192 | Success Isn’t Going to Make You Feel Better

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You hit the goal and it still doesn’t feel like enough.

So you set a new one.

In this episode, I’m breaking down the pattern of waiting to feel calm, confident, or successful after something changes in your business and why that doesn’t work.

You don’t get the feeling after the result.
You bring the feeling to the result.

We talk about identity, self trust, and what it actually looks like to practice calm, confidence, and success now.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why “I’ll feel better when” keeps you stuck
• How moving the goalpost creates a constant feeling of lack
• Why more money does not change how you feel
• What success and slowing down actually mean for you
• How identity shapes your results
• Simple ways to start practicing the feeling now

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Episode 186 | Your Identity Is Your Strategy

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Transcript

I’ll Feel Better When

Erin Gray 0:00

Welcome back to Your Money, Your Rules podcast with me, your host, Erin Gray. Today I want to talk about something that I hear almost every client say to me. I've also been there too. I probably was just there this past week, so I'm calling myself out here too. And I think, you know, we're all human. We fall back into this place at sometimes. And the important thing is to recognize it and then to move from it. So in a nutshell, we are all thinking that we're waiting to feel a feeling until something happens in our business. Something happens in our lives. We say things like, Well, when my business is at XYZ, or when I get to this point, then I'll slow down. Like it's a lot of what I hear from my clients is I'll slow down, or then I'll feel more calm, or I'll feel more secure. And it's this belief that these feelings are created outside of you. And that when you get somewhere, wherever that somewhere is going, wherever we're trying to go with that somewhere, that you'll finally feel and be free to feel what you're actually wanting to feel. And it doesn't work that way. It's something that we have been sold that it doesn't work like that. And so let's talk about today our feelings, what we actually want to feel, and how to create that on the daily so that your journey, your business, and your life feels fun along the way. Okay, I want to share because I'm always, I feel like I'm really authentic, is that, you know, this is how I probably spent the first 20 working years of my life. Like I call myself Erin previous, like 1.0 and now Erin 2.0. So Erin 1.0 six years ago, this is how I spent the majority of my life. And I call it like moving the goalpost, right? So I want you to think back when you started your business, you might have been thinking, like, just imagine that first time you actually like open the doors or online, whatever your business is. And like when I make my first thousand, I'm like that, I'm gonna be so proud of myself. That's gonna feel so incredible, right? Like that first client or however your business was structured back then in order to generate that money, right? And then you get there, and instead of feeling grateful and so proud of yourself and maybe going out and celebrating and just acknowledging all of the work that you did in order to generate that amount of money, you blow right by it and you have a new target. Or if you're like me, what I used to do is like before I even accomplished one goal, I was already on to the next and already thinking about the next thing. So I've already, you know, abandoned and when I say abandon, not like let that goal glow, but like I'm not even focused on that anymore. It's like, oh, next thing already. So that when I, you know, finally achieved that first goal, I'm not even acknowledging it because I'm already focused on the next thing. So then maybe you go to 10K months, 50k months, whatever it is, on and on. And then you start moving to things like, okay, well, when I have more consistency or when I build a team and you look up and you've created so much that you're not acknowledging it, you're not feeling grateful and in pure appreciation. You're looking at, I view it as like you're looking at how far you're on, you want to climb Mount Everest and you're looking at how far I've had to go. You're not looking at look at my gosh, look at how far I've come. And that feeling that I think that is one of ultimately it is of lack. And I think it's like one of the worst feelings to feel as we are building and creating something. You know, you are withholding the fun, you're withholding joy and calmness and peace and success, whatever that looks like to you. Love, love for yourself, love for your business, love for all of the things, right? In your clients, your team, all of it from yourself. You're whole, you're withholding this until a later date. And what we are doing is we are training the brain, the neural pathways, and our body to keep going for that next thing, to never actually practice the feelings that we are feeling after. And and I'm gonna get into like that's actually not how we create what we want in our life. Don't get me wrong, you can totally create everything that you want from that feeling of hustle and not good enough and lack, because that is what I have done. And I will say that it feels a lot better in the body when you come from that place of gratitude and joy and fun and enjoying the process versus thinking, okay, I'm gonna wait to give myself love and admiration and joy and calmness until I get to that place. And like I said, at its core, ultimately, like is this sense of lack. And it has you on this hamster wheel and not actually being the owner and the founder that you are meant to be. So I'm not saying not to have goals. What I am saying is that having goals, knowing where you're going, having your vision while appreciating where you are is a vastly different feeling in your body than having goals and feeling like where you are isn't enough. Now we can chalk this up to maybe, you know, when we were growing up, we had parents that kind of told us like no matter what we did, it was never enough. That's some stuff that we've got to work through, right? Like we have to parent ourselves. We have to be that person for us that maybe we'd never had. And we've got to do that internal work so that where we actually start giving ourselves the atta girls that we deserve all along the way. And this really comes back to like a deeper question. This is coming from this understanding or this belief system that we think that the feeling is outside of us, right? So when we say, I'm going to feel more successful when my business reaches this level, or I'll slow down when my business or when I hire so-and-so, or I'll feel more calm when, first of all, you have to start actually, I always say like words are so powerful. You have to start actually defining what these words mean to you. What does success actually look like? Because success, at the expense of ignoring your family and your body and getting to wherever you're going, if success is just a money number to you, but all along the way you've denied your joy, you've denied your body, you have not spent much time with your kids. Like, is that what success means to you? And if it is, okay, that's fine. But we really have to start to define what success means to us. You know, when we are saying we're gonna slow down, what does that actually mean? What does slowdown mean? Slowdown to me means something very different than someone who's been used to going 90 miles an hour is gonna slow down to 60. Previous Erin was at the 90 miles. Now Erin 2.0 is like at like 10 miles an hour, right? So you have to really start asking yourself, what does that actually mean? What does calm mean? And so when you are asking yourself these questions, for a lot of people, it really comes back to like, okay, what are these feelings? Right. It is, I want to feel calm. Okay, what does that feel like in my body? What does that actually look like? Do I even know what calm looks like? Like I said, if you're used to going 90 miles an hour, now you're going 60, well, that is calm to you. But like, how can you even take it even further? What does success look like for you? Like, I know that when I came back and building my business, I'm building it from my way. Like I could grow it maybe on social media or whatever, but that's not how I want to grow it. Like I would not feel successful if I abandon my intuition and what I wanted to do and the way I wanted to grow my business. So when we say we're, you know, we want to feel success, it's not just about the money. It always comes back to with this feeling. Maybe it's confidence that you want to feel. Maybe it's more freedom or more secure, or having this sense of pride or accomplishment or at a girl, this peace of mind, this calmness in our nervous system. And I think a lot of us have bought into this lie that we have been sold, you know, with the business worlds that like emotions happen outside of you. Go get the thing, and then you can feel the feeling. And like, oh, when you hit X in your business, then you'll feel successful. Like we've been taught to look at the effect, not actually at the root cause. And those feelings aren't going to just magically show up just because your revenue changes, just because your business has grown, just because you've hired more people. You're going to take yourself wherever you go. So there are plenty of people, and I'm sure you know them, I know plenty of them that have the business that they've always wanted, millions of dollars in the bank, and they still feel stressed, they still feel insecure, and they still feel like that they're like either falling behind or they're haven't caught up yet. We all know somebody or multiple people. I used to be one of them. I've shared that before. And I always say, you've got to come back to the identity. Go back and listen to episode 186 about how your identity is your actual strategy to gain more insight on what I think that you need to be thinking and feeling about yourself and like how that is actually everything that drives all of our actions. So I want to talk about like the energy that you bring to your business, the way that you feel about yourself, your self-concept, how you identify yourself, right? What you think and feel about yourself, how you think and feel about your business, how you think and feel about your money, all of that has an impact on how you create the results that you want. It affects how you talk to potential clients. It affects how confident you are to share your ideas and to lead your team. It affects how creative you are and whether you trust yourself. Like the identity that I have built up in myself is like I trust myself and I trust my intuition. That wasn't always the case. Sometimes my intuition does not match what someone else is advising me to do, but I always follow my intuition. So it affects every area in your life, the risks that you're willing to take. If you don't believe that you're gonna make the money back and you're betting on yourself, and that is better than any silver, gold stock market, crypto, real estate, whatever it might be, that is going to affect how you show up. So I want you to start thinking about where I am postponing feeling a certain way because I'm putting it somewhere out there, and I have to get that thing in order to feel a certain way. So decide today what are those feelings that I'm chasing? What do I actually want to feel? And I think most everybody wants to feel more calm. We want to feel more peaceful. And I just want to say here, I don't do this perfectly. I was having a whole thing yesterday, but I saw it. I allowed myself, I don't take any action when I am in that state, but I saw what was happening. I allowed myself to feel it and then get back into actually how do I want to feel? I want to feel calm. I want to feel peaceful. I want to have a lot of fun and move from that place. So the thing I think also that you have to remember is that you are already doing this. You are already this person somewhere else in your life. Maybe you're already calm and chill with your spouse. Maybe you're already calm and chill, you know, for the most part with your kids, whatever it might be. You already know how to do this and you already know how to feel this way. The question becomes how practiced are you at doing it in your business and with your money? And all of this is always a practice. I talk about deadlifting, right? We practice this over and over again. If you're new to weightlifting, I'm not gonna teach you how to deadlift with a bar and 45-pound plates on each side. I'm gonna start off with a broomstick. So, where are you along this process? This is a practice, and the more that we practice, the better we get at it. And I wanna say that it is a lot more fun. There's not a wrong way and a right way to do this, but it is a lot more fun to build something and to grow something from those feelings of fun and joy and success and love and like vibrancy and life force energy and certainty and calm than it is to do it from stress and not enough time and not good enough and inadequacy and lack and fear and all of that kind of stuff. And so I always think about like focusing on the vision and where you're going versus looking at the problems that you have. When you're thinking about how can I have more fun, that isn't focused on, okay, these are all of the issues that I'm having in my business, right? It's where am I going? What do I want to create? What is important to me? What are my values in my business, my mission, all of that? So, how do we actually do this? Everything starts in the mind. Obviously, you've got to be processing your emotions. And I talk about emotion release therapy and tapping in all the different ways, but like it starts in our minds first. What are we currently thinking and feeling on the daily? This is where you have to be like a hawk. You have to be so clear on what are the words that are coming out of my mouth, what are the thoughts that I'm saying, what are the feelings that I am feeling? Notice what are those three things that are happening, being so vigilant, for lack of a better word, of them. Sometimes I'll hear clients say, like, I'm such a mess, or you know, like you've got to be really, really mindful about the words that you're saying. And you have to become very intentional about the words that are coming out of your mouth. So start with the identity and then start noticing where you already feel calm and successful and you're already having fun and you're already feeling peaceful. And if you're like, Erin, I don't feel any of those things, great, perfect. Love the awareness. Okay, how do I want to start feeling that way? Right? How do I want to, when my child says something to me that I typically get really upset about, how do I want to remain calm? How do I want to practice feeling calm and not reacting? I want to respond. And maybe responding means, hey, honey, I need a minute right now, right? How when I look at my bank balance or I look at my QuickBooks, how do I not want to react? I want to practice feeling more calm. Okay, then that means I'm gonna get on and intentionally practice the feeling of feeling calm when I look at my numbers or when my bookkeeper gives me my reports. And another thing that I want to say here is that sometimes we're so focused on revenue or profit that we forget all of those changes that we have made in order to get to that point, right? Before all that stuff shows up, we have become a completely different person. And so, really starting to focus on like I sometimes like get a little zingy when it comes to like enjoy the journey, right? Or like the process, but it really is true. Like I have to even remind myself of that. Like, it is the process. Like I get into my head sometimes and I'm like, oh, okay, this is where I'm going, and I'm just so focused. So I'm not sitting over here on my little high horse saying that I do this perfectly, but I notice, like, oh my gosh, what was I rushing for all of those years? You know, like every single day is such a precious day to be alive, to be able to work in your business, to grow yourself as a founder. Like, look at those things as well. Like, look at all of those tiny little micro moments that you are having and experiencing as you are going to wherever you're getting to go to. And think about like how have you already changed? Like you had to become someone entirely different to be who you are right now. How have you been more decisive? How have you been less of a bottleneck, more of a leader? You literally have to take the time to do this and to think about this to get your brain to be thinking in that way versus what it is on default, which is like not enough, not there yet, you know, bash in on not having enough fun, all those things. Like this is a skill, just like growing a business is a skill. So start celebrating. I say celebrate the 1%. I think it's everything. Celebrate everything, every little thing, celebrate it. You've got to show your brain all the ways that you are already doing this. Learn to appreciate every win of that allows you to be on this beautiful journey that we are on. And, you know, when we can relax into that, when we can sink and anchor into that, like it's so much fun to have to move through life in that way versus withholding the love. I think really what we're doing is we are withholding the love from ourselves when we are not enjoying all of those moments as we're getting to where we are going. So if you take anything away from this episode, don't wait for your business to reach a certain level, which like it's not going to give you that feeling, right? You've got to allow yourself to feel proud and to feel joyful and calm. Like what I see in my clients is this calmness, slowing down, having more self-trust, more love. Even when your brain tells you you fucked it all up, where is the love? Like, this is where we get to go even deeper on the self-love and the self-trust with our intuition. So think about the identity. Like that is always what is creating what you want in your life. So being very mindful of what your thoughts are acting from, you know, when you have decided, okay, I'm going to be more calm. It's stopping yourself when you want to make a quick decision and being like, no, that's not what someone who acts and moves through calm is. When you're saying I want to slow down more, then that's actually giving yourself time to go to the restroom and drink water throughout the day. That's giving yourself time to journal, like putting some times in your calendar to do that. Okay. That's all I have for you today. I know it sounds so cliche, but like you really have to enjoy the journey. You have to choose what are those feelings that you want to have and feel. What are you chasing? Start feeling those feelings now. And that comes from our thinking. Okay, I love you all. I'll see you in the next episode.