Feeling stuck or passed over, yet knowing that you can achieve more? Feeling powerless or without choices, yet you are doing it all “right”? Is fear and doubt holding you back even as you try to rise above?
Kimberly Napier will share her own personal, powerful wake-up experience while a leader in corporate America. Now coach to powerhouse women in Boston as well as around the globe, she is passionate about helping women rise above negative inner dialogue, become their own biggest advocate, and find resilience and happiness. Learn from Kimberly’s interactions with hundreds of women as a professional coach.
Come join the WEST community for an exercise-filled evening and walk away with new techniques and tools to achieve who you want to be.
Learn more in our interview with Kimberly below.
Why did you choose to focus on resiliency and living fully in your power for your upcoming WEST workshop?
As a leader in the workplace and in life, resiliency is more important than ever today. It’s critical to be able to bounce back and thrive in uncertain times while navigating unexpected changes. Resilience is a skill you can learn and unleash while watching it make an impact on your life and career. It can even help you get through an average day. Throughout the day, we are constantly faced with situations that call on us to be resilient, and rise above our emotional triggers and responses. Even our commute to work can be challenging -- late trains, traffic, etc. How we respond is key. Do we fly off the handle and allow stress to flood our minds and bodies or do we use resiliency, stay in our power and rise above the flood of adrenalin and emotions that bombard us in the moment. If we are not mindful, we can easily give our power away during our days by over-committing, hiding our true voices or not asking for help out of the fear that we need to be perfect and have all the answers. The end result is we feel overwhelmed, stressed or even burned out. Learning to be mindful and live in your power is not about having power over others, but rather about not shrinking or giving your power away to others or situations in lieu of focusing on where you are going, what you want and who you want to be. When we fully live and lead in our power, we are living and thriving in our authenticity. This is possible at work and at home.
What tips would you give our readers who sometimes fall victim to self-doubt?
First of all, welcome to the club. It’s normal and happens to all of us. Sadly, self-doubt is also what holds us back in our careers and in our lives. Learning how to rise above your self-doubt and inner critic is essential to having a fulfilling life and career. The key is learning how to manage it. Our self-doubt is sneaky, but it is also predictable. When we learn how to recognize the patterns, we can start to disrupt it and choose where we want to focus our attention. When we become masters of our focus, our self-doubt loses its power. In our time together, we will begin to work on shoving self-doubt aside. I will lead the women through exercises to help them create a new focus for our thoughts and also reframe the stories we tell ourselves. I will remove the doubt and elevate their self-perception and successes. In the meantime, my tip for right now is to start developing an awareness of when you “negative talk” or when the self-doubt shows up. Once you recognize your own patterns, you can break them. Remember that awareness is the first step to being more mindful.
What's the best piece of career advice anyone ever gave you?
This is one for all the moms out there. A few years ago, I was faced with a very difficult choice. I was asked to present at a major customer meeting. Hint: the customer was one that begins with a Big W. The situation was a strategic summit and I would be representing my organization, which was unusual and a major honor for someone at my level. I was so excited, but then felt that sinking in my stomach. The meeting was the same day my youngest would start kindergarten. It was the ultimate Catch-22: my head was yelling I needed to be at that meeting while my heart was with my little girl. Either way, I had to let someone down. Making matters worse was the fact I had a brand new boss I needed to impress. If I pulled out of the summit what would he think of me? Neither choice seemed ideal, but then my boss made it easy for me. “You need to decide what to do based on who it matters the most to a year from now,” he told me. A year later, I knew it wouldn’t matter if I went to Walmart for my company, but it would matter to a certain little girl. Suddenly, the choice seemed so simple and my body relaxed. I even allowed myself to connect to this feeling while I put it all in perspective. His advice to go to my childhood’s milestone day at school was so simple and liberating. I realized that I had put most of the extra pressure on myself in that moment. My fears began to paralyze me. When I slowed down and checked in with myself while asking that simple question, the choice was clear.
Workshop Details
Date and Time: April 12, 2017, 6-8:30 pm
Cost: $35 for members and $55 for non-members (includes a light dinner)
Location: Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, 415 Main Street, Cambridge, MA 02142
