Episode 203. The one time you should stay in your own lane
In this episode, let’s go deeper into the concept of "staying in your own lane," building on last week's discussion about its potential harm when imposed on others. We’ll explore the nuanced perspective of when it's appropriate to embrace this mentality, particularly in the context of personal growth and innovation.
Nuanced Perspective:
I acknowledge the gray areas, recognizing both the dangers of projecting "stay in your own lane" onto others and its value in fostering authenticity and innovation. It's crucial to resist blindly conforming to industry norms while carving out our own paths authentically, especially when we see alternative, more efficient approaches.
Examples and Insights:
Drawing from my time in the doula industry, I illustrate the importance of courage and innovation in breaking away from conventional practices. From there, I expand the discussion to motherhood, where societal expectations often butt heads with our own unique needs. Goal: flex your discernment and create your own realities.
Navigating Industries:
I share personal reflections on removing myself from toxic environments and cultivating a tailored approach to business and life, particularly along my entrepreneurial journey. Heavy on maintaining focus amidst industry noise and controversies, and staying true to our missions and values.
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Transcript:
If you listened to episode 202 from last week, I talked about when it can be problematic and harmful to tell somebody to stay in their own lane. And throughout this last week, since I published the episode, I've really been thinking a lot about what it means to stay in your own lane. And I want to add a bit to this conversation.
I want to add a nuance, add a layer When is the right time to stay in your own lane? Because there actually is a right time. And I should preface this with, I am somebody who has a hard time seeing most things as black or white. I always can see the gray.
And in this particular conversation, when it comes to staying in your own lane, yes, , I think it can be harmful to tell other individuals or to project that onto someone else that they should stay in their own lanes when it comes to their artistic work or their expressions, the way that they do their work in the world, whatever that is.
But when you are looking at yourself, when you're creating your own life, when you are cultivating, Your experience and working on being fully expressed as an individual, whether that's in your business or in your parenting experience or your exercise routine, whatever it is, whatever department of life.
I think sometimes it can be really helpful to stay in your own lane, particularly when there's loud noise and people around you who tried to do the projection, who perhaps in your industry are telling you this should be done this way, . And you are somebody who you can see something different or you recognize that there's another option out there.
There's something else that's more efficient. There's something else that isn't being done the way that everybody else in a particular industry, for example, is doing it. If you were staying in that lane and doing things the way everybody else did them, then that is really a detriment to the people who are served by your industry. As an entrepreneur, who's working on being fully expressed, carve out your own lane.
It helps you to tune out the noise
and effectively create your own lane. Because you're not supposed to do everything the way everybody else in your industry. Does it, you don't have to do it that way unless it vibes with you, unless it feels correct. Let's look at the doula industry. For example, for a long time, the accepted way of doing doula work was two prenatals, maybe phone support or email support, and then being at the birth.
And possibly one followup visit. Right. But I have been working with. Doulas for a long time and other people, right? People in other industries that are like, you know what? That just doesn't feel correct to me. That doesn't fit. Even when I first got into the industry, I pretty early on knew that being at births was not going to be the thing for me.
I wanted virtual pregnancy coaching, virtual doula, digital doula support. And the industry for a long time before 2020 was like, No, no, no, no, no, no, that's not how we do this. It was really hard for me to find people who were doing something similar to see if it was possible. So had I stayed in the lanes of the doula industry, like within those parameters, perhaps I would have never explored digital doulaing or virtual childbirth education.
Of course, then comes 2020 and everybody went virtual.
So I'm reading this book on creativity and I can't remember the name of it right now. I believe it's by a man named Rick Rubin I'm listening to it on audio., it's all about creativity, right?
And so there's a section of the book, a chapter where he talks about innovation and how. Important the innovators are to any given category of life, any industry, because when somebody new to the industry comes in, they create innovation. They come with a fresh set of eyes. They don't have years and years of conditioning in that particular industry that they come to the table with.
They walk in with a fresh set of eyes and a passion, and they realize pretty quickly something that could be done more efficiently, something that could be done differently for certain people who operate in the world in different ways. Right? So , in my example, when I came into the birth industry, I was brand new.
I had no experience and I do think that that helped me feel more confident, allowing myself to be innovative and realizing what would work for me and then having the courage to do it that way, because a lot of the industry really was not very supportive of that at the time.
And so by doing that, There were a lot of people still who would message me or DM me privately like, Hey, I actually think I need to do this virtually as well. Can you help me? And that was really all the people who were in my programs from 2019 until early 2020 when everybody started to go virtual.
But for that, let's say little over a year period. There were a lot of people who reached out to me for various reasons. Why virtual support was going to be something they needed to do, whether they were caring for somebody in their home who has medical stuff going on, whether they are an introvert or some of them who have a particular disability and it makes it really tricky for them to be at a birth for long hours and actually impossible for some,
and yet the underlying common theme among almost all of these individuals was a deep passion for the work.
So in situations like this, I do think it can be really helpful to have Stay in your own lane, have the courage to be an innovator and carve out a new lane. Let's go back and look at Beyonce. For example, it doesn't matter if you like her or not, that's fine. But I think we can all agree that she has created her own lane.
Now, I want to take you to another angle of this conversation , and that is knowing when the right time is to put the blinders on and stay in your own lane. And this is a tricky conversation, but it applies in every industry, in every department of life, in motherhood.
We can get so hung up on and pick up so many beliefs. And, uh, Allow ourselves to be conditioned to the way it's done in that particular department. Let's say motherhood, for example, we look around and there's a, Generally accepted by society way of doing motherhood and only recently are we starting to hear a lot of women, a lot of mothers speak out and say, actually, I'm going to do it this way.
. And these are the people who are learning when it is the correct time to stay in their own lane, because perhaps the way that everybody else is doing it is not correct for me.
And what's happening is that more and more women, more and more individuals are. Realizing their sovereignty, are deconditioning and are effectively putting on the blinders. Not because we want to be ignorant because that is different, right? We're not ignorant to what's going on in the world, but we put the blinders on because we want to live in and create our own realities.
It's beautiful here.
And you may know what I'm talking about if you've ever been around a different group of mothers or a different group of parents that you're not usually around, people who you wouldn't necessarily invite into your home, maybe you are at a new park at a different park in another part of town and there's all these different parents around that you're not usually around and they talk and they start talking to you and you hear different things about their lives or the way they're engaging with their children or, , just different choices that they make as a mother and, um, And the way I navigate something like this is number one, I am aware and discerning of what I am allowing into my field and what I'm going to allow to stay with them.
I do not take on their beliefs.
I'm aware, right? So I'm not ignorant. I'm aware of what's happening, but I'm staying in my own lane. I am continuing to engage with and raise and talk to you.
My children, the way that feels good to me, regardless of what the noise is around me.
And earlier on in my motherhood journey, part of this process for me, I should say, was I didn't have the level of discernment that I do now. , it was really easy for me to pick up others beliefs . And I was. I was picking up everything from TV, from movies, from shows, from moms that I knew in real life, from other parents at the kids school, from parks, from all the places that you go as a mother and you're around other parents.
, it felt like that was how it was supposed to be done because that was the generally accepted rules of motherhood in society. Example. Mommy needs wine, right?
It's been almost five years since I've had a glass of wine or any alcohol. And before I made the decision to take a break from alcohol, And then I just never have gone back because I don't really care to, I don't miss it, but before I made that decision, it was a really big thing in my head of like, oh my gosh, after a long, hard day, after a long weekend with the kids, after all of these trying, stretching, emotional moments, um, I would subscribe to that old story of mommy needs wine.
You know, mommy's sippy cup is a wine glass. And it wasn't even that I drank a lot of wine. , at that point, I was only having a couple of glasses a week, usually on the days that were the most challenging, because I thought that that was generally the accepted thing. But when I took a look in the mirror, it was like, wait, do I even enjoy this?
Do I even like this? No, actually having even one glass of wine, Having a child that is not a great sleeper makes me feel like double, you know, what in the morning, like I felt like double in the morning and it wasn't even worth it. So I challenged that societal conditioning of like, do I actually need a glass of wine or who is it benefiting for all the parents, mothers of the United States?
I don't know about other countries and I can't speak for the rest of the world, but I can speak for what's generally accepted here is that mommy needs a glass of wine. Like who benefits from this? Is it me? No, not anymore. So why am I doing this? And so that's an example of.
allowing myself To be very aware of what's going on, be discerning of what do I want? What do I not want and deconditioning and taking off that program and staying in my own lane, because looking around, , a lot of moms that I know drink a lot of wine and Hey, I do not care. It is no judge. Do you babe, drink, whatever you want to drink.
I'm not your fun police.
And having said that, I can't tell you how many times in the last five years when I happen to mention at a dinner, at a party, at any type of social event that I want a glass of water or that I actually don't drink, I can't tell you how many times I've been asked why, and that's okay.
I mean, people are curious, but sometimes it definitely feels like I'm an outsider.
And this was one of those moments, through the lens of motherhood, where I felt like I had to cultivate the courage to carve out my own lane. I mean, obviously I'm not the very first mother in the world to go sans alcohol.
But for me, in removing a lot of the things that didn't feel correct to me, Eliminating alcohol was one of those things.
It started with removing alcohol and then hormonal birth control, and then getting rid of my flat iron and stopping straightening my hair and then getting rid of my breast implants and going through explant surgery.
So let's look at staying in your own lane, putting the blinders on when it comes to business and whatever given industry you're in. Think it's safe to say that most of us who have an entrepreneurial spirit might find ourselves associating with a certain industry, right? The industry, whether it's the healing industry or the nutrition industry, fitness industry, the doula industry, and the birth industry,
whatever industry you're in, even though we live in a huge world, sometimes when you're in the industry, it can feel like a actually very small world. And there can be a lot of stuff that goes on.
And I can tell you that that was one of the things that really turned me off about being in the birth industry was the amount of stuff that was going on. . I was in a lot of doula groups a few years back and I even hosted my own group for a very long time. My group didn't have a lot of this stuff going on because I knew what I was available for.
I knew what the group was available for and the people who came in. I felt like we all were aligned and we were a match in that way. But when I would go into other Doula groups and see the conversations and see the arguing and see the level of, , consciousness that a lot of people are at, and this is not saying that these are bad individuals or they're lesser than anybody.
It's just that that's where they're at. Those are the kinds of conversations and arguments that they are having right now. And I just did not feel like that was helpful or supportive for me in the life and business that I'm creating. And it wasn't supportive for the industry at large, to be honest.
So I removed myself from, I don't think I'm in hardly any, if any doula groups anymore. And I started to carve out my own lane and put the blinders on. Now there are certain things that came into my awareness,
but if I heard of something or I heard through the grapevine about some arguments that were happening, I would not I didn't go digging further. I just allowed it to come in and leave. And I continued to stay in my own lane because I have a job to do. I have a mission to get forward and I have people, real people who I'm here to help.
And it does not benefit me. It does not benefit my people for me to allow all of that noise and all of that stuff in.
So I choose to stay in my own lane. I choose to know what I'm available for. I use my discernment so my final advice for you is know, when it is the correct time for you to stay in your own lane and create your life the way that you want to create it, staying focused on your mission on your work and on the impact that you are here to have in the world.
Cause you're going to do it differently than everybody else in the industry. I mother differently than every single mother out there in the world. Yes, there are some common themes that many of us share, but none of us are exactly the same. I do my work differently than everybody else in the world. And all of it is my own .
Medicine. It's medicine that I provide to people. I'm here to guide and to help and to support in this life. Some of them are my children. Some of them are people listening to this show. Some of them are my clients. Point being, I have to stay in my own lane in order to do that as authentically as possible.
And listen, I'm not going to lie. If that makes you feel really uncomfortable at. what people might think, or what people might say, If you choose to do things your own way, I hear you because early on, , I had to cultivate the courage to live like this, to do my work like this, to make decisions that support me, even if it lets people down.
And if you ever need to borrow some of this courage, by all means, I am here.
I hope you have an amazing week and I'll see you soon.