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In High Alignment with Kerry Walsh
In High Alignment with Kerry Walsh
Ep. 11- Embracing Devotion Over Discipline
In case you don't know this yet, there's a more fulfilling (and forgiving) way to achieve your goals than toughing it out with discipline. Tune into this episode of "In High Alignment" where we explore the more spacious, accepting commitment of devotion. Have a listen as I invite you to explore the shift from a mindset of rigid rules and punishment to one rooted in love, loyalty, and enthusiasm.
Mentioned in the intro:
Lisa Kohn's upcoming audio version of her memoir "To the Moon and Back: A Childhood Under the Influence." Follow Lisa @lisakohnwrites
The Philly Content Retreat hosted by @katarinac_photography and Harley aka @Photodelphia
DM me on IG @kerryannecoaching or send me an email at kerry@kerryannewalsh.com to stay in the know about the next round of In High Demand starting in September!
If you like what you're hearing, please leave a 5 star rating and review the show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify!
Follow Kerry on Instagram @kerryannecoaching
Subscribe to Kerry's Substack: https://kerryannewalsh.substack.com/inhighalignment
Learn more and apply to work with Kerry: https://kerryannewalsh.com/coaching-home
Welcome to the In High Alignment podcast, the podcast where we connect with rebellious, creatives and courageous guests who are forging the path towards living in alignment with their core values. You know those moments that everything clicks, when you feel completely lit up and tingly, while also feeling confident and grounded, when the path you've been walking towards starts to really open up and you can see how it's all going to work out, those pinch me moments where you think to yourself wow, this is really my life right now. That, my friend, is what we call alignment. That's what we're creating more of, more consistently, right here On the In High Alignment podcast. Each episode will equip you with tangible tools and gentle guidance to unlock your own cues and clues of what alignment means to you. It's time to come home to yourself, my friend. It's time to reconnect with your core self, to reconnect with your best feeling, most magnetic you. Let's explore that sacred intersection of life and business together and find out more each episode what it means to be in high alignment. Hey, all you potty people, I hope that in our interim, you and yours have been doing so so well.
Speaker 1:To briefly fill you in on what's been in the works for me between our last episode and now I've been working on the production of my dear friend and mentor, lisa Cohn's audiobook To the Moon and Back A Childhood Under the Influence. To know Lisa is to experience what love means. Her nickname, given during our certification in Applied Positive Psychology program, was Love Embodied, after all, and her memoir is one of the core books that paved the way for other members and second-gen members born into the Mooney cult to find freedom. To find freedom. Her story is so powerful and it's been one of my greatest honors to get to create her audiobook with her. I'll share again when it's officially available, but it will be coming this summer to Audible and everywhere you listen to audiobooks.
Speaker 1:In April, I spoke at the Philly Content Retreat hosted by two incredible photographers, katarina and Harley. I'll link their Instagram bios in the show notes so you can find them All about easy to implement shifts to increase their sales and attract kindred clients. If you or someone you know is hosting a workshop or a retreat and you think that I could be a good addition to your speaker lineup, please shoot me an email. I would love to hear more. My best email is kerry, at kerrymwalshcom. Super simple, and I'll also include that in the show notes.
Speaker 1:In May we did some traveling to Portugal and it was absolutely stunning. I highly suggest, if you've never been, just be ready for the hills. We also learned that 12 days away from Daisy Girl is so hard Our little puppy she's six months old. Something about her not being able to talk to us and tell us how she is. You know it's the hardest part. She was great, she was in good hands, but Daisy is the queen of physical touch as her love language and we love that for her and for us. So our reunion was so beautiful and it was so good just to be able to cuddle her again. I've also been onboarding new one-on-one clients, catching up with alumni clients and preparing for the next round of In High Demand that will begin in September, just after Labor Day weekend. And if you want to stay in the loop about In High Demand registration, shoot me a DM on Instagram at CarrieAnnCoaching and I will make sure that you are on the super low-key not spammy at all email list just to stay in the know.
Speaker 1:Now that we are all caught up, let's talk about today's episode. It's going to be particularly pertinent to what's going on in my own business and I have a feeling that it'll resonate with a lot of you too. We're diving into the difference between discipline and devotion and why I've adopted a mindset of devotion within my business more and more. Starting with the very basics, discipline, as defined by the Oxford Dictionary, is the practice of training people to obey rules or code of behavior, using punishment to correct disobedience. By the same dictionary, devotion is love, loyalty or enthusiasm for a person, activity or cause. Can you feel the difference between the two? Already? Discipline is tied to obedience, rules, right and wrong, good and bad, binary thinking and punishment for any disobedience, with the goal of the punishment resulting in compliance with the set rules, whereas devotion. Devotion is love. Devotion is loyalty. Devotion is enthusiasm for a person, activity or cause. It's love.
Speaker 1:For years I celebrated discipline On my rowing teams. We had to be so disciplined, waking up at 5.30 a for practice every day, spending half or full weekends at our races, putting in the work, getting more miles on the water, inch by inch, gaining progress towards our ultimate goals medals and race wins. It was something we'd pride ourselves on. We just did more before 8 am than most people would do with their whole day was something I remember my coach repeating often, and it worked. We saw a lot of progress and won a lot of races, so I adopted this same mentality when I started my business. I wanted to win in business, so I had to take on this same winner's mentality that worked so well for me in sports.
Speaker 1:Right, right, fast forward about two years into my photography career. I was burning the candle at both ends, taking on every client who would pay my continuously increasing prices. And, of course, the morning came where I slipped. I missed all of my alarms for my very first holiday mini session day. Thankfully, I was hosting the minis and my friend Valentina Space, who also knew where I lived. She had called and texted me about eight times before she literally came to my house to wake me up an hour before the sessions were set to begin.
Speaker 1:I woke up panicked, that oh-shit feeling of royally screwing up. I thought I'd missed everything. But Val told me the time and that I'd be okay and she could help me set up. So I would still start on time. You have to slow down, okay, she said with an aching look in her eyes. Val had been running her cafe and pastry shop for five years at that time and knew what hustle and entrepreneurship was like what hustle and entrepreneurship was like. She headed back to her shop and she was right. I was okay, and we set up in time to begin before the first family arrived for their mini-session. My clients were none the wiser that I narrowly avoided missing all of their sessions, but I knew that day was, both literally and figuratively, a wake-up call for me. I knew I was running full speed into full burnout if I didn't slow down quickly, and I wasn't sure how I would do it.
Speaker 1:A few months later the world started shutting down for the pandy and slowdown became non-optional for photographers. We legally couldn't even do distanced outdoor sessions. So in the mandatory break I caught my breath and started dreaming of how I could do things differently when the world inevitably would reopen again. What could I implement to take work off my plate? How could I automatically block off time in my calendar for editing after sessions, which was one of my biggest backups and stress inducers? How could I limit my sessions and rework my pricing to ensure I was still profitable? As I restricted my schedule and took on less, new workflows, systems and strategic plans were born. These became the same easy-to-implement workflows and adjustable systems that I teach in my group coaching program in high demand. All of those things helped, but I was still so sure that I had to keep a rigid, disciplined mindset in order to be successful, so a lot of the mental stress continued to pile on.
Speaker 1:It wasn't until probably another year later that a coaching friend offered the idea of devotion instead of discipline. We were talking business and I shared how I was struggling to implement some of the goals that had been on my vision board for a while, because I just couldn't see where I could carve out time to create them. How. I felt like such a failure, even though it was my own self putting out deadlines and saying these were failures for not being completed yet no one else. What if you trusted your devotion to those bigger visions and projects? She asked what if they don't need a specific timeline, but you need to give yourself grace and let up on the pressure in order for the space to create them to open up. Whew, talk about an absolute paradigm shift. This friend so graciously held up a mirror for me to give myself the grace I so freely give everybody else. I could literally feel my nervous system downshift as the mental pressure of discipline slowly started to release the devotion and love started to take its place.
Speaker 1:Where discipline and putting in the work kept me in a state of stress and hypervigilance, devotion felt like balance, like rest, like inspiration and flow. Devotion felt like a huge sigh of relief. And you know what happened. When that internal rigidity and resistance to stay obedient and disciplined was released, the time for my visions to come to life did open up. It was an instant I needed to build trust with this new devotion mindset. But after a few months, the mental and physical space to dedicate to those dreams on my vision board became clear. This podcast was born. This podcast was reborn Multiple times and that's okay. It takes time and trust. Remember to build loyalty, especially when we're reconditioning our brains and bodies out of a method that we used for most of our lives Patience, grace, love, enthusiasm.
Speaker 1:Lifting into devotion love, loyalty and enthusiasm for continuing the mission of this podcast To guide creative entrepreneurs back home to themselves, to know and trust their inner voice, to take care of the humans leading their businesses and to live more full, aligned present lives. Where discipline would punish getting off track on the release schedule, devotion told me it's okay because I still know that I'm going to continue to work towards this mission anyway, that episodes are still worth creating, even if it's not on the perfectly curated schedule that I had initially laid out. That longevity is still possible and in progress, even though I got off track. Devotion allows me to restart today, this month, this quarter, and step back on track with a new episode coming out every other week. No shame or complicated, heavy feelings of failure necessary.
Speaker 1:As you heard at the beginning of the episode, a lot of life and big projects have been happening in the interim, and the most important commitment for me to honor is the greater devotion to my health and the promise to never drive myself into burnout again. This was my top priority as I navigated the past couple of months to prove to myself that honoring my health is truly my greatest devotion, especially when it comes to my relationship with work and my former tendency to overwork. The pull to overwork is slowly going away and the satisfaction with enough dependency on my capacity is becoming more and more settled within me. Remember, a way of working for the majority of my life until now is going to take time to unwind from, and that's okay. So, as I prepared for this episode, I started to look back at my life at times when devotion was more present than I realized. Remember that crew coach I mentioned earlier, the one who would end practices by saying we just did more work before 8 am than most people will do with their whole day. Well, he actually taught me more about devotion and grace than I realized at the time.
Speaker 1:Let's take it back to winter, my sophomore year of college. We were in winter training and I was at Drexel, so the whole calendar year was split into 10-week quarters instead of the traditional two-semester school year system. I was a nursing major, still thinking I'd become a pediatric oncology nurse, saving the world and saving all the oncology kids. So I had a nursing class that was six of my 15 winter quarter credits. I had a nursing class that was six of my 15 winter quarter credits. My parents were beginning their separation and I took on a lot of emotional stress that wasn't necessarily mine to carry. Boundaries were pretty foreign to me at this time. It's family, that's how you love them, right? Hmm? Big, big hugs to younger Carrie who thought that she always had to save the world. So my grades started to slip and I had to withdraw from my six-credit nursing course, which put me at 11 credits One credit under the minimum 12 required to be considered full-time and eligible to participate in any school activities.
Speaker 1:I was devastated. My whole life and schedule revolved around my crew team. I lived with my teammates. They were my core friends, core study group. They were everything and I failed them. I was so ashamed, so embarrassed. But what's done was done.
Speaker 1:I went in to talk to my coach with the biggest lump in my throat. I shared the news that I couldn't participate for the rest of the quarter. I expected him to layer on punishment and disappointment but was instead met with so much kindness and empathy. It's okay, kerr. I know how dedicated you are to the team and how much this is already weighing on you, he said as tears began to well in both of our eyes. You'll only miss a scrimmage race and then we'll be thrilled to have you back in the boat for spring training. What do you need from me now? How can I help with everything going on at home? I'll tell you that PGS wasn't always the most eloquent coach for pre-race pep talks, but he could speak to your heart when you needed someone to lighten your load. He made sure I connected with the team therapists and continued to check on me over the month. I wasn't able to practice. When the new quarter began and I was eligible to practice again, I was back in the boat for spring training, just like he said.
Speaker 1:I started in the bottom of our five boats and every couple of days moved up to the next boat. You make these boats too fast, walsh Coach would say. As I climbed into the next one, I learned the depth of how much my words could impact my team. That week we all just need someone to believe in us and tell us they do, in order to help unlock our highest potential as they do in order to help unlock our highest potential. That season my boat won the first women's gold medal at the Daville Regatta in school history. The team kept winning gold medals in the following years too. We helped break that glass ceiling for our team. It's one of the races that I'll remember for the rest of my life.
Speaker 1:I could have fallen completely apart when that withdrawal lost my spot on the team. My ego could have knocked me out completely. When I started in the bottom boat again, everything discipline told me proved that I was worthless because I wasn't following the rules perfectly. I could have completely quit the team and given up on my goals, on our shared goals. But devotion my coach highlighted my devotion for me, my devotion to the team, to the sport I so deeply loved, to the feeling of water rushing under my seat, to knowing my role as a coxswain. The eyes, ears and voice of the boat were powerful, were important. The eyes, ears and voice of the boat were powerful, were important. He never for a moment thought that one slip would drop me from the team. Devotion gave me a chance at redemption. Try again. Devotion said you know more now. You can do it this time. That spring became one of my favorite seasons in my crew career because I thought that I had lost the thing that I loved so much. But it was really just a pause.
Speaker 1:Can you think of something in your life you've had to pause, whether by choice or by not, but probably not, or haven't been able to pursue yet, but you know that you're devoted to it. Maybe it's a new offer you want to put together. Maybe you want to start a podcast or a YouTube channel, but haven't started yet. Or maybe it's one kind of session that you love and you want to go all in on, but you're hesitant because you're not sure if the money will still flow there. Or maybe you want to implement more systems in your business but you haven't found the time or you feel really intimidated by it. Or maybe you're thinking about some lifestyle shifts and you're layering all kinds of expectations onto yourself and feeling all kinds of resistance.
Speaker 1:I just want to offer the option to explore where this desire for change is coming from. Is it from your inner voice or something you feel like you're supposed to do? Resistance is neutral. It's information. It's asking for attention and time to explore what's underneath Resistance. So listen Free, write, talk it out with a trusted friend, or bring it to your next therapy session, or book a one-on-one call with me. Walking through these kinds of nuanced and delicate areas is some of the biggest business heartwork that I love to do. And then let the softer, more accepting, more loving option of devotion fill in and dream of what this offer idea adjustment could look like if it came to life. Just because it hasn't happened in an arbitrary timeline you probably pulled out of your booty doesn't mean that it won't happen.
Speaker 1:Reset the timer, begin again. What would it look like if you gave yourself a day devoted to figuring this thing out and slowly taking a line to action, three days a week, I bet you could make a lot more progress than you'd expect. And by giving yourself some incremental progress I'm talking baby, baby steps here you can start to decide if you want to continue with the momentum you're building after all, or if you actually want to shift to something a little different. Experience and action gives us data, data that we can test, track and tweak, and no matter what you decide, no matter how and when you begin to create progress, you're doing what's right for your life. I really believe that. Remember devotion is all about self-trust. I trust you. I hope you trust you too. So, as we do at the end of every episode, here are the key takeaways from today's episode.
Speaker 1:When thinking about the difference between discipline and devotion, devotion is the softer, more spacious version of commitment and dedication you can shift into. If discipline is starting to feel like a restrictive bully, as long as you're alive, you always have time to begin again. Get to know where your desires are coming from through free writing, meditation, talking it out. Then, at your own pace, begin to take aligned action. Start small. You're braver than you know. Call in support when you're stuck Phone a friend or a trusted mentor. I'm always honored when that trusted person gets to be me, but it doesn't have to be me. Just know that I'm always here for you. So, announcement-wise, one-on-one coaching books are open for the summer and the next round of In High Demand, my eight-week signature business coaching program, begins in September. Dm me for the deets and to stay in the loop.
Speaker 1:If you enjoyed the show, please be sure to subscribe, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. If you're not quite sure how to do that yet, all you have to do is search for the In High Alignment with Keri Walsh page, then click the plus or follow button in the upper right hand corner. From there you can click on the five stars and hit review to leave a little love note there. Thank you times a million for taking a couple extra steps to do this. It really changes the game for how much reach and potential lives we can impact on the podcast and as a community. You are the very, very best and I'm sending you my love from here. I hope you can feel it. Be sure to come back for the next episode as we uncover more cues and clues of what alignment feels like for you. Until then, I'm your host, keri Walsh, and remember to pause this week and feel into all the ways that you are creating a life in high alignment.