Stop Settling!: You Were Designed for Greatness

By Charlene Harry

STOP SETTLING is the book you've been waiting for if you're tired of feeling unseen, unheard or unfulfilled and have let your career ambitions slip through your fingers. It's the essential read for leaders who've paused their quest for advancement and need guidance to reignite their passions. In a world where it's all too easy to stifle your des

• Language: English
• Publisher: CHARLENE HARRY
• Release date: May 11, 2024
• ISBN: 9798869371706

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Stop Settling!

You Were Designed for Greatness

Charlene Harry

Copyright © 2024

All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or used in any manner, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the copywriter owner, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review and certain noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. To request permission, contact the copyright holder, addressed Attention: Permission to Reproduce Stop Settling at

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Stop Settling

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DISCLAIMER

The information and advice contained in this book are based on my research and my personal and professional experiences.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to all those looking to make an impact and contribute to a solution as an employee or business owner but do not feel seen, heard, and valued. Let it be known that you can reach your desires as long as you embrace your feelings, immerse yourself in personal development, and evolve through kindness.

Acknowledgment

I would like to acknowledge my immediate family for supporting me throughout my career and life. To my husband, who enlightened me to realize no job could ever pay me what I was worth. To my mother, who has always been my biggest supporter, encouraging me to believe in myself and reminding me that I can achieve anything I set my mind to. To my grandmother, who has taught me that a little kindness goes a long way. I am also grateful for my extended family and friends who understand that It takes a village to raise a child. Their influence has carved me into the woman I am today — a woman who will never settle for anything less than greatness.

Preface

Life is like a clock. No matter how much you try to slow down or ignore it, the needles keep ticking, explaining how time never stops for anyone. Much like a clock, life is constantly in motion, only stopping when it runs out of battery or perhaps life years. You might not understand it, but with every hour, you are losing something – a little fragment of the past or a part of yourself that you could have used for a better good. So why not avail yourself of all these opportunities and walk toward progression?

In this slippery scope of our time existence, losing balance and getting distracted from the original track is quite easy. No matter what you are doing or where you are heading, certain things like doubts, fears, stress, anxiety, and nervousness always get in the way and stop you from achieving greatness. Sometimes, it is the trauma from the past that also chains us down, making us feel isolated in our misery.

However, it is time to break free from all these chains and create a revolution for yourself. It is your chance to shine brightly against your past and win through every circumstance. It is time to focus on your dreams and allow your hard work to pay off. It is your time to put yourself first and understand your worth, and this book is all about these things. It will tell you how to be there for yourself and find strength within yourself. No matter how difficult the situation gets, this book will keep pushing you – to do better and, most importantly, to not give up. You can channel the greatness within you and transform yourself into becoming the best version of yourself through these words.

It will encourage you to become the narrator of your own story instead of holding the mic for someone else. In short, this book will mark a great positive change in your life and will ask you to keep working toward self-growth and advancement.

Copyright                                i

Dedication                           iii

Acknowledgment             iv

Preface                                     v

CONTENTS

Section I: Get in Alignment

Chapter 1: An Introduction                                               2

Chapter 2: Stop Going Through the Motions         21

Chapter 3: Discover Your True Self                              33

Chapter 4 : Embrace Your Emotions                           49

Chapter 5: Stop Holding Back!                                       65

Chapter 6: Define Your Belief System                        84

Section II: Know Your Limits

Chapter 7: Set Boundaries                                                     98

Chapter 8: Reset the Clock                                                  115

Chapter 9: Manage the Stress                                           130

Chapter 10: Live A Balanced Life                                     145

Chapter 11: Be Financially Proactive                            160

Section III: Design Your Program

Chapter 12: Know Your Worth                                         184

Chapter 13: Mind Your Mindfulness                              200

Chapter 14: Self Said What?                                               214

Chapter 15: Face the Big F                                                    230

Chapter 16: Empower Your Future Self                       247

Chapter 17: Conclusion                                                         267

Let’s Keep in Touch                                                                   278

Charlene Harry’s Resources                                                 279

About the Author                                                                       280

Section I:

Get in Alignment

Chapter 1: An Introduction

As a young and spirited child, I cannot fathom a time when I was not trying to make my family smile. I was always the life of the party, and I got a kick out of imitating people and making them happy. I think I was designed for some form of entertainment, and I say this because I realized pretty early on that I wanted to engage people’s attention. There would always be something about the discussion that created a spark in me. I loved the way others spoke from a young age, especially if it involved an accent. Something about the accent intrigued me to understand that this world is made up of many exciting people. I truly thrived in environments where the vibes were positive.

Being part of a small family that consisted of me, my parents, and my older sister, I enjoyed entertaining them with my antics and various voices. At home, I could be my true, silly self and enjoy every moment of my jokes.

My immediate family may have been small, but my extended family was large. Our extended family members would come over to visit us on holidays, and the house would be as lively as ever. It was just a whole lot of good laughs and good vibes. The family gatherings were an excuse to hang out together, eat, and play music throughout. It reminded me of the TV shows or movies we would watch that evoked that emotion to laugh, smile, or reflect on a situation. I would often imagine myself imitating people on the shows we watched. All in all, I was accustomed to having an enjoyable atmosphere around me that would keep my mind fresh and allow me to understand what positive vibes looked like. 

My desire to entertain my family soon blossomed into a desire to entertain the masses. As a teenager, I wanted to become an actor. Whenever I got the opportunity to talk about what I wanted to do with my life, someone would respond that even though it was a nice thought, it wouldn’t be good enough to pay the bills. But then I remembered... I was a teenager! I didn’t have any bills to pay. So, acting was what I wanted to do, and there was nothing that could stop me besides maybe… myself. 

Now, I must mention that I came from a very conservative family. We knew how to save as my father was, and still is, very frugal, and my mother knew how to make something out of anything. I also want to mention that my family was very overprotective of both my sister and me. We were never allowed to spend the nightor hang out too late with my friends or groups that my parents did not know. As a teenager, this is where I learned to develop my negotiation skills. I wanted to attend a performing arts high school that required an hour of commute both ways. This took quite a bit of negotiation within my family, given the hour-long distance and early morning commitments to get there on time. I had to address the benefits of how it would force me to get up early in the morning as I never really was a morning person. 

I loved to sleep in and struggled to get to school on time all throughout middle school. However, while I was passionate about my desire to learn acting skills, I also found myself to be simultaneously headstrong about not being late for high school. This was a definite plus to learning responsibility, as I eloquently reminded my family. It wasn’t an easy feat, but my parents eventually gave in. Now, all that was left was for me to audition and get the acceptance letter. I had a burning desire to become an actor. With excitement, I auditioned and got in! 

To say that high school was, by far, some of the best years of my life would be an understatement. I became good at my craft, and I did so quickly! I got to explore so many acting and dance activities that left me inspired to do more. I auditioned for numerous plays and TV shows, and I even got to be an extra in a movie called Above the Rim, with Tupac, which became quite popular. Being an extra in a few projects was easy enough to get into, but those jobs definitely would not pay the rent, I realized soon enough. I then started engaging in groups that would use their platforms to encourage youth to use their voice and impact the world. Through them, I was able to audition for shows under Jim Henson Production, the producers of the Muppets and Sesame Street. Oh, how I loved those shows growing up.  

In my senior year, I was recruited by an agency firm or two, and that is when the reality of what it would be like as an aspiring actor hit me. I spent almost all my time auditioning for a two-minute piece and then had to deal with the torment of being rejected. Living with the thought that maybe I was just not good enough was hard to bear. That kind of feeling could truly affect someone who was not confident in themselves. Constantly appearing before several strange people until someone saw something in you that they could profit off of wasn’t easy. For me, it became a rather important lesson. As a youth, I developed my self-confidence and believed that I could make it out in the world. I discovered that I wanted to see something in myself and not wait for someone else to see something in me. It started becoming a challenge as I looked at the acting lifestyle I had once wanted. 

I do not wish to diminish anyone else’s desire to pursue acting, but it fizzled out when I saw what it was about, always looking for someone to say that I did a good job or whether I was hired. I was becoming the person who merely wanted to know whether they had done a good job and then leave it at that. I desired to discover what else I could do that I found value in. Though I enjoyed acting, I learned that it could be a long road to endless waiting on tables and possibly selling my soul to get a part that would pay the bills. I figured there would always be others in the world who could do this job better than I could, but it was not just that; it was also the fact that my mindset had changed drastically. Although I had a good run with acting, having worked as an extra on a movie with Tupac, a TV production set for Jim Henson, and having had the opportunity to partake in several off-Broadway plays, it was time to explore other avenues in my senior year of High School. 

I had now decided to become an engineer! I knew that I was good at math. I enjoyed it a lot and was aware of a crucial fact: engineers make money and evoke change. But most of all, my family would be proud as I would finally be doing work that would pay the bills. I saw the potential that the engineering world had to offer. I could merge math with being creative and building things. I knew that being an engineer would come naturally to me, but still, I could not bring my mind to stick to one field. I had to keep that creative flow going within my system; otherwise, I feared it might die out someday. Therefore, I decided to pursue a minor in theater and a major in industrial engineering. I chose this field mainly because it had the liberty to merge various disciplines, allowing me to continue grooming the creativity I was drawn to in acting, let alone teach me to manage the relationship, of course, from an efficiency and production standpoint. 

Though manufacturing was a different kind of production, it still had similar components to theater production. I found similarities between the two in ways that the practice of getting to the final product and the time it took was quite the same. Hence, I knew that industrial engineering was the field that I needed to get into. I also knew it would be challenging, with it being a predominately white male field. I chose Industrial Engineering because it was the gateway to learning enough about the other engineering disciplines and then putting it all together to identify how to improve my mindset for business productivity.

As a young black female aspiring to become an engineer, I rarely had interactions with other females of the same ethnicity and desires. While preparing and studying for it, I was certainly given the impression that I was about to go into a white male-dominated field. There was a small amount of diversity in the ethnicity of those males, but still—they were almost all males.

As I began my career in engineering, I sought positions in big companies after gaining the experience I found relevant and appropriate. I am genuinely proud of myself because I was qualified to handle the positions I approached. The older staff often believed that a newcomer was not capable of creating efficiency. They underestimated me even when they would witness me boosting team morale, confidence in management, and increasing productivity. Many employees made fun of it as they thought I was trying to be over-efficient. A few even told me they would not change their methods simply because they presumed I wanted recognition. Still, despite plenty of resistance, I was eventually able to gain the confidence and cooperation of my colleagues by listening to and understanding the needs of other employees.

Along with that, I would understand the needs of management and what the company lacked in those times. Gradually, I provided solutions that would meet both needs, create buy-in, and switch up old-fashioned methods to increase proficiency. I suggested company procedures that would provide a more positive turnover with Kaizen and Lean Six Sigma techniques. Let me briefly explain these two methods. Kaizen is a Japanese term and concept which means change for the better. It is an approach that yields continuous improvement based on the idea that small, ongoing, positive changes can reap