Welcome back to Unfolding. I'm Erica Voell and I'm so glad you're here. I am a decision mentor and inner trust guide, and I work with smart, capable women, often those who are in midlife, who are stuck in overwhelm and feeling over committed and confused. I use human design coaching and Reiki to help them trust their inner guidance and understand their unique strengths so they stop saying yes to what drain them. My system gives them a grounded plan that works because it's built for how they're designed to operate so we can clear the noise and then their no feels powerful and their yes feels true. Ever since I recorded the last episode on self-help books, I have not been able to stop thinking about strategy, specifically the kind of strategy that's not actually yours and the one that fits your energy. Something about it would just not leave me alone. I'm talking about the kinds of strategies that are supposed to be these life hacks to survive and succeed better in our fast-paced modern society, as if life really needs to be hacked. Or as if our worth is measured by how much we can produce. Yuck. When I worked at the library, we had seasons. I mean, don't mean summer and fall. We had library seasons. One of our big seasons was summer reading. Of course. But there was another kind of season that happened whenever a group was reading a book together. Sometimes it was just the management teams, or other times it was just the librarians, or it was more staff wide. And often these were self-help or business books, the kind that come with a strategy or a framework that we should follow and we. Would hear the buzz about these books, we would see the managers referencing them and quietly the rest of us would start to wonder what changes were going to be implemented, both good and bad. But then months would go by and nothing would shift. And I began to like wonder why recently. And it's because the strategy in that book did not fit our organization. And that's when I started noticing about self-help books in general. The advice, while well-meaning doesn't always fit you and doesn't fit you for a reason, it doesn't fit your energy, your reality, or your responsibilities. So when you try to implement it, you bump up against resistance and sometimes you might blame yourself for that mismatch. And I believe books can be so powerful. I mean, I was a librarian for 19 years, so I still talk about one book in particular, Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. That's a book that I actually still reference in my workshops today, but that's really rare because I've read so many that I've, I've actually forgotten a lot of them. And that kinda strategy I wanna talk about today is the one that shows up in self-help books, coaching programs, ads on Instagram for heaven sakes, the four hour work week, or the work smarter, not harder. Or the wake up an hour earlier routine or do this and go viral advice. I mean, how many of those have we seen? Those kinds of strategies say, here's what worked for me and if you follow it, it will change your life too. And then when it doesn't work, I mean, what do you do? I did this. I think "I just don't want it this badly enough." Or "maybe I'm not following it the right way," or maybe "I'm just not cut out for this," or "I need to try harder." That's the one that always got me. Does that sound familiar? That spiral isn't F failure. It's actually feedback. It is your energy telling you that this does not fit, and just please stop trying to squeeze you into a little box. And another layer of this is conditioning. Conditioning from our families, especially. Our parents didn't know about human design, and often there's this assumption that you operate similarly to them, but some of the deepest conditioning comes when you try to keep up with people who move through life so differently and then ignore those signals to you that something isn't right. Honestly, I used to think I was really bad at making decisions. My family all made decisions super quick and they would commit to something. And then they wouldn't back out. For me. I would commit to something and I would stick with it no matter what. Even if it was wrong for me and I thought I was the problem. And it turns out my decision making process is completely different from my parents and even from my partner. And going back to that piece of like what doesn't fit you. There's this photo of my daughter when I think about this, it is so funny. She's 1-year-old and I really absolutely laugh every time I see this photo. 'cause here's why. One day her diaper leaked at daycare and they changed her into the backup outfit that they had on hand, and it was a little bit snuck. I mean, let's be honest, it was really tight. She was wearing a six- month outfit on her 1-year-old body. The shirt and the pants were practically bursting at the seams. And what I love about this photo so much is this big silly grin she has on her face. Because she knows she looks funny, but she can't quite comprehend why she looks funny. It's so great and it's really one of my favorite pictures, and that photo reminds me of like what it feels like when we're trying to squeeze ourselves into a box or squeeze ourselves into a strategy that's not meant for us in the first place. I mean, we do this all the time, especially women. We did it with diets, especially in the eighties and the nineties. We did it with schedules like our schedule should be time blocked or we should fit into somebody else's schedule. If you're in business, you do it with your marketing plans. And we do it with our morning routines, especially if you are somebody who is like, I should have a good meditation routine just like my mentor. Or we work with systems that actually weren't designed with our lives in mind. And instead of saying, this strategy isn't right for me, we tend to blame ourselves when it doesn't work. And here's something else I want to name. A lot of the productivity advice we see getting tossed around from books to YouTube to podcasts were created by men. And they've been passed down. Women are trying to adopt it because we're trying to fit into the boxes that men have created. And men, their energy doesn't cycle the same way a woman's does. Their energy shifts or their cycle is every 24 hours. And for women it's every 28 days, 29 days. And many men are not navigating the realities of caregiving and raising children and managing households or moving through those hormonal shifts throughout the month. And that context really matters. That rhythm matters, and it's almost never acknowledged when we have this one size fits all strategy that's being sold to us. Here's the part I wanna be clear about. This is not me bashing the coaching industry. I wanna be very clear, or even the self-help book industry, there are incredible authors and coaches who are doing work that honors people's unique rhythms and capacities and seasons for life. I've worked with them, I've learned from them, and I consider myself one of them, but I'm calling BS on this idea. That their strategy should work for everyone. 'cause it doesn't, and they know that too, but they're trying to reach the masses. And some of the times they don't say it out loud. And if it didn't work for you, you're not broken. That strategy was not made for your energy. One of my favorite quotes is from one of my mentors, Julie Ciardi. She says, "every strategy works, but not every strategy works for everyone." The first time I heard that, oh my gosh, something seriously clicked. And that's what human design gives us. It gives us a way to filter through all that advice, all those tips and tools, and finally ask. Is right for me? Does this actually work for me? Is this aligned with how I am built to operate? Or am I just trying to force myself into someone else's plan? When you stop blaming yourself and actually start filtering strategies through your unique human design, that's when you begin to find your way again. In human design strategy is actually a term we use, and it's how your energy is designed to interact with the world. It gives you signals on what's right for you and in alignment for you, and it's how your opportunities best find you. For generators and manifesting generators, it's about responding to what shows up in your world and doing things that light you up. You know, what it feels like when there's that deep sense of satisfaction as opposed to the frustration of that butting up against things. And for projectors, it's about waiting for the invitation, but also letting people know that you're available so that then your energy can be invited in, and importantly also is honoring your energetic ebbs and flows. It's about feeling successful instead of feeling bitter. And for Manifesters, it is about going for it. Initiating. And informing others when your actions might impact others, and getting that sense of peace instead of anger. Manifestors are the only ones who should be initiating. We're all taught to go for it, but if we meet that frustration or that bitterness, it's not meant for us, but for Manifesters, when they feel that sense of peace instead of anger and they are initiating and they're going after what they want, that is their sweet spot. And for reflectors, it's really about being in spaces that feel right and allowing those opportunities and relationships to come into you by tapping into your sensitivities with the energy that resonates with you, while also being recognized for your thoughts and your questions. Those are amazing, which then brings you this sense of surprise and delight instead of that sense of disappointment. So let me give you a few personal examples of this. As I was starting to build my business, I followed everyone I could find or was recommended. If it was on Instagram and somebody shared a story, I would go follow that person. I tried following so many social media trends, especially with the reels, and I would try to post with that trending audio and tried the scripts and try all the formulas, and it worked, but it kind of didn't. It really didn't. I got maybe a few likes, but it didn't feel like me, and it was obvious that other people noticed. And my audience doesn't reach out based on a single reel. They want depth, they want real deepness. They want to know that I have done the work. They don't want more noise. They want something that resonates with them. And morning routines. Okay. When I was doing them regularly, I loved my quiet time in the morning, but then my daughter, when she was little. I would start to say, mommy's gonna go upstairs and she's gonna do her thing, and can you leave me alone? That was like giving her permission to invite in all of the antics. She would come running up the stairs, she would knock on the door, she would peek under the door. It was crazy, and my mornings actually became more stressful instead of feeling sacred. And then. I realized that I need to make my morning routine fit into the time I have. And some days I journal. Some days I sit in silence. And some days I will write about what followed me in from a dream. Sometimes I just need to release what was in my dream so that I can start my day and other days I have to wait until she and my husband actually leave the house. When I stopped trying to be rigid and stopped trying to fit into something else that somebody else had told me about, and I leaned into what feels most nourishing for me in that day, Ooh, things start to feel really good. And you know, I talked about the self-help books in my previous episode, and I invite you to go back and listen to it. But I would read those self-help books and I would work through all the prompts and all the chapter questions. And honestly, by the end of the book, I would have a lot of words on the page and nothing would stick. The nuggets were great, but the strategy that they were giving me, the advice was not fit for me, and I couldn't put things into practice, so I would feel frustrated that I had read so many books and nothing had changed. I mean, small things had changed, but it didn't come from one particular book or even all the books. It was working with someone who I felt connected to and help me be accountable to myself. And then at work. A lot of times I was asked to lead a project or take something on, I don't know how many closets I have been asked to clean out. It seemed to be a theme every time I started a new job. Can you clean out the supply closet? That would be a great way for you to get to know all of the programming supplies we have. Or they would ask me to create a spreadsheet for them or do their website. And I would think, oh, they see this in me. They can see that I'm good at it. And so then I would step in and I would be like, sure, that sounds great. 'cause I thought that they could see something in me that I couldn't see in myself. So I thought, oh, it's a gift and I have to follow it. And then I learned my human design profile. I learned that I'm a five in that profile and people project things onto me. They see me as someone who can fix or save a situation, but then when I can't or I don't fix the problem the way that they wanted, I experienced that fall from grace. Now I know better, and I still fall into that trap sometimes, but I've really learned to check in with my energy before I agree to things. So how do you know what works for you? This is where human design becomes really powerful. Not as a new rule book, but a filter for you to see things through. And we can look at your type. How does your energy interact with the world? Are you here to respond, to be invited or to initiate? And your authority is how you best make decisions. It's your process. Do you need more time? Do you need a gut check or do you need a sounding board to feel how your decision and those words are landing? Or we look at your centers, which, how are you picking up that pressure to prove or that urgency to fix things that aren't even yours? And this is a quote that was shared with me. I don't know where it came from, but it's. It resonated with me a lot. You're not failing the routine. The routine is failing you. So like why are we trying to keep the routine if it's failing us? So if this is resonating, I invite you to also go back to season two, episode two, which is all about the self-help books keeping you stuck. That episode laid the groundwork for this one, and you can see the thread that's happening here. Because you don't need another guru system. You don't need another checklist that's not gonna feel like you, or that you're gonna feel like you have to fit into or that actually drains you. You don't need to push through and make it happen. You need something that actually really works for you, and that starts by learning what that even is. I invite you to grab my confidence guide. It's a simple, grounded intro to working with your human design type, not as a system to follow perfectly, but as that permission slip to start doing life on your own dang terms, and then book your free coaching call with me. We will explore your chart and what's coming up for you right now, and you can find the links to the confidence guide and the free coaching call in the show notes. Thank you for joining me, and if you enjoyed this episode, I would love if you would tap the plus sign to follow the show so that you don't miss what's coming next. And if you're feeling generous, leave a quick review that helps more people find Unfolding. I would be so grateful because your support means so much. If there is someone in your life who would love these conversations, please share them with them. Be well, and I will talk to you next time.