EP5: Redefining our own version of success and purpose.

This week, I will talk about success and purpose. The attachment to what we think success should look like is based on someone else story. My journey with jobs and the hustle. Burnout. Trying to prove yourself when you have nothing to prove.

Podcast mentioned in episode:
The Higher Self podcast- GOOSEBUMPS! Why ATTRACTING MONEY Is Way More Spiritual Than You Think | Blu | THS #155
https://youtu.be/FQPwSKQWkjM?si=HBB6_LSVY2Vildxr

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Transcript

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Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Fluidity Podcast. My name is Hannah, and I am your host. And this is episode number five. Just making sure the microphone was on. I do have a new addition to the Fluidity Podcast, and I got a boom arm, which I'm really excited about because I love to use my hands. And if you guys watched the last episode, I was a little confused. bit constricted because I had to hold the microphone. So I'm super excited about this investment. And anyway, back to the podcast in today's episode, we're going to talk about, I'm just going to let myself flow here and just. Talk and just say what wants to come up, but I really did want to talk about success and our attachment to how we think success should look as well as why we think we have to prove ourself and our jobs and how we Get told that is how we have purpose and our purpose has to look a certain way or our success has to look a certain way and how that really leads to burnout and the hustle culture I'm going to talk about a little bit about what I learned on my journey. because this has always been a really big force in my life ever since I turned about 21, 22. Even before that, I was always looking for what I was meant to do with my life. And even in school, our teachers are Always in the back of your head pushing you to decide what you're going to do for the rest of your life. Like you have any idea who you even are at that point. And you got to go to college. Out of college you got to get a good job. And you're going to have that job for the rest of your life. You have to pick, you have to pick your career that you're meant to have your entire life when you're in high school. And that's how it's supposed to be. And if you change your mind, then you're lost is basically how I felt or how I felt teachers were explaining it. And to be honest, I literally had no idea what I wanted to do. And I felt like such an outcast because everybody around me knew what they wanted to do. I swear everyone had this picture of their life of what they wanted to for the rest of their life. I'm pretty sure out of high school, I wanted to be a fashion designer because that's what I wanted to do when I was younger, when I was little, and I just picked that because I honestly had no idea. I knew I wanted something different. I didn't want a desk job. I didn't want your basic 9 to 5 job. That's all I knew. But I remember getting a lot of pushback for wanting to go to school for fashion. and I thought you had to go away to college. And I thought you had to, that's where you found, what you want to do for the rest of your life. But I was. I was wrong. Maybe I wasn't wrong because I did learn a lot and I don't think that, I think we do the best we can with the information we have and that was the best I could do at that point. And like I said, I learned a lot. Anyway, I did want to, sorry, I got a little bit of a rant, but I did want to start with a quote for the podcast today and this quote, it may be my new favorite. It's so simple, but it really. It really does make you think. And the quote is, and this is by her name's blue, blue of earth, I believe is her Instagram handle. She was on the higher self podcast. I'll link that episode cause it's really good in the show notes. But the quote was, if everyone likes you, you aren't being authentic. And. That is so true if you would have told me that quote a couple years ago, I wouldn't have known what to do with it because I thought that if everyone liked you, that meant you were authentic or that meant that you were like your true self. No joke. And now being more aware and awake, if you want to call it that quote hits so much different it really brings so much ease I feel and so much lightness and so much permission to being yourself because when you don't care, when it, when you don't care about what other people think about you or you know that being authentic is not. Reflection of if people like you or not like that has nothing to do with it. It really does give you that permission slip to be yourself and At the end of the day you being yourself people are not gonna that people are not gonna like you being authentic because that's different than what they know it to be and people don't like different because they don't understand it and That's you know, A lot of times we are scared to be unliked and different, which is why we are not always authentic. And we choose paths that are, are, what's the word I'm looking for? We choose the path that is already paved. It's already been done. It's safe, it's what we think we're supposed to do because this is what the majority of us are already doing and we believe that we're not in charge or we don't have our own power to create our own thing, our own life out of scratch and it can be so different and juicy than anyone ever. And I think that goes along with this podcast in a way because when we think of purpose and our job, we often think of like, the things we see Being successful what we look at as successful, we see other people succeed in a way. In a certain way, and we think that's how we're supposed to do it. Oh, they're successful, so I'm going to do exactly what they do. But the only problem is, when we try to copy someone else's journey, or success, or road to success, we often fail because it's not authentic, and we're trying to push something that is not meant for us. I think if We are really honest with ourself. The only reason we chase those things is because we see them happy and we believe that success is supposed to look like how we've seen it on social media. And really growing up, this hustle culture, you're supposed to hate your job. You're supposed to claw and fight to get to the top. If you like your job, then that's not a job. And growing up, I honestly never thought I would. I never like to think about what I want to do with my life because I, in school, I think I told you guys the last podcast or one of the podcasts, I told you guys that growing up I had ADD, I had ADHD and I was dyslexic. And so school was very hard for me. I was always in the special classes. I, whenever there was a test, I had to go take it in a different class. So and there's, all the kids knew. All the other kids in my class knew that what select kids were in the special class and they got special treatment and, they're, people, kids were mean calling us stupid and, like, why do they get special treatment because they're stupid and, things like that and it sticks with you as a kid. And at a very young age, I was given Adderall. At a very young age, I was told you have to take a pill to make you successful. You have to take a pill To be good at school, basically. And I was never one for school. I didn't learn like the rest of the kids. I just always felt very different. And I think a lot of us felt that way in school, um, we do what we're told, and we be quiet, and we don't question it. Getting a little bit older, going to college, I never really tried because I thought, what's the frickin point, I'm, I did not think I was going to have, do anything with my life because I never saw myself as the cookie cutter successful person that I grew up being told. was the only way to succeed and I knew I was not that. And, really fighting being different and just feeling not worthy of a good job because I honestly thought I had no skills. And it wasn't that I had no skills, it was I had no skills in the way that they were teaching us. And so for me, coming out of high school and, not feeling like I was meant, I felt like I had to overwork myself. I had to fight because I was not smart like the other kids. I didn't have what the, I didn't have things the other kids had. I remember, my dad's homey, you have to work harder than the other kids because you're not like the other kids. And he was, I think, he was, Doing his best and telling me that he wanted me to succeed and he knew he was Saying like you can do it. You just have to work harder than other kids and Being told that I remember thinking for the rest of my life. I always have to work ten times harder It's always gonna be a fight because I'm not gifted like other people. I'm not smart. I don't have the brains I'm made differently and so Going into college. I It was very hard. There's, if you guys watched my last podcast of drinking, I drinking had a lot to do with it and I think I was self sabotaging myself because I didn't think I didn't believe that I could succeed because how could I, I wasn't like everybody else. I was damaged goods. I was like, why not just give up now and have fun, and so I didn't try in college. And that was on me. That was, and getting out of college, I had no idea what I wanted to do. And I feel like I just always had that thought in the back of my head. Like I have to try 10 times harder than every other kid and I have to push my way through to be what I believe success is which is in a job that I hated that I made a lot of money doing something that I wasn't really connected to yeah success for me looked like making a lot of money not having time to do what I wanted to and working long hours and like loving that I was so tired because, or being so tired, but the money made it all worth it. That's what I saw success as like someone that worked all the time and was just very forceful. Like you had to force everything and if you weren't like getting, if you weren't working from like 6 a. m. to 8 p. m. at night, like you weren't trying hard enough. And so going back to thinking that I had to try 10 times harder than everybody, I saw this as a huge mountain to climb. I was always very overwhelmed because I knew I had to try harder than everybody else. So, I I actually, I was tired of, drinking all the time and, I wanted my future to mean something. And I really always felt this deep fire of making a difference and, just I remember always just having an obsession with purpose and I felt like if I didn't have a purpose or a mission my life meant nothing. And, it will, and that's definitely what brought me into A depression, I told you that was part of it, is I felt like I wasn't contributing anything to this world, and I really felt that I didn't have anything to contribute, so I thought, okay, then I'm going to work my fucking ass off, and I am going to find a purpose, and I'm going to attach myself to that purpose, and I'll do everything I can to make sure that I'm successful, because In my eyes, successful was what, like success equaled your purpose. If you were successful, that was your purpose. And so I became a personal trainer. I wanted a gym. I like, I don't even know where I wanted to be a personal trainer. Why a personal trainer came into it. I just saw other people being successful with that and I thought you know, I'm really good at exercising. I Have always been athletic and so I clung to that no fucking other and I went all in I worked my ass off seven days a week. I didn't have any friends But I didn't care. I was like, I'm gonna push my way through this. I Was so burnt out It's not even funny. I didn't even know I was so exhausted and I was literally running on autopilot and I just thought if I was successful in the fitness personal training area, like area, my life would be sunshine and rainbows. And I remember one day, and this was like four years of my life that I put into it every day and I remember What was it right when I quit personal training was, when was it, last year, about a year ago, was when I felt like I was having an ego death because I woke up one morning and was like, I have no idea who I am. Why am I pushing myself this hard for what? I remember people asking me why I love personal training and why I wanted my own gym. And I remember them asking me and me literally feeling like I, I was I honestly don't know like I loved helping people like yes, I loved that but like it really it felt so empty it felt so Shallow, I'm not saying personal training is not a beautiful career. It is it just wasn't for me. I Again, I was trying to mimic what I saw I was trying to fit in What I saw success being in something that I thought I could do, um, everyone likes the personal trainer Everyone like I was like a personal trainer is just like That's what I'm gonna be and I made my mind up and I attached to it. And then yeah, I just felt so empty inside and like I saw other personal trainers like really loving it and You know really there for that was their purpose That was like they loved what they were doing and I couldn't figure out why I felt the way I did Like I felt so empty unfulfilled by it. And because it wasn't my purpose, it wasn't my thing. It was, I wasn't being authentic to me. I was trying to fit in once again. And I thought because it was so hard that there's so much resistance that must be my purpose. Like your purpose has to be like you fighting, you pushing. And if it's not, If it's not super fucking hard, then it's not worth it kind of thing, but I've realized that resistance and struggle is different than, difficult and uncomfortable. And of course being authentic and doing, your purpose or mission in life is not going to be easy, but it's not going to be pushed. It's not going to be as hard as I, one of my licenses went out. It's not supposed to be. So forceful, like it's not supposed to be something that you force and push to get I decided to quit the gym and I was pretty defeated because I put all my identity on the gym girl and It was literally checking boxes. Now that I look back on it. It was checking boxes. It was You Not being authentic at all. I would look at how other people were doing things and Yeah, check a box. It wasn't me being creative. It was me following someone else's instruction Basically of how to build a business of the gym of your social media. It wasn't fun for me. I didn't know that your purpose, that your mission, that your work could be fun. And it was supposed to be. I, believed in a lie that success is hating your life every day. And, Having no joy and having no time to do the things that you want to do I believed that for so long and when I finally like I Burnt myself out and I broke and I was like, I can't do this anymore and I went to a deep depression because I put all my worth into my job and trying to prove myself to everybody the world that I was worthy of being successful and making money and Trying to make a name for myself because I didn't feel seen at all And so then I decided I'm gonna go work somewhere else and just, it was just a job where I could come in, do my work and leave and, really focus on me and figure it out, figure out what my purpose is, really. So I did that and then once again I got I got very resentful of this job that was amazing, that was giving me the time and space I needed to work on myself and figure out, really who I am, and I then, again, was judging myself for being at this job, because I felt like your worthiness was attached to the job that you had and the status that you had and how other people looked at the job you had. Like I just felt like when I told people about where I worked, they were just like, Oh, like cool. That's not really a career, good for the time being, which I didn't expect this job to be my end all be all. But I just felt so just. Like I was doing nothing in the world. Like I felt like I was moving towards nothing and I Was like I need to be hustling towards something I need to be pushing towards something and I think we get into that loop and that rabbit hole of Forcing pushing like that super masculine energy of hustle culture and I was like addicted to it. And I felt that was the only way that I found my worthiness was in that. I then was like, okay, I have to, I'm not figuring out who I am anymore. I'm just gonna, Again, I did the same thing. I saw other people be successful in sales. And sales job and selling shit that I didn't care about and so I got a job in sales and I I was really lying to myself and i'm always a positive person And so i was trying to be very positive about this experience, even though deep down. It was draining my soul And again, I was burning myself out. I was around people in situations that were not authentic to me at all. Because I was trying to prove that I was worthy of respect. I saw, people in these sales jobs I don't know, I think I just always wanted the respect from people. And I wanted the approval of everybody. We give so much praise to people that run themselves into the ground that don't take time from this, don't take time for themselves. I feel like it's so normal for everyone to say that they hate their job and I Refuse to believe that you have to hate your job I believe that we can we are all so unique and different that we have skills and Traits that we can bring to this world and be paid for them But we can't do that if we don't take the time to listen and understand who we are sorry, I got on a tangent there back to that job, I then realized this again, I was like, what are you doing? Why did you do this again? Trying to fit in why are you trying to mold your success into other people's? version of success. Like I, didn't take the time to understand how I viewed success. I always took it as other people's view of success is the truth and that has to be my truth too, but it does not. And once I figured that out, I quit the sales job. I went back to the job that was at prior where it's giving me a lot of time to, do the things that I love to do. And I think when we slow down and we let ourselves. And I'm so grateful for this job that I, it allows me time to do this podcast and really figure out, really understand me and what it is I want to do and how I want to show up in the world. And I'm really grateful for that because not everyone has that. But I think we all have a choice. in deciding how we want to show up and not letting other people's idea of success stop us from taking those big leaps. And, I feel like we, we care about what people think about what our jobs are and that they have to be like, if they're not this idea of success that we hold so tightly on such a high pedestal, if it's not that, then it's nothing. And it's really not what you do. It's how you do it. Yeah, so I'm still trying to figure that out, but I refuse to believe that we're put on this planet to work our asses off doing something that we don't love But we think we have to do like I just I don't believe that and I'm done listening to other people and living my life the way other people are living because they're, they're scared of stepping outside the box. But yeah, we're here to fuck shit up, you guys. And, we can't be scared to do things everyone else isn't doing. And when we really let ourselves go and be free of the judgment of ourselves, because really the only person that can stop us is us. Getting comfortable with other people not liking us and other people maybe judging us, when we get, when we step away from that, we really are free. And to not be attached to how we think success should look based on the known or based on how our parents told us it's supposed to look. I am, still figuring that out, but I know that hustling and working my ass off for something that does, for working my, okay working hard for something that is authentic to you is different than working hard for someone else's. story for someone else's idea of success. There's two different things. I was listening too, a podcast, and she was talking about, feminine and masculine energy, right? Now, Men and women both have feminine and masculine energy and we are men and women like we're so much in our masculine trying to push trying to force trying to do and we're losing you know the beauty in the feminine and I definitely lost that I was addicted to the masculine push energy and I'm just really stepping back and realizing that I don't need to force everything and everything is just naturally going to happen the way it is. I'm grateful for all the resistance and all the, like looking back on it, I was so mad about things not working out for me. I was like, why is this, why is all, why is, why does everything work out for everybody else? And it was me always getting mad of you know the universe must not love me because I'm fucking working my ass off and I'm doing all the right things, but I'm nothing's happening. Nothing's moving. I'm I remember always being stuck. I'm stuck I can't move My feet were in quicksand and I couldn't move. I was just sinking deeper and getting more stressed, more burnt out. I realized now that was a blessing in disguise because that is so not my path. And I see that now and I see how everything is aligning now and how everything is fitting together. And I am just very grateful for it. And I now have the time to really focus on what it is I want to do. Who I want to be, and I think we put so much force on what our purpose is, figuring out our purpose. We can't do that if we don't know who we are, and we can't do that if we're lying to ourselves, if we're trying to fit someone else's story, we can't figure out our own. So if you're, so if you're working your ass off, and you feel stuck, and you feel drained, and you feel not let up by what you're doing, this is a This is a sign to Really listen and take the time to figure out what it is you do want to do because we have time you guys there's a reason why you're here. There's a reason why we're on this planet and I don't believe that, we're meant to do things that we hate and, sometimes we are to learn, but I really do believe that we have the power to choose. And if we're really honest with ourself, we know what we'd be doing, but we let little things stop us. Maybe not little things, maybe they're big things, We all have something that the world needs. And I truly believe that. It doesn't involve pushing your way to the top. We can all be at the top. We don't have to fight to get there. We don't have to push others down. And, it's not easy to unprogram ourself from that. Because, I know deep down there's some wounds from feeling like, if someone else succeeds, then I don't. And, that's, I think, the biggest lie that we're told. I know this ep this episode was just, like, All over the place I just really wanted to talk about that if you are doing something that you feel uninspired by and you know when you're not aligned in your job or you're doing it because you think you have to. A, maybe take a step back if you can, even if that is making a little bit less money and if you can swing it, it is worth finding your passion and your unique gifts that you can bring to the world. And it, again, it doesn't always have to be in your job. Like I, I was caught up and for so long thinking that your job had to be your purpose, but it doesn't. It, what you do for work doesn't have to be. You're everything and it's how you show up in the world and how you be. It's not what you do. And I'm just not figuring that out. So I'm chilling and I love getting to do the things. I truly care about and I feel like we don't have to push life will take us where it needs to for us to figure it out and we just can sit back and flow and take action when we can. So if you resonated with anything I said today, please subscribe. All right, my camera cut out, but I did want to say bye to you guys and thank you for listening. If you, and sorry, it is like pouring outside. If you guys enjoyed this, please like, subscribe, or both. Hope you guys have a great day Or night wherever you're at. Peace out