4 Isolation

The frustrating thing about self-limiting behaviors is that there are enough people who want to limit us in the first place—we should not be limiting ourselves with dysfunctional behavior. Isolation, which reached pandemic proportions during COVID, is another way we try to avoid the possibility of failure. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t work.

What do I mean by isolation? I have, unfortunately, isolated myself in certain job situations as a survival mechanism. Scared that a colleague, boss, or subordinate, might discover that I don’t have all the answers, that I don’t know what to do, or that I’m not perfect (note how perfectionism seems to keep creeping in), I isolate myself and pretend I know what I’m doing. I try to “fake it ‘till I make it,” but I’m not good at faking and I’m scared to death I’m not going to make it. I’m afraid to ask for help because it might make me appear weak or unqualified, so I struggle to do everything alone. Like the imposter syndrome, rather than ask for help, I live my career in terror that people will discover, I’m not as smart/good as everyone thinks I am, and if they get close to me, they will discover I’m a fake. The way I can continue this façade of having my act together when I don’t, is to not get close to people, isolate myself, and pretend to appear competent by not needing help from anyone. Or in the words of Brene Brown, I “armor up,” pretend I’m tough, and make it look like I can do it by myself a.k.a. the rugged individualist.

There is a real downside to isolation. First off, we were never created to work in isolation; we were made for community. It is not an accident that one of the most brutal forms of punishment is solitary confinement. Isolation is deadly to the mind, body, and spirit, as we learned during COVID and sheltering in place.

But there’s another issue at play, when we isolate ourselves, we pretend we’ve got this and are in control. And that may not be true, but we have no feedback to tell us otherwise. This can be limiting to our productivity and creativity (yikes! once again these self-limiting behaviors tend to blur together). It takes a lot of energy to be something you’re not. When we armor up and pretend to be tough and independent, we take our energy—which is a limited resource—and instead of using it to solve a problem or think creatively, we use it to protect ourselves. When a dear friend and colleague of mine came out as gay, his creativity, problem-solving skills, and career soared like never before. I wonder how much of his energy in the past had been spent on maintaining the status quo and once he wasn’t trying to be someone he wasn’t, he could use his energy in far more productive and creative ways.

In the very early years of my career, as a twenty-five-year-old college grad, I found myself as the sole woman manager in my corporate division, not an unusual situation for that time and industry. There were no women role models, no women mentors, and virtually no women higher ranking than me from whom I could learn or emulate. I was isolated through no fault of my own. However, in my efforts to fit in with the other managers (a.k.a. men) I attempted to pretend I was heartless and could be just as tough as a man if that’s what it took to advance my career. That didn’t last long. I’m not heartless; in fact, I care deeply about people. And I’m not tough; I am sensitive and can be easily wounded by mean words. I used my energy to isolate myself and pretend I knew what I was doing. And after a few years, exhausted from trying to be something I’m not, I quit.

Instead of being tough, the way I like to visualize strength now is like a strong backbone and a soft heart. My strong backbone keeps me upright and allows me to bounce back after setbacks or failures. My soft heart allows me to care. One of my favorite quotations comes from Chloe Zhao, an Asian-American film director and academy award winner. She sees her challenge as trying to “stay soft in an industry that wants to take that power away.” I like to think of it as having a strong backbone and a kind heart. Isolation makes it appear that we are in control, perfect, and know what we’re doing. But in reality, we are only pretending and isolating ourselves from good people.

Another way I fight isolation is by finding someone to mentor. I know, it sounds strange to ask you to find someone to mentor when the traditional mentor format is usually reversed; people ask you to mentor them. I’ve served as a mentor and mentee in a variety of instances, both formal and informal, and the relationship has worked OK. But the mentor/mentee relationships that stick in my mind as impactful are the ones when I subtly selected a bright, energetic, and enthusiastic student or new colleague to mentor. You don’t have to call it mentoring—I never did. I invited my chosen mentee for coffee, lunch, phone call, or walk. We hit it off, found lots to talk about and problems to solve, and in each case, kept meeting regularly for anywhere from a semester to years. In all cases, we still stay in touch.

Supposedly the mentee is the one who reaps the most rewards from the relationship but, at least it seems to me, the mentor benefits just as much. Helping someone always makes me feel better and I am continually shocked at how a little comment can have a big impact. Sometimes it seems like I’m hardly helping at all—doesn’t everyone know this? And yet, no, not everyone knows what seems obvious to me. Helping a younger colleague or student reminds me that I know more than I give myself credit for. Sharing my experiences and well-earned knowledge helps other people. Helping someone else helps us realize we are not alone and builds life-long relationships. Choosing someone to mentor is one of my favorite ways to avoid isolation.