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Why You Need to Crumple Your Beliefs About Success

| Mary Shores

 

When does the drive to succeed become an obsession with the impossible? I recently had a conversation with my friend Daniel about this. He told me about a huge win in his writing career, and how he immediately felt unsatisfied. Instead of fully celebrating the win, he immediately looked to level it up even more. And it all stemmed from this pressure for success. If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed, unsatisfied with your current job or didn’t feel successful enough, this one is for you. Because leveling up your life is important, but it shouldn’t make you unhappy.


Check In With Yourself
This level of pressure that society puts on us is toxic. The pressure
to have the perfect home, the  career, the perfect family, is, frankly, unrealistic. And it means that many of us are going life constantly stressed and unsatisfied because we feel that we haven’t reached this level of perfect yet. A little bit of pressure is okay, but when we start to build up to a level 10 freak-out, it starts to be more destructive than productive. If you’ve reached this point, it's time for a check-in.

I’m not saying that any little level of stress means game over. The journey is not meant to be graceful. It's meant to be deeply challenging. It’s uncomfortable and it’s awkward at times. And of course, you will always be fighting this drive to have more, make more money, be more successful. That feeling is perfectly normal. And when you look back, it’s likely that you’ll see you enjoyed it more than you think right now. But to truly enjoy the journey, you need to understand the small wins. Instead of immediately looking to the next ladder to climb, feel that success for a minute.

Because listen: You’re meant to make an impact. You’re meant to help others and fulfill your inner mission. You have to check in with yourself and follow your intuition. So if you’re feeling uncomfortable with your drive to succeed, you need to step out of that fear. You need to keep an eye on the bottom line but remember that you do what you do because you love it.

Everything you’re worried about, you need to like crumple it up like a piece of paper and throw it. Instead of constantly worrying about the next big thing, focus on your core four. If you implement your core four, you’ll never go wrong.

The Core Four

So I developed this thing called the core four. These are four core things that you want to focus on in your life and career. These aren’t specific goals to reach and it’s not a two-year plan. It's more of a focus. In my brand, some of my core four include implementing my branding and using a business blueprint.

Now, in every action I take for my brand, I’m asking myself: Does this match up with my message and my voice? And does this make sense with my business plan? I keep those focuses to make sure that I’m not chasing empty goals, but that I’m aligning my business with my purpose so I can be truly successful.

You can do this too. Come up with a core four for your inner desires – whether those are for your business or life. When you keep those focuses in mind, you can stay on track and keep yourself from getting sucked into the success vortex. I’ve made a worksheet that makes this an easy fill-in-the-blank practice. Check in with yourself right now.

personal development
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