment in your soul, you’re in the right place sis. Join life mastery consultant Lori A. Harris as she teaches you how to stop living for others and finally put yourself first. Let’s dive into today’s show.

When I was 14, I decided I wanted to be a lawyer. At the time, this was in the mid-70s. I looked around, and I saw that there were a few things that women were expected or allowed to do in the professional arena. You could be a nurse, or secretary, a teacher, or a social worker. When I was 14, I went to court with a group of very young women who were new lawyers, and it transformed me. I tell this story frequently.

I just want to remind you that each one of those careers are helping professions. Frequently women when we think about our career and how we want to contribute to the world, we often land on helping professions. I know that the people in my audience, the people who love to listen to this podcast, are people who are givers, who love to help.

Oftentimes, we helpers, we healers, we can suffer from burnout. We can keep going and going and going to the point where there’s nothing left to give. But I want to remind you of how special you are and how much your work matters. And how your work will continue to ripple, and how you are already expanding your ripple in the world.

I’m going to tell you the story of one person. One person who was a social worker who changed the course of history for untold numbers of people. We can’t really even count the number of people that this woman helped. I want to remind you that your work makes that kind of difference in the world. This is the story of Dorothy Bailey.

Dorothy Bailey was a young woman in the mid-50s who was a social worker. She heard about a kid in the neighborhood, and she decided to go about and make it her business to figure out what the heck is going on with this kid. See what it happened was this little girl’s mother had died when she was 10. It so happened that when the girl came back to school after her mother’s death, it was time for national testing.

The kid tested, and surprise and shock and awe, she didn’t do well on the test that week. As a result of her testing, they took that child and they put her in a class that at the time was called EMR—educationally mentally retarded. So this kid was placed in the EMR class, and she clearly didn’t belong there. She could do every task that was asked of her. She started tutoring the other kids in the class, and she frequently was bored by the task that was required of her.

The teacher not knowing what to do with this very smart young girl told her you can go to library. So the kid went to the library. When she had exhausted all the books in her school library, teacher, not knowing what to do with very bright child in the EMR class, said, “I can get you a bus pass and a library card.” So she gave this child a bus pass and a library card and gave her permission to go down to the city library. So the kid was going there, and kind of educating herself for a period of time.

Dorothy Bailey heard about this. She says, “That sounds crazy.” So she rescued this child. She figured out rather than have the child exhaust all the books in the school library and all the books in the local library, how about we put her back in a class where she belongs and deal with the trauma that this child has experienced with losing her mom at such a tender age.

Now, Dorothy Bailey ended up being in this young child’s life for her entire life, all of Dorothy Bailey’s life. Dorothy Bailey stayed with this young woman and helped her to matriculate through life. So this kid went on to be an excellent student, not only an elementary, middle school, but also in high school.

When it came time for the kid to make a decision about what was next for her, the kid thought  I’ll do what everyone else does. I’ll get a job. Dorothy Bailey said, “No, you won’t. You will go to college.” Then she says, “Okay, I’ll go to the local community college.”

Dorothy Bailey said, “No, you will not go to the local community college. You will go away to college because I want you to have the experience of an expanded vision of your life. If you stay here, you will get bogged down in the task of caring for your dad and being a primary caretaker for your father who’s unable to work. So I want you to go to college, and I have a vision that I think is possible for you to go.”

Young kid, let’s call her Elizabeth, says, “Oh, I don’t think I can do that. My brothers need me. They need me here to help with my dad.” So Dorothy Bailey took it upon herself to talk to the eldest brother and explain to him how much potential Elizabeth had and told her that she really, really believed that Elizabeth could do well at local college.

So Elizabeth did end up going to school. Dorothy Bailey was the support person for Elizabeth all through college. She would give her a couple of dollars a month for supplies, for pantyhose so she can when wear pantyhose to vesper and look like a proper young woman and helped Elizabeth do well all through college. So Elizabeth did graduate from college, and she ended up being a teacher.

So already we know that Dorothy Bailey has impacted Elizabeth slide such that now Elizabeth is helping others by being a teacher, but she didn’t stop there. Elizabeth went on to become a lawyer. As a lawyer, Elizabeth helped thousands and thousands of people in her career that’s expanded over 30 years working as a defense attorney. But she didn’t stop there.

Then Elizabeth went on to be a judge. Her work continues to help people from the bench. She has a very good relationship with the people that appear before her. She inspires people to believe that they can make a difference in their lives, and they actually look forward to coming to her court. It’s actually a very unusual situation, and that’s what happened with Elizabeth.

But why does it matter for me in my life? Well, that Elizabeth that I’m speaking of is my aunt, Hattie Elizabeth Harris. I was that 14 year old who saw Hattie Elizabeth Harris go into a courtroom with all their young friends dealing with they did. It inspired me and allowed me to see her making a difference in people’s lives.

I don’t know how I can express to you the kind of relationship that people have, the potential they have when you’re working closely with an attorney, but it really can change the trajectory of one’s life. I’ve seen it over and over and over again.

So when I think about Dorothy Bailey, I’m so grateful to her. Because her work way back in the mid-50s rippled and changed so many people’s lives, people that we can’t even count and account for. So when Mrs. Bailey decided to come in and take a stand and advocate for this young kid who clearly didn’t belong in a class known as EMR and fight the system and get that kid out. Then stayed with that kid throughout her life, and made a difference in her life, she didn’t just change that one kid’s life. She changed my life.

In my life getting better and being expanded and having a bigger vision, I can see the number of people that I’m able to impact and influence. I don’t change anyone’s life, but I am able to paint a picture and help people to see a possibility.

Now, that happened when I was working as a lawyer. It happened when I was working with incarcerated youth, showing them a possibility of what could happen if they just had the audacity to believe that they could change their lives. For each kid who bought it, who decided to take a stand, then that kid has the potential to have an impact within their own family structure, within their neighborhoods and communities. That kid can continue to ripple, but it all started back in 1955/56 with Mrs. Bailey making a decision to take a stand.

So I want to remind you that this is a pep talk for helpers. If you are wondering if your work is even having an impact, it is. If you’re wondering if what you do on a day to day basis even matters, it does. Because when one person believes and one person takes a stand, what happens is it causes an avalanche, a ripple effect. You get a little bit of a momentum going, a little bit of a snowball going just by you being you.

So when we have to think about what are our core values? What do we believe in? That’s one of the things that we will decide to take a stand on, to believe, and to be the person who is in those particular instances that give us an opportunity to serve.

So for me, what are my core values? I believe in freedom. I believe in liberation. I believe in love. I believe in grace. With those four core principles, I have decided to live my life. I have decided to live from a place of love and constant and continual grace and forgiveness. It’s not an easy road to take. It’s very, very difficult. Because when you decide to do that then opportunities to do that come up. It can be challenging but can be also rewarding as well.

This is a pep talk for the healers. This is a pep talk for the helpers. You are one such person who is making a difference in people’s lives. So when you feel discouraged, I want you to do for yourself which you are apt to do for others. Don’t argue for your limitations. Don’t fight for your misgivings and shortcomings. Believe just enough, just a little bit, just a little bit to allow yourself to take just one little, tiny step. Take one tiny inchworm move, and with that, you will start to build momentum. You will start to build a movement.

There have been times in my life as a community activist, as an organizer, as a lawyer, as an advocate that I have been engaged in a constant life of fighting. But I have decided to live my life from love, grace, and build a life of liberation and freedom. Love and grace will take me just as far and farther than any fight ever could. I want to invite you to join me with that journey.

So never, ever underestimate the power of one. The power of one person deciding to be a partner in believing for one other person. With those two people, they can get so much done. If you want to be that one person, it doesn’t require you to be perfect. What it does require is for you to show up. To show up and be consistent. To be honest and to be there, to be present. You don’t have to be perfect, but you do have to show up.

When you feel like you’re overwhelmed, you can share that. When you feel like you don’t know quite what to do, you can share that. But continue to share from a place of love and desire for the best for all concerned.

So remember, one tiny little inchworm move chained together with another and another and another gain momentum. You don’t have to know all of the answers, but you can take action on the one step that has been revealed to you. As the great leader, activist, and all around world inspirer tells us, Nelson Mandela says, “There’s no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires.”

What are those the desires? We all want to be free. Freedom is the decision that you make each and every day, a decision to live from a place of freedom each and every day. Be free. Do the things that free people do in the life that you have decided for yourself.

This is episode 45 of the Unlock Your Life podcast. I’ve really enjoyed talking with you this week. This has been a pep talk for the helpers. I hope that you remember, as a helper, you are helping this one person. In this one person, that act of grace will ripple so far in so wide you cannot imagine the number of people you are impacting. Keep going. Your life matters, and we’re so grateful that you are here.

If you’ve enjoyed this episode of the Unlock Your Life podcast, I hope you will take a moment to stop, review, and rate the show. You can find it on Apple podcasts. You can follow us there. Leave a review. You could say it’s a five star review if you want to, or another way you can help to grow the podcast is to share it with a friend. It’s been my great honor to speak with you this week, and I look forward to seeing you next week. Remember, it’s your life. Make it a great one.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Unlock Your Life podcast. If you want more information on how you can transform your life and do it quickly, visit loriaharris.com. See it on the next episode of the Unlock Your Life podcast.