The feeling of feeling needed
I was listening to a lecture of what happens to a person, when their life shifts. This could be losing your job, going through a separation; you have burnt yourself out, even the loss of your own child or a loved one, or if you are a sports athlete you injure yourself, or maybe a car accident and you are handicapped after this incident, it really doesn’t matter which of these experiences we go through – how we find our purpose in life again? How do we start all over? How do we fill this void of feeling needed again?
Recently, I was talking to a client of mine, which made me think of how I could give her advice on the feeling of feeling needed.
This women was smart, intelligent, had a great track-record in her career, but somehow in some cosmic way she was feeling not worthy, lost her self-worth. This strong woman in her 40’s had given up her self-worth. She was still active in charities, did her share as a loving partner, not married, did not have any children, nonetheless she was content with her life except that she could not find her dream job.
She had gone through depression, burn-out, diagnosed with breast cancer and lived through all of that, just to find her-self not being worthy anymore. Been the CEO of an IT-company and the Vice President of an investment banking company only to move back home and finding it hard and difficult to find a job as a respected senior manager, she even worked a few months as a receptionist and in a café to be able to pay her bills. She was always in a happy mood, had a loving family and an amazing partner, lived in a beautiful large house 250 m2, had less than five minutes walk to the beach and yet no company wanted to hire her.
She ended up coming always at second place for her dream job interviews. She was an enigma for me, how could I help this successful woman. She had applied for several jobs for the past two years and still nothing. Now she was working for a start-up and helping them to grow and within six weeks of being there she set up a company strategy to grow the company and she has grown the company with over 32% in less than six weeks. She had contacted over 120 new clients, where over 40 clients wanted to business with her and accepted her offers. She even put up the prices for the company and the clients still wanted to do business with her. But she was still devastated since this job was paying a minimum salary and she could not even pay all her bills each month. The job in itself was a child’s play for her. To small to feel excited about, since this was textbook for her on how to build a start-up. Her partner, boyfriend, had to help her financially and after two years of struggles she was tired and ready to give up. Now she did not even care to dress-up professionally, only showered twice a week, had started smoking cigarettes again after being cigarette free for more than 7 years and gained weight over three stones almost twenty kilos, did not go to the gym any longer. I mean this woman was a professional sports athlete for fourteen years, eating only healthy foods, taking care of her body and treating her body as a temple. What had happened to his beautiful strong woman now? Why had she given up on life? She was use to bumps on the road, what happened? Was it too many miseries, to many set-backs, to many let downs? What?
I was spinning my head to find out the reason; she said that she was no longer fulfilled since she was not feeling the feeling of being needed any longer in her career. This was, and in my eyes still, a woman who had it all. Had these set-backs beaten her self-worth? What was it? Why was she not getting these job interviews? She thought that is was because she was a successful woman and that the men in the companies or even some of the female recruiters were afraid of her success, of her intelligence, her drive – was it that simply, that they were jealous or even scared to take a fight with another woman who had an amazing track-record, or was it something else?
Anyway, I made it my mission to help this lady – tune in next week and you can continue reading this journey of exploring the adventures of Lady X.