For ten years, tenderly serving patients matched her deep passion. Going to work each day was a joy. Her employers rewarded her with promotions. Then, she got her first bad boss. Things were about to change for Toie Martin. She can laugh about it now, but at the time change felt scary.
Have you ever felt stuck in your job? What about relationships going off course no matter how hard you try? In my case, what about the weight I lose and then regain? I wanted to know more from Toie about creating lasting change.
Stuck?
Toie understand how frustrating it is to love what you do but feel stuck. Circumstances can seem beyond your control.
“I loved everything about nursing.” she says, but circumstances pressured her in unhealthy ways. “For the first time it felt more about business than about the patient. About that time I got my first bad boss, something I’d never had before.”
A Leap of Faith
She was the director of nursing. She looked around for a different position, eager to change anything to make her situation more tolerable, but realized her heart was not leading her that direction.
Instead, she quit her job.
“I took a huge leap of faith—a mid-life-crisis leap of faith, “ she laughs. “An awakening is what it originally was, followed by a melt down.” She followed her heart, but her head had different ideas. “You realize, ‘Oh my gosh, what have I done?’”
Instead of panicking, she began to ponder what was next for her. What were her possibilities? (For more on finding your passion and purpose, click here.)
“I knew the door had closed behind me,” she recounts, “I knew there was a door in front of me. But I had no idea what it was, where it was. I just knew it was important. That’s where I started.” She got her MBA while giving herself time to contemplate.
Creating Positive Change?
Toie reentered her career with a fresh perspective. Her nursing background and business training allowed her to begin to work with multimillion dollar companies. Her specialty was helping them create positive change.
“My original first goal was to help organizations create change better. It seemed easy enough,” she reports, but experience soon taught her a valuable lesson. “The truth is organizations don’t change very well at all. Most change fails.” She noticed employees were often left out of the process. (For great ideas about high impact conversations, click here.)
“In my heart, being a nurse, all I could think about was these employees are going home. They have families to take care of,” she says, remembering how leaders would foist change on unsuspecting employees. “If work is not happy, and it’s crazy, then that’s not great for any family.”
I asked Toie if she found churches slow to change, slow to consider how their programs are impacting their members’ family time. (You can sign up here to discover ways to influence your family, church, and community or to catch our free weekly interviews with experts.)
“Its chronic across the board. Work. Schools. Everything,” she answered.
Women Taking Care of Others
One thing I know from experience, as women we often fail to address pressure points until we run out of emotional energy. We get burned out and we lose it. Yep, this is me sharing personal frailties.
“We get so busy taking care of our families and our careers and we get on autopilot,” Toie says. “We’re in it (our job or life) for a while before we realize that I don’t know if this is exactly what I want to be doing.” (For some excellent ways to take care of yourself before you lose it, click here.)
Positive Change is Possible
Her company spent thousands of dollars training her. She became an expert in programs like Lean Six Sigma, for instance, a system for introducing change used by 100% of Fortune 500 companies, according to Toie.
“The craziest thing I realized was there’s actually only five steps to change,” she reports. “While I was leading these massive organizational changes, I realized those five steps were the same five steps I needed to create change in my life.”
Kindergartener to CEO: Change is the Same Process
“It doesn’t matter if you’re in kindergarten learning this or if you’re the CEO of a company,” she says, breaking the five steps into two types of skill sets. “You have to get your thoughts in the right place first, then you gotta to get your actions in the right place.”
One of her favorite places to create change is at the bedside of aging patients who need encouragement for themselves and their families. (For help with caregiving, click here. To read about some of the challenges we faced as my parents aged, click here.)
“If you’re a teacher and you’re working with a student or you’re a nurse—if you’re working with people—then you’re helping them improve their performance and productivity. You create what comes next.”
Our thoughts rely on our emotional intelligence, creating the first three steps to change. Our actions comprise a set of basic administrative skills we generally hone in business. Next week, Toie gets specific about all five steps and what they mean for positive change in our lives.
Up Next:
Look for Toie’s five steps to positive change in next week’s blog. You’re going to love what she shares. (To find her book, Living Your Life with Possibilities: Five Practical Steps to Leading Yourself and Others with Confidence, Courage, and Grace, click here.)
May we pray together?
Father, today we come to You with a request. Could You help us figure out the direction we want to go with our life and career? We get so busy taking care of everyone around us. Give us a quiet moment to contemplate the plans you have for this dear one. Teach us to listen to our hearts as we make positive changes. Help us walk in the ways that honor You. In Jesus’s name we pray. Amen.
We LOVE to hear from YOU!
What dream has been resurfacing in you heart? How could you schedule time to contemplate your future? Who has God put in your life to encourage you to dream big for positive change?
Coming Soon
My first book releases this month, so I’m really pumped! Thank you to all my champion prayer warriors! You can get your copy of The Well: The Art of Drawing Out Authentic Conversations by contacting me. It makes a super Mother’s Day gift. Hint, hint.
I’m also looking forward to upcoming speaking events. To find out more, just leave me a comment or sign up for my blog, here. Watch here for a big thank you to all who endorsed the book pre-publication. I am so grateful!
Cathy Krafve, Columnist, Speaker, Blogger, Podcaster, and Christian Writer, invites your stories, ideas, and questions at CathyKrafve.com. Truth with a Texas Twang.
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