How to manage your mindset around success
This blog post will walk you through how to embrace the “before it worked” stage and find joy while you’re going through the process of reaching your own success.
I bet you didn’t know:
I dated an ex-felon & 2 ex-pro ball playing cheaters as part of my dating journey leading up to my husband
I paid $18,000 for 18 months for 1-on-1 high level coaching to keep myself in the game with my business (while working full-time nights and weekends as a server at a restaurant) to make it the brand that it is now\
I battled for 15 years with my body, hating what I saw in the mirror and allowing that external piece define my worth until I found unconditional love for my body
Showing the “before it worked” parts
Something I LOVE (and I find so inspiring because it makes me feel hopeful in areas I may be struggling), are the stories of those who have found success, but they show the messy part. The “before it worked” part.
That’s what I want to do for you, because sometimes as coaches, leaders, or influencers, people blindly look up to you, thinking that you are this special unicorn that never struggled with anything.
Or, when you are in a ‘winning season’ the ‘must be nice’ words pour out of others’ mouths, never recognizing the overnight success, may have been an over-a-decade success.
Although, in order to openly share some of those past ‘shameful’ areas, a whole lot of self reflection and healing must take place beforehand to take the shame out of the story and simply see it as more information leading you to what you want and don’t want.
I am no different than you. I struggled. I doubted. I questioned God ‘why me?’ I tried to escape feelings of shame by rushing into a new diet craze, new relationship, or new business venture. I was trying to escape the pain of what felt like “constant” disappointment.
Learning to build the belief
I repeated this cycle over and over again, praying that the next thing I tried would be the answer.
But guess what, the same situations would come in different disguises until I truly learned to try on new thoughts and build the belief in what I truly wanted would happen, as long as I dropped old thoughts and feelings that weren’t getting me where I wanted to go.
I want you to stop and pause to think about an area of your life you just can’t seem to figure out. Maybe it’s your marriage, your relationships, your health, finances, body struggles, or making your business work.
What does your thought life look like?
Now, the hard part, what are you thinking as you try out these new possible solutions?
Do you go into marital counseling, believing this is bogus and will never work?
Do you go out into the dating scene with thoughts that you are never going to find a man that will “put up with you?”
Do you go about health, mentally beating yourself up while you're on the Peloton, and forcing yourself to eat your greens as you tell yourself how worthless you are?
In the areas where success hasn’t happened YET, what negative thoughts are constantly circulating in your brain? When we have clarity here, we can see WHY the results haven’t happened yet.
Dealing with the shame
I dated people in my life, that may have been poor choices, but gave me a TON of knowledge on what I DID want versus what I DID NOT want. However, the THOUGHTS that I had, about dating, and also about myself were giving me the results of poor relationships that weren’t going anywhere.
I was terrified of commitment, after calling off a fully-paid-for-wedding & did not know my self worth yet, so I dated unavailable men who treated me like an option, rather than a valuable priority.
I created a lot of shame around relationships, and not being able to figure it out, having my ‘picker’ broken (as my family would jokingly say), and feeling like something was wrong with me.
From that shame vantage point, I started feeling like I needed to “fix” my external self in order to be loved more, seen more, and treated like the queen I am and then MAYBE I wouldn’t be cheated on and betrayed by men anymore.
Internal versus external work
However, the more I worked on just the external, the more I got results I didn’t want. The more I worked on my internal thoughts and beliefs, the more my external world changed, and the results I didn’t want began to disappear.
We live in a world, where we think the external, surface level fixes will be the ultimate fix. When I get “xyz” then my income will sky rocket, my sex life will be next level, and my confidence will soar.
Stop and think about all the times you’ve gone after something external (weight loss, more money, designer bags, relationships, etc) and it didn’t solve the problem you were seeking solutions for. Once you become AWARE of these patterns, you’ll be able to stop and actually THINK about what needs to change. What were you truly chasing?
Embracing a willingness to feel emotions
Something I recently learned (paraphrased by Brooke Castillo) is that “if you are willing to FEEL any emotion, you will be powerful beyond belief.”
We often want to know answers and know those answers NOW. We want certainty, and we want to try to avoid discomfort, pain, rejection, and shame. Phew, do I know this!
We want to know if we do this plan, then we will get this result. But, what if the plan takes a decade? What if you have to experience a lot of ‘failure’ and rejection along the way? Would you be ready to FEEL whatever comes up on the way to achieving your result?
I truly believe that not knowing what is to come, is a blessing and a curse. I know for me, if I had been shown ahead of time, the journey to get to my now husband, I don’t know if I would have thought I had what it took to go through all of that.
I can say this too with my body struggles, my business struggles, and anything else I’ve struggled with. Sometimes not knowing, is a huge blessing, as long as you are COMMITTED to staying the course, and being ready to FEEL whatever comes up and not running away from it.
Yet, if you do run from it (hi, this was me), that is also a part of YOUR process of getting there and will teach you more about yourself and how you handle difficult emotions.
For me, I learned that I try to outwork my difficult emotions so that I don’t have to feel them. Or, I resist them for massive lengths of time, until I’m forced to feel them. It’s the craziest thing to learn that you do this, and realize it’s been proven that it only takes 90 seconds for an emotion to process through your body, yet you try to outwork or outrun them your entire life?!?
What’s your timeline?
What timeline did you put on your result/goal that you’re after?
And, where did this imaginary timeline come from?
Are you still ‘all in’ if it takes longer than what you’ve imagined?
What has a timeline done to propel you closer or further away from your result/goal?
Of course it’s nice to have something to shoot for, but for me, it was always unproductive pressure that would lead me to force something or rush and maybe miss red flags.
When I felt that unproductive pressure, I would feel anxious, worried, and doubtful, and then when time passed on it would be converted to shame. I would start to internalize whatever wasn’t happening “quick enough” as something wrong with me. Like I was defected and this feeling over and over again would create defeat.
Then, it would take so much more energy to muster up the courage to get out there and try again. Sound familiar?
What if instead of that timeline, you committed to being along for the ride, learning along the process and being calm and collected (while super focused) on knowing that your goal will be achieved once you keep showing up, consistently. That consistency compounds (as John C. Maxwell always says), and will prevent that start stop mentality, and the unproductive emotions from taking over leading you into a shame spiral of not being where you want to be YET.
That’s the key, YET. Just because it hasn’t happened YET, doesn’t mean you’re doomed.
Find the joy first
Get into a place where you’re joyful now, without the result yet, so that your happiness isn’t dependent on that result to come true, it’s already there. Then, it will just magnify once that result does happen, and you can build upon that foundation.
Unconditional love is a lifetime practice.
Can you find joy inside of you, without needing the weight loss, the increased income, the relationship? Can you be happy now, without all of your joyful chips on the table relying on an external result to fix an internal dissatisfaction?
Find the joy first, and then build upon that. Stay calm, enjoy the process of becoming the person ready to receive your result, and apply this to every area of your life.
This is truly an art and a process, to starve old ways of doing things (that coincidentally aren’t producing results you want) and retraining your brain to do things differently than the world teaches.
I’ve been very transparent and open about getting coached (and I will forever be a coach that has a coach) to help me see my blind spots, and get out of my own way faster. I’ve paid a lot of money (and still do), and initially felt like something was even wrong with me for “needing” a coach. Nope, not at all. I received an amazing return on my initial investment that still pays me today. Coaching, truly, changes the game.
If you’re ready to dive deep to get unstuck, let’s set up a time to have a call to see if 1-on-1 coaching (or my online programs) is a right fit for you!
Meg Smithson, Life Coach
Meg coaches women by identifying areas of self sabotage, helping them break up with the shame that usually accompanies that, and then shows them how to set boundaries around the emerging 2.0 version they want to become, and live that life, unapologetically.
Click to schedule a life coaching consultation with Meg.
