A Big Question To Ask Yourself & Season Two Finale!
In this Season 2 wrap-up, Paula takes a moment to reflect on some of her favorite and most popular episodes, such as "Ep. 16: Unpacking Agency," "Ep. 19: Three Step Process to Stop Ruminating" and "Ep. 26: Do An Expectations Audit."
As Paula prepares for her summer activities, a time she usually spends reflecting, reading, and planning for the future, she had a thought-provoking conversation with a friend that led to a deeper question. The question she poses to herself and her listeners is: What do you want your contribution to be?
Consider this question in any given moment—how do you want to contribute to your relationships? Do you aim to offer grace, understanding, or judgment? What about in your work or within your family dynamics?
Is your current contribution aligned with your intentions?
As she concludes Season 2, Paula leaves us pondering this question: What do you want your contribution to be, both in the short term and long term?
Sometimes our contribution involves giving space—space for others to grow. And sometimes, the most meaningful contribution is choosing not to intervene.
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Episode Transcript:
A Big Question To Ask Yourself & Season Two Finale!
:: This transcript was generated automatically - please forgive typos. ::
[00:00:00] Welcome to today's episode of Beyond Neutral. So today is a wrap up episode, closing out season two. So season two started out, we talked about agency and agency being the belief that you and the recognition that you have the ability to impact your experiences. A lot of things that we don't have control over in our lives, no question about that, but how we experience something[00:01:00]
[00:01:00] we do have control over through our actions, through our thoughts, through our mindset, through, through all the things that we talked about, in this in and many more of the things besides what we've talked about here are the things that, Kind of provide agency for us, go into our ability to have agency in any, situation.
[00:01:21] So talked a lot about that, talked about emotions and how emotions, what they're really designed for, you know, humans are emotional. We all experience them. And it's a question of our, how attuned we are to what those are and the impact of them, what they're designed to do in the first place and how Sometimes overusing them or over accessing them, I would say too easily accessing them can, impact us in ways that maybe we are not aware of.
[00:01:52] And so just becoming incredibly aware of the emotions that we're experiencing and the power that they have. Both [00:02:00] the wonderful positive power that they have, as well as how they can, you know, create situations where we get stuck in fear or we ruminate and how to get ourselves out of that. Because all of those things are things that can get in the way of our ability to really have agency and move ourselves forward.
[00:02:17] So talked a lot about that. And talked also about our assumptions and our expectations of ourselves and how those can be the very things that keep us from moving forward and can be the things that are the little voices in our head that when we're trying to change or we're trying to evolve that kind of step up and hold us back.
[00:02:40] So that was a lot about what this season was centered around and so I hope that you took some tidbits from that and that they were helpful and you, found them useful. I know I had so many people reach out to me And let me know that they did and we're appreciative of many of the topics that, that I talked about this [00:03:00] season.
[00:03:00] So thank you for that. And if there are any others that come up that you'd like to explore in the future, I'd love to hear from you in the meantime. Today, I just want to bring forth this conversation that I had with a friend that I thought was such an interesting perspective and has gotten me really thinking about this question.
[00:03:19] And that is the question of contribution. And specifically in any given situation, what do you want your contribution to be and how impactful it can be to ask yourself that question or to think about that question. And so that can be in a, you know, a situation that just comes up in the moment, and it can be in a larger situation or a larger
[00:03:45] moment that we might be involved in in our lives. It can be around our jobs. It can be about a greater cause. It could be a question that you ask yourself in relationship. What do you want to contribute? What do you want to contribute in the moment? What [00:04:00] do you want to contribute in the bigger picture?
[00:04:02] What do you want your contribution to? be, and ever since I had this conversation with a friend about that concept, I've really been thinking about it and thinking about what a great question that is to ask ourselves in any given moment of something that we're involved in. What do you want to contribute?
[00:04:26] What do you want your contribution to be? Think about how that might impact a challenge that you're having in a relationship. What do you want to contribute to that? How do you want to contribute to that challenge? Do you want to turn the heat up on it? Do you want to contribute grace? Do you want to contribute understanding?
[00:04:48] Do you want to contribute compassion? Do you want to contribute judgment? Kind of an interesting question, right? What do you want to contribute? [00:05:00] In your work, what do you actually want your contribution to be? And is it what you're giving it right now? What do you want your contribution to be to your family?
[00:05:12] Is it what you're actually giving it right now? And what do you need to do to close the gap between what you want your contribution to be and what your contribution actually is? very much. It's a really interesting question, and I'm so grateful for my friend for triggering this in my brain, and just that word stuck with me.
[00:05:35] And so, as I wrap up Season 2, it's the question I want to leave you with, and it's the question that I am going to use as a guiding thought. As I go into kind of this next couple of months, which I always use as a time to read and a time to reflect and a time to learn and kind of figure out, you [00:06:00] know, what I want the summer to be for me and how I want to experience that.
[00:06:04] I also want to really own that question of what I want my contribution to be. Both in the short term as well as in the bigger picture. So for this season, I hope that my contribution, because my desire has been to contribute insight to people in what gets them stuck and hopefully to provide ideas on ways to get unstuck.
[00:06:28] So that has been my contribution through this podcast, or that's what I've wanted my contribution to be through this podcast. But now I want to ask that question in a very different way in very different, very specific situations that I'm in and have that on the forefront of my mind when I'm in a situation.
[00:06:47] What do I want my contribution to be? And with that, do you actually need to make one? Because sometimes I think we believe we do. And actually the contribution that we [00:07:00] could make that would be most beneficial to a situation is space, space for others to be able to do what they need to do, space for others to grow.
[00:07:12] Maybe that's the contribution sometimes. Maybe sometimes the contribution is not to make one. Just a thought. Anyway, that is my, that's how I want to leave this season. I want to leave it with that question. And hopefully some tidbits that helped you get, from where you are now to where you want to get to.
[00:07:32] So in the meantime, thank you for being here. This is a wrap up. I appreciate you and I appreciate your support and I look forward to continuing to do so when I'm back next time. In the meantime, keep driving down that road and take care. Thank you. Bye. Bye. [00:08:00]
This podcast was produced by The Willoughby Co.