Go Ahead. Have Your Pity Party.

Give your emotions five minutes. Scream, cry, breathe. Then name one change and take one step. Feel it fully. Carry on.

This short talk starts with me reading a short wake up call. Then I go off-script with raw coaching, tough love, and challenges that move you into action.

Transcript

Spark 266.

Go ahead,

Have your pity party.

I was in the car when I opened the email.

It was another no.

My grip tightened on the wheel.

I let it rip.

One raw,

Ugly scream.

Then tears.

The kind that shake your ribs.

Then I set my phone timer for five minutes.

And I let myself have a full-blown pity party.

I went all out.

I screamed the truth out loud.

This hurts.

I hate this.

I worked hard.

When the timer ended,

I let out a long sigh.

I felt cleared.

And I whispered,

Keep going Cara,

But change one thing.

When I got back to my laptop,

I did.

I rewrote the offer.

I went even bigger.

And put a new date on the board.

Next time you meet rejection,

Do the same.

Scream,

Cry,

Shake.

Five minutes.

Go all in.

Then dry your tears.

Let out a sigh.

Name one change.

And take one step.

The pity party is over.

And your power is back on.

Yeah,

That happened to me just last week.

And I really felt called to write about it.

Welcome to Unplugged.

I'm Cara Bradley.

I don't often say this out loud,

But I swallow disappointment.

I think I'm tough enough to just swallow it and move on.

And I meet with a lot of disappointment,

To be honest with you.

We all do.

I put myself out there constantly.

Pitching,

Promoting,

Sharing.

And there's a lot that I shoved down and I didn't realize that until last week when I got that no.

And I sat in my car and I allowed myself for one of the only times in my life,

To be honest,

I allowed myself to just scream.

I allowed myself to feel the disappointment,

The frustration of always trying,

Trying,

Trying,

And so often meeting with no's.

And listen,

If you're going to risk in life,

If you're going to really push edges and boundaries and seek higher and do more and expect more from yourself,

You're going to meet with a lot of disappointment.

And I do.

And like I said,

I've often shoved it down,

But for some reason I allowed myself a pity party and I knew it when I was doing it.

I was like,

Yep,

This is it.

Here I am.

Full blown.

Let it rip,

Girl.

And I did.

I looked at the clock on my,

On my car and I said,

All right,

Give yourself a couple of minutes and then get over it and get over yourself.

And it felt good.

It felt good to actually admit the disappointment and the hurt,

The frustration and the anger and the,

Oh,

It's,

You know,

It goes beyond words for a lot of it.

And so I wanted to share this with you because so often we feel,

And I have felt like we got to tough it out,

Like just move on right away,

You know,

But when you're really putting yourself on the line day in and day out,

When you're pushing,

When you're challenging yourself and you continuously meet with frustration and disappointment,

You got to let the steam out of the kettle,

You know,

You've got to let it go.

And I'm realizing that more and more.

It's okay.

It's okay to feel this way,

But don't feel that way for too long because that's not helpful either.

So I came home and I looked at my proposal and I rewrote it and I was like,

You know what?

I'm just going to go even bigger.

Let's be even bolder here because obviously what I did before didn't work.

So I'm asking you to do the same today.

You know,

What is that thing that you have been either pushing down and shoving down and not admitting to yourself?

What is it that thing that you're working hard to do,

But not getting results?

You know,

Allow yourself to bask in the emotion of it all and then shake it out,

But give yourself enough time,

My friend,

Not too much time,

But give yourself enough time and then shake it out.

Then go ahead and name what needs to change or do the thing to move it in a different direction,

To take a different approach,

To go bigger.

Right?

We've got to allow ourselves a pity party and you know,

We've got to allow other people the pity party as well,

Whether it be your kids or partner or a colleague,

Maybe sometimes,

And I'm just coming up with this.

We've got to allow each other a few minutes to have a pity party and to really bear witness to that in another is a great gift you can give to them as well.

Yeah.

Pity party,

Huh?

And then we move on and then the power is back on,

Right?

We move on chin held high onward we go.

So we'll see what happens when I get a response next time,

But now I know what to do.

I know,

I know what to allow myself to go through if needed.

If that feeling is emerging.