The Addiction to Effort & Achievement
Today’s episode is going to be a little different. I flowed without any show notes to fully embody my divine feminine energy. This episode serves more as a reflection of something I’ve discovered after my experience with some leaders at a retreat I attended; my addiction to effort and achievement. Healing this addiction is not something I necessarily have mastered but have decided to teach and share what I’ve already learned through the process.
My Mastermind Retreat Experience + Discovery
I am very invested in investing in myself. What I love about joining masterminds is how I not only receive support from a coach but also from the leaders within the group. I found that this recent mastermind known as the Thought Leader Collective with Ruby Fremon was the most impactful for my own internal and external growth because of the leaders I was able to learn and grow with. With this group knowing me for an entire year, I felt that I was able to fully remove my mask. I fully leaned into not performing, not allowing myself to be seen/heard, and really stood in my own fullest expression of myself. It’s incredible to be surrounded by people who really wanted to see me for who I was but were also devoted to themselves and their inner work.
It’s January 2021 and during this retreat we participated in this activity called the “love seat.” It’s when an individual takes 20 minutes to share something you would love the collective’s support with. It consists of clarifying questions, probing questions, and support/coaching opportunities. I went into this activity not really knowing what to bring to the group. So much so that I found myself trying to self-coach through what I was going to bring up when it came to my day to share. While I was doing this it occurred to me, “Why am I so addicted to making things hard? Why am I so addicted to always having a solution? Why do I always have to be the one to solve my problems?” -- It came to my day of sharing and to have people give you their undivided attention because they want to support you is an amazing feeling; I was able to truly feel seen and heard.
As I introduced what I’d like coaching and support with, I’d like to preface that one of my deep core wounds is that I don’t matter. I’ve believed this about myself since I was a child; it was a compound of events I’ve endured that ultimately led me to believe that I truly didn’t matter. Because of this core wound, I was able to see why I was so addicted to achievement because I know what I don’t want to feel. In order to feel like I mattered, I needed to be achieving. I needed to be the center of attention. I needed to really feel valued by other people. Digging a little deeper, the group and I came to understand that I didn’t want to feel sadness. Overall, I was addicted to achieving and making things harder for myself because I didn’t want to have the time to feel sad. In my head, I judged myself instantly considering that I’m a coach that holds space for their clients and I am someone who encourages people to feel their feelings to heal themselves. My coach lovingly called me out and said, “Stop trying to fix all your problems in your head and allow yourself to just be and feel seen. Allow yourself to be in sadness.”
For those of you who also experience this addiction to effort and feel like you have to constantly be doing in order to be seen and accepted; I ask you to reflect: What are you trying to run away from? What is the feeling in your whole body that you don’t want to feel causing you to keep yourself busy, striving for achievement, and making things harder for yourself? -- Take a moment to think about it. What if we allowed ourselves to make things easy? When we have this natural type A energy, we are more prone to making things harder. We believe that our impact and purpose aren’t big enough so we have to work harder to make it better and enough so that we feel like we’re enough.
Oftentimes we are addicted to the effort that it takes. This usually happens because you didn’t get to where you were without working hard. I am the person I am today because of how hard I worked. I was terrified of not doing well at the age of 18 so I worked hard to ensure that I had a life that didn’t fall into what I believed was a failure.
The Addiction to Effort
A lot of this goes with self-trust. If we truly trusted ourselves and a higher power, that whatever is for us will not pass us, I wonder how much easier our life would be. Here are a couple of journal prompts that can help you acknowledge your addiction to effort:
How much easier would life be if we stopped trying to control all the outcomes and trusted that what is for you will not pass you?
How much easier would life be if you allowed things in your life to just flow?
How much easier would life be if you trusted that you have your back and that you are going to make every single goal come true? So much so that you don’t have to be so paranoid about everything and you are able to take a step back and allow things to just flow and be ease-filled.
The Addiction to Achievement
Who would I be outside of all my achievements? You have full capacity to be that person without achieving all the things. What’s happening in most people’s lives is that we are trying to achieve all the things because we want to BE that person. Remember be, do, have? Outside of all my achievements, I would be happy. I would be content. I would be easygoing. I wouldn’t be so controlling. You can achieve all the things you strive for now. You don’t need to have achieved all the things in order to be and feel deserving or worthy of being happy. That’s the secret to life! Allow yourself ease, space, and flow.
The Significance of Learning, Reflecting, and Integrating
When you make a really big shift or experience a big “AHA” moment, a really great tool and practice is to take action and integrate what you’ve learned so it becomes a part of your identity. A couple of ways I’ve been integrating would be letting go of my expectations of controlling the outcomes and attachment to things. Instead, I am someone who is delighted by life! I am letting life delight and surprise me with things as it’s been refreshing and a great energy to be in. Integrating has allowed me to receive huge external achievements I wasn’t looking for. An example of this would be how I filled up all 6 seats in my mastermind through life’s pure delight. I didn’t feel forced and allowed life to direct the right people to my container instead of pushing myself to fill in these seats. For this year, I have a total of 11 clients, 6 from my mastermind and 5 being personal one-on-one clients! This all happened by really trusting that life is always happening for me and that it CAN be easy.
I’ve also taken a lot of things off my plate through delegating and deleting. (Peep that episode from a couple of weeks ago!) I am able to really lean on my team when it comes to my podcast, repurposing, and managing how I go about my presence with my content. Through this, I’m not racking my brain on forcing myself to create content and forcing myself to be seen on social media. Letting go of all the external achievements I let define me has been so healing.
I’ll leave you with this: Always remember that we get to embody a new and different state of being. Allow things to flow. Allow things to be easy. Allow ourselves to be.
