You Know Exactly What to Do. So Why Don't You?
A conversation with Shannon on the Career Growth for Working Women podcast.
You know exactly what to do.
You still don't do it.
That gap — between what you know and what you actually do — is where I spend most of my days. Shannon and I sat with it for a whole episode, and I want to tell you what lives inside it.
It isn't a lack of information. You already have the information. You've read the books. You've been in the rooms. You could coach someone else through this in your sleep.
What sits in the gap is a story.
The stories run quietly
We carry stories about ourselves that we never chose and rarely question. Most of the time they aren't even true. They're something someone said, once, a long time ago — and we've been carrying it into today without stopping to ask: is this actually true about who I am?
In my practice, they tend to fall into three families.
Not good enough. Not smart enough, not strong enough, not whatever enough.
Not available to me. The promotion is available to others. The next thing is available to others. Just not to me.
Too different to connect. I'm too much of an outsider to belong here.
Here's the uncomfortable part. Each of these stories pays you something. If I believe I'm not good enough, I don't apply for the role that would expose me. I stay safe. I stay unseen. And because it keeps me safe, I keep holding on to it — even though it's costing me the thing I actually want.
Safe and stuck can look identical from the outside.
The day I couldn't do the thing I knew how to do
I spent 25 years in senior HR leadership. My last chapter was at Deloitte. My career was built on knowing exactly what to say in a room — who to hire, how to promote, how to have the hard conversation well.
Then my role ended. On someone else's terms.
And not long after, I sat in an interview and went completely blank. Not nervous. Blank. Twenty-five years of knowing precisely what to say, and I couldn't reach any of it.
That was the gap, showing up in my own life. All the knowledge in the world, and a story underneath it that had gone quiet and hard.
It's what turned me toward this work.
You don't have to feel ready first
Here's the sequence I shared with Shannon. A belief creates an emotion. The emotion creates an action. The action creates your life circumstances.
So you can work it from the top — change the belief, and the rest follows.
Or you can work it from the bottom — take the action before you believe it, and let the new experience rewire the story.
My honest advice? Do both at once. Rewire the belief and take the action anyway, even when you don't fully buy it yet. The two together compound — like interest. You stop waiting to feel ready, and you build the capacity to move while you move.
And you don't need a dramatic leap. I didn't go from a 2 to an 8 overnight. I went from a 2 to a 2.1. Then a 2.6. Small. Almost boring. Real.
What else we got into
Shannon asked good questions, so we covered a lot of ground:
The scale of "enough" — and why moving one point changes everything
The 7-out-of-10 life: a 10 on the outside, a 7 on the inside, lived quietly for years
Building 10-out-of-10 moments instead of chasing a 10-out-of-10 life
Why your job is a transaction — and what happens when you forget it
Getting pigeonholed, and when growth means changing your environment
What being laid off taught me about respect
One reframe before you go
Transforming yourself transforms the people around you too. The way you show up, the way you're seen, the way you connect — it shifts when you do.
Some rooms will adjust to the new you. Some won't, because the old you served them. That's information, not failure. And you're allowed to go find the room that fits who you're becoming.
Start small. One point on the scale. One 10-out-of-10 moment today, on purpose.
You've earned that.
🎧 Listen to my full conversation with Shannon on the Career Growth for Working Women podcast: https://youtu.be/3bGnNdO3g3I
Come say hi after — I'd love to know your number.
Hypnotically yours, Janylène xo
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