Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 498 of the Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast! I hope you are having a good week! I hope you are making the best of whatever you are doing this week. That’s where the work is, nothing else matters. What you make of it is more important than it. We cant forget that.
Have you ever complimented someone only to have them say, oh that’s nothing or Oh I can’t take credit for that it was luck they say something self-deprecating. Maybe someone gives you a complement and you discount your own role in the accomplishment.
I was listening to Esther hicks years ago and I remember she was interacting with someone in the audience which she often does. They had a question about financial security. They were saying that they always thought that they would be very financially successful in their own right, now this lady was wealthy, but she was wealthy because she was married to someone who had a lot of money, so she said I always thought that I would manifest my own wealth into that. Esther said so you got your manifestation but you’re not happy with it and the lady said no I didn’t get my manifestation. I wanted to create the money I didn’t want it to come through my husband, and Esther looked at her and she just basically said, but you did create that manifestation because you married your husband. You attracted that into your life. This lady stopped for a second and you could tell she sort of had a breakthrough and she said “your right”. I will never forget that because I have thought that before myself that I always knew that I would be financially stable and wealthy in my own right. Now, I married someone who is very financially stable and before I heard that conversation, I would often discount where I was in life because I didn’t make the money myself, my husband did. I discounted all the work I have done throughout the years to be the kind of woman that would attract a man like my husband.
Why do we do that? I was reading about something called Attribution Theory. This theory suggests that people often attribute their successes externally (sometimes to luck or say it was easy) but their failures they attribute internally. So we blame our lack of ability or effort.
Sometimes we minimize our own efforts. Maybe because we forget all the small things we did to get where we are right now. I remember a few years ago I mentioned to Eric that I didn’t feel wildly successful. Which is part of why this podcast has that title. But when I said that, he looked at me like I was crazy, he said just think about all you’ve accomplished. You went to college as an adult and got your interior design degree. In the same few years you did two vesta home shows with Donna where you tied with yourselves for best Interior Design. You got a job offer from your dream architecture firm but ultimately decided to keep working for yourself. He went on to list things that I had completely forgotten. I realized I have a tendency to forget to celebrate my accomplishments before I am on to the next one. So in a way I diminished those achievements by just moving on to the next goal without acknowledging and celebrating. I talked about it a little bit in episode 496 that always thinking the next thing is going to be when we will feel successful or accomplished or enough. But here’s the thing. If you aren’t enough without the achievement, you’ll never be enough with the achievement either.
Because it’s not about the next achievement or the next goal or the major win. It’s about feeling enough exactly as we are today. That has to be the goal. I am enough exactly where I am today and if that isn’t true for you, it wont be true for you tomorrow either regardless of how much money you make, how many awards you have, how handsome of beautiful your partner is, where your kids go to college. If you aren’t enough without it, you will never be enough with it either.
Being enough is an inside job. Nothing external can fill that. Its’s been a long road for me to get here and I still have work to do and I will always have work to do, but I will do the work and you can too. For me meditation, exercise, self compassion, gratitude practices…..consistently noticing when I have negative self talk and turning that around, these are all ways to show self compassion.
Today is a new day. Who you were yesterday doesn’t have to define who you are today but we don’t want to forget to acknowledge the role it played.
Share this with 3 people who are exactly where they are meant to be, I love you guys! I’ll talk to you in a few days!
