How Going Alcohol-Free Could Help Boost Your Professional Success
By the time I reached thirty, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was time to break up with booze. I knew in my gut that drinking was keeping me stuck, but I was having a difficult time articulating precisely how I knew this. From the outside, it looked like I had it all together. I had a master’s degree, a great job, a beautiful home, and a nice car. I also had a vibrant social and dating life, I was fit, I was healthy, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. At one point, I’d even been named one of the top twenty young professionals under thirty by a posh Midwestern society magazine. It certainly looked like I was thriving.
Yet with all the wonderful things happening in my life and the massive amounts of inner and outer work I was doing, I wasn’t fulfilled. It’s not that I was depressed; I just wasn’t happy. I felt stuck, and—what’s worse—I felt guilty for feeling stuck. I kept telling myself I should just be happy because I lived a privileged life compared to so many others. No matter how many times I tried to talk myself into being grateful for everything I had (which, don’t get me wrong, I was), I couldn’t shake the feeling that I wasn’t quite achieving what I was capable of.
Frankly, I was tremendously frustrated that I felt so off track. After all, I’d invested thousands of hours (and dollars) in my education only to be unsure if my career was even a fit for me. I was doing all the health, wellness, and spiritual things that were supposed to lead to a miraculous and abundant life. Yet I was broke (and in debt up to my eyeballs), single (and brokenhearted after a whirlwind romance), and nearly exhausted from implementing the new positive behaviors I’d added to my life.
Then it hit me: maybe it wasn’t about how much I could add to my life but what I could subtract. I had officially reached capacity, and it was time to start purging. Reluctantly, I looked again at the only real vice I had: drinking.
Even high achievers who have found tremendous professional success as drinkers find that sobriety helps them step into new expressions of their professional potential. When it comes to your professional potential, you deserve to share your most genius gifts and get paid abundantly to do so.
If you’re like me, you know what it’s like to spend years feverishly climbing a ladder only to become suspicious that you are, in fact, on the wrong ladder. If you, too, have been grappling with this realization, I want to share with you how removing alcohol from the picture can create the space and stability for you to leap off the wrong ladder and onto the right one.
For years, my vision of professional success was not mine, but one handed to me by society. I had my sights set on having an important job where I did important things and made loads of money. I took the necessary steps to achieve this vision by earning the right degrees and securing good jobs at good companies.
I realize now that my previous vision of professional success was based on a scarcity mentality, prestige, and societal norms. Climbing the corporate ladder was not my lifelong dream but one I bought into because it was sold to me over and over as stable, sensible, and normal. This is not to say that pursuing a formal education or a traditional career path is bad or wrong but to open space for you to redefine what professional success may look like for you.
Everybody Has a Calling
I believe that you came into this life with a calling—a purpose, a talent, a dream, a passion that you were meant to express. This calling might seem silly, frivolous, or impossible. It is yours, nonetheless. Your calling is your unique competitive edge. It’s the thing that no one can do quite like you. When you are doing it, you feel at ease. This talent comes to you naturally. So much so that you rarely imagine it is anything special. It is. Your real work in this lifetime is to discover your calling and pursue it relentlessly. On some level, you know what this calling is, but you’ve likely spent so many years detached from it that it feels ancient and difficult to access.
It is not entirely necessary to pursue your calling in a professional nature. You may prefer to work a consistent job that affords you the opportunity to pursue your calling in other ways. However, if you choose this path, please be mindful that it will work best if your professional life yields a high payoff at a low level of stress.
Your Zone of Genius
I have no doubt that you are an intelligent and competent human being. If you’re like most of my clients and me, you identify as a high performer and overachiever. You know how to get shit done, and you’re naturally competent at a wide variety of things. You take pride in being able to conquer any challenge that is put in front of you.
However, this level of excellence also comes with heavy consequences. It’s incredibly easy to get stuck in professional roles where you excel but aren’t fulfilled. This paradigm is best explained by Gay Hendricks in his book The Big Leap. Hendricks shares that “our activities in the world occur in four main zones”: the Zone of Incompetence (“all the activities we’re not good at”), the Zone of Competence (“you’re competent at the activities . . . but others can do them just as well”), the Zone of Excellence (“activities you do extremely well”), and the Zone of Genius (“activities you are uniquely suited to do”).
Hendricks teaches that the Zone of Excellence is particularly seductive for extremely successful people as it can tempt them to remain there rather than make the leap into the Zone of Genius. Society at large wants you to stay in your Zone of Excellence because it is safe and reliable. However, Hendricks posits that a “deep, sacred part of you will wither and die if you stay inside your Zone of Excellence.” Ultimately, alcohol can keep you stuck there.
Finding Your Calling
I don’t expect you to clearly know your calling by the time you finish this chapter. Keep in mind that getting back to your authentic self will take time and may require some trial-and-error exploration. In my case, my calling presented itself to me slowly and divinely over the course of a couple of years. It’s likely that you’ve always known what you were supposed to do but abandoned that dream and desire to pursue something that felt more practical or financially advantageous.
If you’re ready to step into your professional potential but aren’t sure of the next steps, here is a list of questions to set you on the right path:
If you’re honest with yourself, do you feel your current career is your calling?
If so, what are your biggest aspirations within your career?
If you were to dream big—with no limitations, such as time, money, or experience—what is it that you would be paid to do?
What comes so easily to you that you couldn’t imagine someone paying you to do it?
What are topics that most interest you? What could you spend hours getting lost in learning about?
In what areas do people come to you for help, advice, support, or guidance?
What were your dream careers as a child and adolescent? Do these paths still interest you? Is there a more sophisticated expression of this career available in the world today?
For example, I dreamed of being a teacher, but the only models I had as a child were my schoolteachers. Today, I do teach, but how I teach as a coach is different from anything I could have imagined as a child.
Take Small Steps
Make a list of small steps you can take to educate yourself further on pursuing your calling. Start with doing your own research. If you’re unsure of what your calling is, the best way to find it is to become a curious learner. Read books and listen to podcasts about various career paths to broaden your view of what is possible. When I was preparing to leave my corporate job, I spent my spare time listening to entrepreneurial podcasts that introduced me to career paths I would have never considered a possibility. I constantly found myself saying, Wow, you can get paid for that? Sure enough, if you have a special talent, someone is out there looking for you to guide or support them.
If you have a strong feeling about your calling, start to get familiar with people who are already doing what it is that you desire. You can find these people through a Google search or on Instagram or LinkedIn. Connect with them but take some time to lurk around before reaching out to them so that you’re not asking questions you could have found the answer to easily. Keep an eye out for opportunities to learn from or with the individuals you’ve been admiring from afar. Consider investing in a course or service they offer. If they don’t offer a way to work with them, then take the next step and reach out to them.
As you gain more exposure to possibilities, it’s likely that your vision for expressing your calling will evolve. Do the groundwork but trust in divine timing and follow your intuition toward new connections and opportunities that may guide you closer to your calling. Continuing to take tiny steps in the direction of your calling can lead to a big transformation. During our time working together, I’m able to support the majority of my high-level private clients into a massive career transition or promotion once alcohol is out of the way. It is my belief that the world needs the special magic that you have. I’m always delighted to hear how deciding to become sober has helped my clients and students share their magic with the world.
If you want more perspective on breaking up with alcohol and breaking through to your best life, my book Unbottled Potential is available now and you can grab your copy wherever books are sold (e-book and audiobook also available).
And, if you grab your copy before 10/07, you’re invited to attend my official virtual book launch celebration, the Unbottle Your Potential Live Event! It’s all going down at 5 PM EST on Saturday, October 7th, I’d love to see you there. Just go here to claim your free ticket.