The Four Versions of Me That Were All Hiding the Same Thing (Jo Moment)

Doors are now open for the July 6 intake of Balance & Beyond!
If you've recognised yourself in the patterns we've explored in this episode and you're ready to move beyond awareness into real change, we'd love to support you. Find out more and book a conversation with our team here: https://www.balanceinstitute.com/balance-and-beyond

I share the secret belief that kept me stuck for years: I thought my circumstances made me the exception to change. I unpack the roles I hid behind and the moment I realised the real shift had to happen inside me, not around me. 

• believing change was for everyone else but me 
• stacking real-life pressures into an airtight “exception” story 
• using external circumstances to avoid an inward look 
• over-delivering at work to protect self-worth 
• guilt and the stories we tell ourselves about family and ambition 
• optimisation as a way to avoid being human 
• trying to blow up the outside instead of changing the inside 

If this resonated, share it with a friend who needs to hear it today. And don't forget to subscribe to Balance and Beyond for full episodes and more of these bite sized breakthroughs. 

The Balance & Beyond Podcast Hosted by Jo Stone, founder of The Balance Institute

For women who are already succeeding, but beginning to wonder if they're willing to keep losing themselves in the process.

We know high achievers, because we are one. This podcast draws on Jo's 20 years in global leadership and thousands of hours coaching executives and ambitious women: the patterns she sees, how to untangle them, and what it actually takes to keep your success without paying for it with yourself.

If something landed today, there's more where that came from.

And if you know a woman this would resonate with, send it her way.

🎙️https://www.balanceinstitute.com/podcast
🔗 www.balanceinstitute.com
💼https://au.linkedin.com/in/stonejoanne
📷 @therealjostone

Transcript

Jo Stone (Host) 0:04

Welcome to Balance and Beyond Moments, your weekly dose of insight, wisdom, and mindset shifts, all in 10 minutes or less. Whether it's a powerful truth, a fresh perspective, or a spark of inspiration, this is your space to pause, reflect, and reset. Let's dive in. I want to share a secret that I've kept hidden for a really long time, which is somewhat ironic given the business I now run. I could see for a really long time why I was stuck.

Welcome And Reset

Jo Stone (Host) 0:36

I had great self-awareness. I was trying all the things. But deep down, I didn't believe that change was possible for me. Not because I wasn't trying, my God, I was throwing a spaghetti at every wall, not because I wasn't putting in the effort. Because I thought I

Believing Change Wasn’t Possible

Jo Stone (Host) 0:53

was different to everyone else. And not different in a, oh my God, look at me, but my life. The industry I was in, the hours I had to work because of a global role. The kids, we were in our illness era. Five broken arms between two children, learning challenges. It was just one thing after another. Traveling for work, a big mortgage, husband's mental health, physical health, which meant the financial pressure was squarely on my shoulders. And of course, I had my standards, which I was not prepared to compromise. I said every one of these reasons out loud to coaches, to friends, to myself, and I believed every single word because they were all true. That's the thing about exceptions. The reasons are always real, which is why they're so damn convincing. And as long as I believed all these reasons made me the exception, I had a perfect explanation for why change was possible for everybody else, but not for me. And here's what took me the longest time to see. I was online. None of it was made up. But I was using all of it to stay exactly where I was. Because if the circumstances were the problem, the mortgage, the job, the role, the kids, the yada yada yada, well then I didn't have to look at me. It's so much easier to blame everything outside of you than actually take that look inward because

The Exception Story That Sticks

Jo Stone (Host) 2:38

it hurts like hell when you eventually do. I used to hide

Blaming Outside To Avoid Inside

Jo Stone (Host) 2:43

behind these different versions of me that were just such good excuses. Corporate Joe sent emails at 1 a.m. and called it delivering value to stakeholders and securing my next promotion. Now the role demanded it. The team needed it, the business couldn't wait. I had a deadline and I had to catch New York while they were awake. But the secret truth is: if I'm always delivering, over-delivering, let's be clear, no one can actually question my worth, including me. In my mother Joe identity, I didn't feel guilty for being away from my kids. Whether it was work travel or a night with the girls or even staying late at work. But then I would feel guilty that I didn't feel guilty because my God, there must be something wrong with me. Now I love my career. I'm allowed to. That's not wrong. But if I make the guilt about work pulling me away from the kids, then I don't have to look at what I might have actually been running away from at home. High Achiever Joe thought everything was about optimization. Let me optimize my body, my calendar, my systems to the point where there's no room left to be a very flawed human being. Because I told myself, if I can get the inputs right, then the outputs would follow. But if I'm always optimizing, I never have to sit with the possibility that the problem isn't the system. It's what I'm avoiding inside of it. And sick and exhausted Jo, who was in complete denial about the fact that she was exhausted, thought that I need a different life. Let me sell the house, leave the job, blow it all up, because nothing in my life was working. Something had to change. But if I change everything around me, I don't have to change anything inside me. There's a famous quote. That saying is the

Over-Delivering Guilt And Optimising

Jo Stone (Host) 5:11

thing I spent 10 years, if I'm being honest, probably decades, trying to outrun. Surely it's not me. Surely, surely not. It's it's everything else. And then one day, after blowing everything up, I ran out of things to change on the outside. Turns out I wasn't the exception. I was just someone who got very good at convincing herself she was. Maybe you're not the exception either. Maybe your reasons are just as real as mine were. Industry, job, kids, mortgage, pressure, all of it real. And maybe, like me, they're also the thing keeping you exactly where you are. I thought that too, but I was wrong. Thanks for taking this moment for yourself. If this resonated, share it with a friend who needs to hear it today. And don't forget to subscribe to Balance and Beyond for full episodes and more of these bite sized breakthroughs. See you next time.