Episode 9. Thoughts are Optional: How Self-Coaching Changes Everything in Your Career
"Thoughts are optional. The story you are layering onto your career right now is something you get to choose."
Welcome to a new episode of Women Who Ship, the podcast for women in tech who are tired of proving themselves in rooms they have already earned a place in and are ready to lead like they know it. In this episode, I'm opening up about a deeply personal chapter from my career: what I used to call my "Year of Rejection."
Five years ago, I was dreaming of landing a Product or Program Management role at a major tech company. I spent years searching, getting deep into interviews, even interviewing with VPs, only to repeatedly hear "no." At the exact same time, I was dealing with a challenging situation at my day job where a colleague was actively trying to alienate me. In my mind, those rejections felt like scientific proof that I wasn't good enough, that I'd never land my dream job, and that people just didn't like me very much.
In this episode, we unpack why the sentence running in your head is often the single biggest barrier to your career advancement, and how to break out of the Hopelessness Loop:
Clean Disappointment vs. Dirty Suffering: Why a job rejection or a difficult meeting is just clean disappointment, but layering on "I'm not good enough" creates dirty suffering that sabotages your next interview.
Rejection as Data, Not Valuation: Why a "no" is simply market data about a role's fit or timing, never a verdict on your capability or human worth.
The 3-Step Self-Coaching Toolkit: How to use the self-coaching model to separate facts from stories, spot your blind spots using a coaching mirror, and climb the Thought Ladder.
My Real 10% Better Ladder Thought: The exact sentence that allowed my shoulders to drop and helped me land my dream tech job within just a few months.
Your next steps:
Run a 15-Minute Self-Coaching Audit: Pick one recent disappointment at work and write down the neutral circumstance (what a video camera recorded).
Identify the Story: Catch the sentence your brain offered and notice the feeling it’s creating.
Find Your 10% Better Thought: Practice a believable ladder thought like "Oh well, that didn't work out, but there are other opportunities out there for me."
Free Resource Mentioned: Stop doing invisible glue work in silence! Download my free 5-step playbook Get Recognized at Work: 5 Steps to Document and Show Your Impact at go.coachsarahwilliams.com/recognition.
Subscribe & Share: If this episode resonated with you, share it with another brilliant woman in tech who needs a reminder that her worth isn't up for debate. Hit subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify so you never miss an episode!
Let's go ship some good stuff together.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this episode are those of the host and guest alone and do not reflect the views of their respective employers.
Theme Music: The Success by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/ Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
