002. The Myth of Arrival

This episode is about the myth of arrival: the belief that there's a finish line where you'll finally be happy, finally rest, finally be enough. Marriage. Weight loss. Paying off debt. Building a business. The perfect job. We've been conditioned to believe that when we get there, we'll have peace.

But there is no "there." And the finish lines we're chasing? Most of them are imaginary.

In this episode:

• Why "happily ever after" is a lie we've been told since childhood
• The billion-dollar goal I set based on someone else's timeline—and why comparing foundations is a trap
• How I launched with no outside investors, hit a global pandemic a year later, and realized my timeline was never going to look like theirs
• Why foundations are messy—and why that's exactly how they're supposed to be
• The college degree I didn't finish and what I learned about passion vs. credentials
• How to know if you're on the right path: replace "achievements" with "happiness"

 0:48 – The Myth of Arrival: Happily Ever After
 2:40 – Fictional Finish Lines I Set for Myself
 4:56 – The Comparison Trap: My Foundation vs. Theirs
 8:20 – Delete the Arrival from Your Mind
 11:14 – No Blueprint to Success
 12:00 – Degree vs. Passion: What I Learned
 13:41 – Choose Your Environment Wisely
 14:46 – Happiness Check-In: Are You on the Right Path?
 15:38 – The Becoming Question
 16:00 – Stay in the Making

The Becoming Question:
 What milestone have you told yourself will make you complete? And what opens up when you realize you don't have to wait for it to feel whole?

Connect: @melissathompson.19

Watch/Listen: bellame.com/becomingher

You are not late. 

You are not behind. 

You are not finished. 

You are in the making.

Stay in the making.

Transcript

Melissa Thompson 0:00

When I first launched, I wanted to be a billion-dollar brand within the first five years. Well, we've been around eight, and that did not quite happen. But what I learned, not hitting that goal personally, was not failure. It was fiction. It was a story that I was telling myself to keep me going. And I realized I went from wanting to be a billion-dollar brand to instead impacting a billion lives. Welcome to Becoming Her. I'm Melissa Thompson. This is a podcast about lifelong evolution. For the woman who knows she's not finished, not behind, not late, just in the making. And that's exactly where you're supposed to be. Welcome back to becoming her. Today I want to chat a little bit about something that has shaped us all since we were young, especially little girls. And they lived happily ever after. And then what? They just sat around and smiled at each other? What comes next? That is the myth of the arrival. We've all been there. We all know it just all too well. When I lose weight, when I find the love of my life, when I finally pay off the student loans, when my child sleeps through the night, when my child goes to college, when I finally get that new position at work, that is when I'm going to have peace. That's when I'll be happy. That is when I can rest. It's all a myth. It's something that we learned and it's been conditioned since we were very, very young. Waiting for a timeline, waiting for something to happen that's going to give us the identity we need and the permission to just be happy. In the last episode, I talked about all the times that I thought that I had arrived, that I had reached the finish line, but then I realized there wasn't a finish line. Motherhood, marriage, building a business, all the things. It is something that is taught to us from when we were very young that we believe we need to reach that every single time. It becomes our identity, only to be left feeling lost when we don't feel complete at each one. And most recently, even with my business, when I first launched, I wanted to be a billion-dollar brand within the first five years. Well, we've been around eight, and that did not quite happen. But when you look at false narratives and the stories that we tell ourselves, not hitting that goal personally was not failure. It was fiction. It was a story that I was telling myself to keep me going. And I think that is what we do in general when it comes to setting these goals, these milestones, these dates of arrival, these myths of the happily ever after. For me personally in business, shooting for a goal that's beautiful, but didn't quite happen kept me going because why? I was exhausted with purpose. I was out there doing all the things that I needed to do to grow a multimillion dollar brand. And because I was exhausted every single day, setting a goal like that meant that when I got there, then I could rest. When I got there, then I'll be happy. Billion dollars, five years didn't happen. But what I learned in between the journey, I might not have hit a billion-dollar brand. We're still growing. We're still moving mountains and we're still impacting lives. And my journey changed a little. I went from wanting to be a billion-dollar brand to instead impacting a billion lives. Different finish line, different arrival, maybe, but not quite. It's really giving yourself the grace to understand that you're in evolution in every point that you're at in life. We have grown a beautiful brand that impacts so many lives. That's not a failure because I didn't hit a certain date in my own head that was made up by myself. Instead, it was about impacting a billion lives. And that is what set my heart on fire. I was recently having a conversation with a dear friend of mine who is in the middle of the comparison game, basically doing exactly what I have done all along, setting the finish line, the imaginary line, at the place of somebody else's success. And that person, as I was giving advice to them, I realized that I don't take my own advice. And it is that thing of they're in a situation, in a stage of life, a season, if you will, that is different than the people around them, than their peers. And they're comparing their life, their journey, their happiness to what somebody else has because their chronological age is the exact same or similar, but I did the exact same thing. I took a business that I had admired that had hit a billion dollars in their first five years, and I set my finish line on their actions, not my own, not what made me happy. When you are setting up your own foundation for success, it's messy. Foundations are not beautiful. Look at a foundation of a giant skyscraper before it's built. The foundation is ugly. It does not look all put together. It's in pieces and fragmented and it's dirty and it's messy. But that messy foundation is one day going to hold the world's largest skyscraper and it's going to be steady and it's going to be beautiful. But the way the foundation looked at the beginning has no impact on that. It is that it was done on its own timing. We all are running our own race. And most of the time, the deadlines we're putting, they're imaginary. We need to be happy in the journey. So after giving this advice, realizing I was in the exact same situation with my own comparison game and comparison of arrivals. While I admired a brand who did a billion dollars in their first five years, I was comparing two completely different foundations, mine and theirs. We launched as a young brand with no outside investors, just us. Going forward in a time frame which was very different than their foundation was built. A year after launching, we hit a global pandemic, and the entire world turned upside down. So my timeline was very different than their timeline. My foundation was built very differently than theirs. And that makes a world of difference. So what I now find to be my success and my happiness lies in a completely different way to gauge my success, right? It really has to do with impacting lives for me. Well, I think the entire becoming her idea and theory really relies on belief. And you have to believe that the whole arrival moment is a myth. You have to delete it from your mind. You have to understand that there is no arrival. Just saying it, it can't be a mantra. You have to understand it. And when we look at things like happily ever after and realize that that really is a myth. And the myth of the arrival, understanding that it was all just a lie, it's all just almost like a security blanket to keep us going. So it's so important that we walk through why we need to delete it from our belief mindset to begin with. Because until you delete that, you can never truly accept and give yourself grace that you are truly becoming in every stage of life that you're living. If you don't, you're always going to be looking for that arrival or that goal or that finish line. And this is the only way to do it. So looking at the arrival itself, you're still going to set goals. You still want to achieve and reach, whether it's losing weight, whether it's paying off that student debt, whether it is raising beautiful children, you're not going to stop running for your goal. It has more to do with changing the word arrival into your journey, your own personal journey, and understanding how to truly live life through it, to celebrate every victory, to be able to live in the moment, to understand there's obstacles and hardships, but that they shape you. They never break you. And once we can collectively do that, it's something that we learn. I'm 55 and I'm learning it every single day by waking up in the morning, giving myself grace to move forward, giving myself that same grace to fall and trip, just like we do when we're toddlers, and you know, applaud myself as I get back up. Honestly, it comes down to the beauty of living life. And that is why becoming her is so special to me, because it truly allows us to love the life we're living. There's no blueprint to becoming her. There's no blueprint to being happy in life because there's about a billion ways to build your life. And what you build and your foundation is going to look very different than your neighbors. But the grass isn't always greener on the other side, is it? So we need to be happy living in the moment and understand and step into our power of what happens when we understand that and really celebrate our own foundation. So many times we're we're chasing a goal of success, for example, through through business or through life or career or through education, right? I had the biggest hang up for the longest time because I didn't graduate from college. I went my two years, was a happy student, probably living life a little too large, and never completed it. So I always felt less than. I always compared myself. And it didn't help when I started in the corporate world, when they said, well, we think you're amazing and you have the most amazing runway. So much so that Melissa, we're going to put you through school while you work full-time, while you have three children, while you travel, get your degree and big things await. So what did I do? I led my life. I took care of my children and I went to school and I was miserable doing it all, trying to figure it all out. But I thought and I believed that if I didn't have that degree, that I could not be successful. I've taught my children this. A degree can help tremendously in life. But I've always believed that had more to do with discipline and finishing what somebody's passionate about. For me, I wasn't passionate about that. You have to find your passion. I found my passion in business. I found my passion in formulations and beauty and serving others. And if you're passionate enough about something, it will take you farther than any piece of paper ever will. In fact, something that's even more powerful than any piece of paper will ever hold. And as I've told my children, have them all. That's even better. But if you're gonna pick, find your passion. And the best thing to really examine in your life is the environment that you put yourself in, who you're surrounding yourself with, what you're listening to. Are you scrolling social media and filling yourself with negativity? Or are you scrolling social media and finding yourself things that are going to enrich you and make you stronger? When you surround yourself with the right people, the right environments, you know, they say you are the sum of the five people that you surround yourself with. Ask yourself, who are the last five people that you surrounded yourself with? It's free and easy to put yourself in the right room anywhere in life. We are so blessed to be able to connect via online and being able to put yourself in any virtual room across the globe. Find the right one. Put yourself in the room with people that will inspire you to do more. So you might ask yourself, how do you know if you're on the right path to your achievements? It's kind of simple. Replace the word achievements with happiness in your journey as you progress through something you desire or want. Do you feel happiness or do you feel despair? Do you feel proud or do you feel less than? If you continue on the right path and you fill yourself with a sense of accomplishment and pride, then you're going the right direction. And if you're not, the beautiful thing about this life, my friends, is that you get to stop, reevaluate, center yourself, and choose the path that leads to what you desire, but also into happiness and peace. So before we end this episode, I always want to ask a becoming question for you. So I want you to think about this. What milestone have you told yourself will make you complete? And what opens up when you realize you don't have to wait for it to feel whole? Let me know down in the comments. And remember, you're not late, you're not behind, you're not finished. You're in the making. Stay in the making. Thanks for being here. If you know someone who needs to hear this, send it to them. And if this resonated with you, comment down below. I'd love to keep this conversation going. Make sure to follow along on YouTube and Instagram for daily updates. You can find everything in the description. See you next time.