Deep Heartfelt Success

Beyond Achievement: How to Actually Feel Successful Right Now

• Heidi Marke, The Gentle Rebel Coach • Season 1 • Episode 2

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How successful do you feel today?
In this episode, we explore how to close the gap between what you’ve achieved and how deeply you allow yourself to feel it—because real success is something you get to embody now. 

Success isn’t just about what you achieve—it’s about how it feels to live inside it.

Welcome to *Deep Heartfelt Success*—the podcast for big-hearted, driven professionals who want more.
More ease. More joy. More confidence.
More success that feels even better on the inside than it looks on the outside.

If you’re ready to explore your own version of Deep Heartfelt Success—and what it could look like to work with me—book a complimentary session here:
👉 https://calendly.com/heidimarke/heartfeltsuccess

🎧 Follow the podcast to stay connected.
💛 If this speaks to you, feel free to share it with someone who’s ready for their next evolution of success.

🎵 Music: “Upbeat Happy Country” by Blueway Music – Licensed via AudioJungle (Music Standard License).

**Disclaimer:** This podcast is for educational and inspirational purposes only. It is not a substitute for medical, psychological, or therapeutic advice. Please trust your own inner wisdom and seek appropriate support when needed.

Speaker 1:

How successful do you feel? Hello, welcome to the Deep, heartfelt Success podcast. Success that feels even better on the inside than it looks on the outside. Hello, I'm Heidi, heidi Mark, transformational coach for big-hearted, driven professionals who want more, more ease, more joy, more capacity to fully experience and enjoy the success you've worked so hard for. Because real success isn't just about achieving more, although I'm sure you want more. It's about expanding our capacity to feel confident in it, to really enjoy it. It's time to start feeling the fulfillment, the freedom and the ease you've worked so hard for. This is where traditional success ends and deep, heartfelt success begins. Welcome to the adventure.

Speaker 1:

How successful do you feel today, in this moment? So, you've worked really hard, and before you is your success, but are you noticing it? How successful do you feel? Do you even think about that? Because I believe that that's a really powerful question, because asking ourselves each day how successful do I feel today, in this moment, as I move through the day, when I wake up, at the end of the day, that can be used to increase the feelings of success without actually having to achieve any more success. It's a freebie, because the truth is you've already worked really hard, you've already created a lot of success, and regardless of where your success sits externally, regardless of whether you're riding high and loving it, or riding high and struggling to hold it together. Or it looks like you're riding high but actually there's some really difficult stuff going on at work and you're just pushing through and hoping things, waiting for a shift, somebody difficult to leave or something big, a big change that's happening within your company. Or maybe you've got this nagging sense that you're not quite in the right place and you need to move, but you don't know what that looks like. Or maybe you're you've got this nagging sense that you're not quite in the right place and you need to move, but you don't know what that looks like. Or maybe you've made a move and you're just settling in. Or maybe, if you're a woman, you're pregnant and so this is a big transition.

Speaker 1:

There can be all sorts of things going on, because life changes all the time, particularly if you're driven, if you're highly driven, there's going to be change, by definition, and I'd argue there's always change, so that even when we think we're stuck, we can't actually hold everything stable, because everything's always in flux. But there are times when there's big changes going on. There are in between times, there are transition times, there are trickier times, there are easier times, but noticing how you actually feel and how successful you feel can change, can separate your feelings of satisfaction and success, whatever that means for you, and that's a whole nother episode. So I'm going to ask you that question again how successful do you feel right now, just in this moment, and just to notice it all of it, because often it's really complicated, it's not really an answer to that. There's I feel successful if I look for it in this area of my life, but here feels in flux or this doesn't feel like it's going right. It's a it's actually a deep, complicated question, but noticing how it feels in the body rather than coming up with an answer in the mind, I found to be deeply powerful. First of all, it's really useful information. It it tells you the connection between yourself and what is actually going on in your life and it also enables you, if you choose to, to change and increase the feelings of success without having to work harder. And that's really cool and, I would argue, really, really important and is a big part of the creation of your deep, heartfelt success. Success that feels even better on the inside than it looks on the outside. So how successful do you feel today, in this moment? Is it different than yesterday? Is it different than last week? Is it different than a year ago? I'm just noticing that. So increasing this self-awareness is really helpful.

Speaker 1:

First of all, self-awareness is key to being successful, to feeling successful, because the more we know ourselves and what we're up to, the more wisdom and information useful information we have to navigate our life, to set things up for success and for the feelings of success to make our life work for us rather than be working for our lives. And also because I believe that the mind gets stuck in previous versions of ourselves and that by noticing the success that's here today, we can start catching that up. The time lag. So, for example, if I ask you how successful you feel today, I expect or I know for myself before I started practicing this that there's a lack of feeling of success, which is to do with my mind still thinking I'm somewhere else, for example, for me at this season in my life. I run my own business, my own coaching business, and this podcast is a big, big part of that.

Speaker 1:

So when my mind is telling me that I'm not yet successful's because it's stuck in the past, in the early years of building the business, or well, actually it's been doing it recently. Because launching a new podcast takes a lot of courage and although it felt completely right and obvious to me to do this, there's still the chaos that comes with the creation of something new and for me, when I get caught up in that chaos, I keep forgetting oh, creation requires chaos. So then it would be easy to listen to my mind telling me you've made a big mistake, you've let go of a podcast that was really valued and successful. Why would you change it? That's risky, risky, this is going to fail, all of that kind of nonsense. But I choose not to listen to that.

Speaker 1:

I hear it and I catch it, but the thing is it's unhelpful because the truth is I do know what I'm doing, I do believe in this new podcast and I can hold both successes at once. I can have a previously successful podcast and a business that was previously successful, and I can have a business that goes to the next level and a podcast that matches that. I can do both. But I can only believe I can do both when I deliberately increase my feelings of success first. It's just easier. It doesn't.

Speaker 1:

It means I'm then not pushing to the next level, from fear, from anxiety, from everything requires struggle. Everything I want's on the outside of my comfort zone. Therefore, I have to push through fear. Instead, it enables me to to move forward with a quiet confidence, a quiet knowing of course I can do this, of course it's going to be chaotic, of course it feels scary, and that's okay because I've done it before, not this, because actually, comparing launching my previous podcast five years ago to this one Okay, so I know the tech and how it all works, but it actually has felt scarier I think I mean I'm not not thinking that much about previous fears it feels very different.

Speaker 1:

So when I say I'm sitting in the feelings of success, you might think well, you've launched a podcast before, it's easy for you. It doesn't feel that it's easy because it feels very different. What I mean is I have been here before, not doing this particular launch before, but I've been here before as in, I've done difficult things before, and once you've done difficult things, you can do more difficult things. They don't have to be the same thing, but I don't know about you, but it's easy for my mind to get caught up in yeah well, that wasn't really that difficult. Or it's an exception yeah well, that wasn't really that difficult. Or it's an exception, or you don't really know what you're doing. And that imposter syndrome that the mind just flagging stuff that might be risky up, that's useful information, but it's not where I choose to live from, because that's the feelings of not being successful.

Speaker 1:

If I'm always in the building phase, the insecure phase of a business and business, like life, goes up and down. There's the building phase, there's the reaping rewards phase and then you go again and it's very fast or it's more, it's very. I find it very, very obvious in business in a way that wasn't so clear in my awareness when I was in employment. I'm not completely convinced that the two things are that separate, because when I work with clients they often have just as much of a roller coaster as people who are in business, but it is different in that I guess it's more immediate. So as a solopreneur with an outward facing personal brand, it's very, very obvious to me that how my energy is and my own feelings of success affects the business. I can see what's going on, I can see when it's scary, when I'm building something new, I can see when it feels easier and when I'm building something new, I can see when it feels easier and I feel like I've gained success.

Speaker 1:

But in general, unless I do this practice of how successful am I feeling today and where is the success, it's easy for me to get stuck in the past, insecure, early business phase. I've noticed that a lot when my mind is just on repeat, it thinks we're still back there. It's not true. So sitting in 2025 and the success I have now is helpful. It's helpful because it feels good, feels lovely, to feel successful. But it's also more true. It's not true that I'm five, six years ago. I am here, I have success and sitting in. That enables me to not only feel good now, but enables me to create more success from the energy of this quiet, confidence and clarity. I can do this because I've done it Not this exactly, but things like it. So the question how successful do you feel now? Is to gain a useful gauge of how true you're being to yourself. What's really going on. You could be saying, well, yes, but I'm not feeling successful at the moment because my business is still growing or I don't feel like it's growing and I work really hard, but that's part of success.

Speaker 1:

Success requires the letting go of the old and the risky creation of the new. It requires courage, it requires commitment, it requires chaos and risk, otherwise you're not growing into the next level of you, the next level of success. You can't well, you can just sit where you are. But I can't, and people I work with and I'm assuming you, because you're listening to this you can't stay where you are because you're an ever-expanding person who's very driven and wants a lot out of life. And so, therefore, the only thing is to step forward into the chaos of creating the next level, but with courage. If you do it, with the quiet courage that comes from acknowledging your current success, it's more fun, it's easier and it's a much, I believe, a much up-leveled way, a more skillful way of creating and living fully and successfully. Fully and successfully.

Speaker 1:

So, starting with the question how successful do you feel today, in this moment? And then noticing what comes up and treating it all as useful information, so neutrally, noticing what comes up in reaction to the question how successful do you feel today, in this moment? And then noticing how much of the reaction is to do with previous versions of yourself, because the mind has a fear bias, particularly for a driven person, because we want a lot. So there's going to be very I would say quite extreme reactions to oh, here we go again. Can't you just want less? Can't you just stay still? Why do you want so much? And what I'd like to invite you to do instead is a gently, rebellious practice of saying, well, okay, so I'm really driven, I create chaos, I always want more, but I want to do it with more fun, more ease. So I'm going to turn things around. And here's your delightful, gently, rebellious practice to try this week, should you wish to join me on this adventure.

Speaker 1:

And that's to put on the gently, rebellious lens of looking at everything as if it was successful. So you're deliberately looking for evidence of success. So you just look and find it, keep looking and finding it, keep looking deliberately. It's deliberate, this is the effort, it's a commitment, but it's fun. And then really start looking.

Speaker 1:

So a nice thing to do would be to, when you wake up in the morning, say, you say to yourself, how successful am I feeling today? And then just say, well, I've successfully I don't know, on a bad day it might be I've successfully woken up. So really looking, bringing to mind what have you done in the past and the present, anything, anything that's successful. And obviously this is really different in different seasons of our lives. So when my life's been really, really tough, just getting out of bed has been a success Getting through a day. There were years of my life when getting through a day was a major achievement. It felt like a major achievement. So therefore that's evidence of success.

Speaker 1:

And then there's the more delightfully obvious ones, like achieving something, achieving a certificate, an award, anything you know, passing exams, getting qualifications, passing exams, getting qualifications, getting jobs, getting promotions, getting clients. There's lots of external, more obvious measures of success, but how often do we really feel those? If you're anything like me, they kind of get a little bit bypassed, because then you're on to the next thing, because the truth is each up level yes, it, it's great, but it requires an adjustment. So then you're into the adjustment, so you get the new role and then you've got to adjust to it and it's very easy to move. I don't know. I find it very easy to move quickly from yay to and off. We go again.

Speaker 1:

So the pausing and sitting in success is really powerful, and by sitting in it. I actually do mean kind of sitting in it. So the way I see it is so you feel the success in your body, bring it to mind, feel it in the body, notice it. Whatever that feels like to you. It's different for everyone. There'll be probably different parts of your body that feel something Like. For me it's kind of a buzzing. It's both a buzzing and a quietness. It's just, I guess it's a buzzing thing, and then when I sit in it it becomes more settled and it becomes quieter, and then it becomes this inner confidence. It becomes part of me. So I invite you to literally sit in it. It becomes part of me, so I invite you to literally sit in it. So imagine that you're sitting in a chair of it, like it's hugging you.

Speaker 1:

I don't know anything that works for you. I see it as a leaning back into success, whereas when I'm in need, driving forward, I'm kind of slightly sitting forward almost. It's a different energy, and being able to switch between those two energies I've found to be really helpful. So if I'm aiming for something, I'm in the forward motion, really focused, kick ass, do, do, do, do, do, creating chaos and then taking time at any point. This is thing not just doing it once you've achieved that next step, but taking as a daily practice what success is here now that I'm not noticing, and how can I just enjoy that.

Speaker 1:

And it really doesn't matter what it is, because whatever success is for you, it's going to have some sort of resonance, some sort of feeling, whatever it is you're after. So the reason everything we do is in order to change how we feel. So when you can identify that feeling whether it's security, satisfaction, joy, fulfillment, you know that deep satisfaction that comes with doing something complex and difficult, negotiating difficult people, bringing things together and it's done. That feeling, whatever it is for you, I invite you to identify and get to know it more and then lean back into it, sit in it, be with it, notice it, allow it to spread through every cell in your body. Feel the shift in your body, because when you embody it, when you you allow it to become part of who you are, because it is part of who you are, because it is part of who you are, then everything starts to shift, because then you start moving through the day differently.

Speaker 1:

I am successful, I choose to feel my success and if you need to step into remembering past successes to help you while you transition into the next level of success. Good for you, that's like it's still there, right, you access whatever is easiest, whatever feels good to you. There's always something. There's an enormous amount of success that I believe is hidden to us. There's a normal, enormous amount of feelings of success, deep, heartfelt success that's hidden. So what we're doing is we're raising awareness of it to our conscious mind and then we're deliberately allowing it to spread through every cell in the body. And it's a good feeling. It's one of quiet, knowing I can do this. I've done it before. I do trust myself. I do know how to look after myself. Now you might not feel that yet, but those that bit I've just shared with you there. That's where I feel at the moment as I go through this adventure into creating deep, heartfelt success.

Speaker 1:

It is that, oh so, things might feel chaotic and risky at the moment, but actually the truth is I look after myself now. Now, I didn't feel like that previously because I wasn't looking after myself properly, but thought I was. So I was prioritizing self-care but actually didn't have the wisdom and the knowledge and the experience or the self-awareness to know what was really going on. So I learned a lot from that process of rolling towards burnout. And then what I found is, in the process of healing from burnout, getting myself together again, I had to rebuild the trust. Yes, it's okay to go for the next level of success, because this time I know the importance of listening to my body, looking after myself. So now that's an up-leveled way of creating the next version of success. So for me, when I sit in my success that's what's going through my mind. I trust myself, I will always look after myself, I will not let myself down and therefore it's safe to stretch, stretch into the next thing. So it's very embodied and you can then notice how you're walking. This found really a really good practice.

Speaker 1:

How are you walking through your day? Are you kind of reaction? You know moving with fast reactions, and this is a tricky one, because there are times in our life when we have to make fast decisions, particularly in leadership, and we do move very fast and we do get loads done. But there's a difference between doing that with awareness and without awareness and we can get stuck in it. You know that reactive do, do, do, do, do, keep going, keep going. I don't know how to stop. I don't know how to stop. I'm exhausted, but I don't know how to stop. It's not safe to stop. There's a difference, and so I'm asking you to just become aware. How are you moving through your day? Are you moving through your day with somebody who is aware of their success and enjoying their success? Or are you moving around as if you must do this in order to get to the next level?

Speaker 1:

And how would it feel to allow that lovely shift in your body where, starting to embody your previous success and your current success, and to sit in it and then notice if it feels different? I bet it will. It should do, it should feel lovely, it does for me, it does for my clients. So that's what I'm inviting you to do this week. I'm inviting you to notice how successful you feel and then to deliberately notice and embody the success that is here. That is here for you, whatever that means to you. So there are times in my life when work success has not been as important as family success, relation success. It's just different times when different things come to prominence. So for you, it's what matters most at the moment and how do I feel about it. And then, where do I have that success and how can I feel it? How can I allow myself, how can I dare? How can I dare to feel successful regardless of what's going on?

Speaker 1:

So this is not about ignoring all the other information the self-doubt, the fear, the anxiety, the imposter syndrome, all of the other stuff. It's not about ignoring it. Well, that's what I want to talk about in the next episode. What do we do with that flavour of information? This week, I'm inviting you to expand your capacity to feel successful, to feel joyful, to feel like you've made it, to really sit in your success, to feel successful at a deep, heartfelt level, by deliberately drawing your conscious mind's attention to the success that is already here, that you've already created, and to sit in it and to feel the shift in your body as you allow that to be part of who you are. So this is really just about catching up with yourself. That's it. And then next week or next oh, it's not next week, is it? Because I'm releasing three at once for some good old momentum as this beautiful new podcast launches into the world.

Speaker 1:

So for the next episode, I'm going to invite you to share a powerful method that I use to deal with what we think of as negative emotions. So the thoughts, the emotions, the habits, the feelings in the body, all of the yucky stuff, the stuff that is normally more prominent, because our minds have a natural bias towards the negative in order to keep us safe. So that's the next episode, but for this episode I invite you to just enjoy your success, to feel it, to feel it deeply, to revel in it, to bathe in it. I've now got a picture in my head of my lovely dogs, my Cavalier Spaniels. Now the sun's come out in the springtime, they've been rolling on their backs in the garden Actually think in something stinky, I don't know what it is, but they are reveling in the joys of spring and I invite you to lean back into your success and revel in it and really enjoy it. See you in the next episode.

Speaker 1:

Hey, thanks for being here, thanks for listening, thanks for joining me on my own adventure into what deep, heartfelt success means for me. To explore further, make sure you hit the follow button. It really does help, helps other people to find it and if you're up for it, scroll right to the bottom of Apple, where they've hidden the review section, and leave me an outstandingly wonderful review. It would be just so lovely. It would make my day. Wonderful review it would be just so lovely it would make my day. And if you're ready to talk about working with me one-to-one, to go deeper and explore what it looks like to create your own version of deep, heartfelt success with a powerful coach walking alongside you, I invite you to book a deep, heartfelt success session. There's a link in the show notes below or you can just go to calendlycom forward slash Heidi, mark. Forward slash heartfelt success. I can't wait to meet you and see what that looks like for you. So exciting. Here's to the next evolution of your success. See you in the next episode. I'm in love with you.