The mantra keeps playing in my mind. Success means nothing if you are miserable. There was a time in my life where I could easily write off misery for the fake glimmer of success. It took me a few years and a major career milestone to realize I couldn’t keep pouring all of my discontent into my career like a recycling factory and refurbish trash into something that would make me happy. The raises, the promotions, they all started to mean nothing when I realized my identity was NOT my career.
I felt lost, time wasn’t mine, I didn’t feel satisfaction in what I was doing in my day-to-day any more, and it was met with a slew of other overcommitments, lack of self-care, and a numb, barely there presence in my life. My creativity took a back seat to everything else, yet I still masked and acted like everything on the inside was great.
From the outside, you wouldn’t be able to tell everything on the inside was shaky. My relationship with my husband was great, we have the cutest dogs ever, my house looked well-kept, I even dressed nice and felt put together. Inside my inner landscape was dismal, bleak and I had little hope things could change, but I kept on keeping on. How could I be so unhappy when my life was what people dream of?
It doesn’t matter if your life is someone else’s dream life if you are miserable in one or more aspects. For me, it was my career and my lack of boundaries with my time and energy that did me in. The lack of boundaries really crept in and never let me truly know when enough was enough. I was always striving for more, especially at work, and I had to be the best. I outperformed myself each year because that was who I was. I was known for this. How could I let them down?
I realized I was repeating many of the things that likely led to my mom’s early death. It hurt, it stung, I felt stupid. How could I be so blind to this? I felt all aspects of grief for this version of myself. She still exists, I have liberated many parts of her, but it’s a deep unraveling. I continue to do the inner work to not fall victim to this trap that I learned to set so easily.
What is it for you that comes after this statement? Success means nothing if ____. I encourage you to fill in the blank. Sit with the other questions at the end of the episode and really be real with yourself.
The time to examine this is now. There is no time for “one day when”.
At the start of this episode I also debut a new way to work with me. You can select an Inner or Outer Audit to take stock of where you are now and where you want to go. You can read more about them here. All of my work is a holistic combination of inner and outer work, but in these sessions you get to choose your focus to make the most of our time together.
