Episode 069: I Did Something Good, But...
Learning how to celebrate our wins and not diminish ourselves is the topic today. Too often I hear clients cut themselves down when they should be celebrating their success.
+ Read the Transcript
Before I get started on this week's topic, I wanted to thank everyone for all of the comments. I got text messages. I got people in person, and I got emails that commented on the grief podcast that I just did a couple of weeks ago was the last, it was episode 68.
And that was a very hard podcast for me to do, and I felt very vulnerable and very out there. And so I appreciate it. All the people that commented and how it had helped them and touch them. And it's a topic that we need to be exploring more and being more honest about. So I just wanted to do a quick thank you.
And the more we can share our stories and get them out there and get the support and love that they deserve, the happier workers. So okay. Onto the show. Okay. Welcome. I'm so glad to be back here. I went to the smokey mountains with my mom and my husband last week, and it was an amazing trip.
We were a little early for the leaves, but which is hard to believe. Because it's the last week of October, but we still had a wonderful trip, and we got to go horseback riding, and we did some painting. Super out of my comfort zone and wonderful all at the same time. But today, I want to talk about something that I hear a lot in my office, and that is the phrase of I did something good, but, or I feel like I'm enough, but in that, but comes in there.
Wipes it all away. So I have a couple of examples of what I'm talking about. So let's say you have a great day laughing and playing with your kids at the beach. And after seeing yourself in the mirror, you beat yourself up for how you look at a bathing suit, or you get up early, you work out, you make a healthy breakfast, and you even set an intention for the day, but you don't allow enough time for traffic.
And you end up late to work later. As you sharing your day with your friend, you only talk about how you relate to work. No mention of all you accomplish that. You have a great time with your girlfriends, but you end up drinking too much. And as you share with your husband about the weekend, all you mentioned is how stupid you were for drinking too much.
And the last example I have is you find a great new job, and you're so happy that you left your old one, and all you can keep telling yourself is what an idiot you were for not leaving sooner. Can you relate to any of those examples? I'm sure you can. Because I know, I can. So in all of these examples, something great has happened.
An opportunity at work, putting your health first and during time with girlfriends or getting a new job. And those are all great activities that make you shine. There's something to be proud of. They're fabulous activities. And then you notice, and the retelling of these amazing events, you immediately play them down, focusing on the negative or regret they took so long.
In essence, you're intentionally dimming your light. And I had this happened to me with a client this week. I'm seeing a client, and she was talking about how she'd had this great aha with recognizing every time her monger steps in and tells her where she's failed or brings up some fear or some doubt she steps in and says to herself.
Yeah. And I would argue her biggest fan steps in to say to her, okay, what if I'm enough right now? What if this is enough? And just saying that to herself and returning to that over and over again has made a big difference in her life. But as she was telling me this victory in this thing that needed to be celebrated, because she figured out this way of channeling her biggest fan, and it was defeating the monger, and it was this positive thing.
She would counter everything she said with, I come in, and I say, I'm enough, but I'm not perfect. I'm not doing it perfectly, or she'd say, and then I'd come in, and I tell myself I'm enough at this moment. I'm not saying I have a huge ego or anything. So everything she did, even in session with me, she was still want me to think she had a big head.
She didn't want me to think she wasn't modest. She was dimming her light here. She'd figured out this awesome way to counter her emonger, and instead of celebrating it, she's making sure I know that she's not perfect. She doesn't have any ego when that isn't the point. The point is she figured it out away.
To get through the day without being attacked by the monger. This constant dimming of our light and not celebrating our successes is an epidemic. And it's something that I'm guilty of. It. Something I see in my clients all the time. I see in my girlfriends the number of women who diminished, disregard, and flat-out disrespect.
There wins rather than celebrating through immediately onto the next thing. We're bullying ourselves for how it could have gotten better. We've discussed this a million times. We are our own worst critics. And so when you ask yourself, what are you gaining by diminishing? And so here are some things we say to ourselves, Keep us in the diminishing stance.
One is don't shine too brightly, good girls, quote, unquote, stay humble and small. That's something a lot of clients have that the good girl is humble and small, so we want to be a good girl. So you diminishing your light, playing small, or staying humble doesn't shine the light on someone else more brightly.
It just keeps you small. That's back to the idea, I talked about a couple of podcasts ago about People in Puerto Rico that are suffering from the hurricane. And when we feel guilty that we're not suffering, that isn't helping the people in Puerto Rico, so you diminishing your light isn't helping anybody else.
You're just diminishing your light. So another thing we say if we celebrate a win. Somehow stop striving. And I've talked about this myth before. This is the myth that we need the monger, if we need to keep driving ourselves and if there's something to be accomplish, then there's no room for celebration.
We just got to keep powering through and keep going so that, or doesn't make us accomplish more. She just makes us miserable. Wow, we're doing it. So softening her voice will make us less. But it will make us happier. So keep that in mind. The biggest fan does not stop us from striving. It just stops us from hammering ourselves all day.
And then the last thing we tell ourselves, we believe that we have to be perfect to celebrate that a victory, unless spotless is not a victory. Oh, I can so relate to that one. So there's no such thing as perfect. Like my clients saying I'm enough. I'm not perfect, but I'm enough.
And we had this whole discussion around how enough doesn't have anything to do with perfection. Being enough means you can show up at a situation and you can feel empowered to handle it. You may not handle it perfectly. You may not even handle it no 50% perfectly, but you're handling it. And that means you're enough.
So no matter how hard we strive, we have swallowed the belief. We have to be perfect. And so really keep that in mind that perfection is so dangerous. So here's three things I would say to help unhook this diminishing or cutting out the celebration is surround yourself with celebrators.
Surround yourself with celebrators encourage your friends. Celebrate with you and call you out when you aren't celebrating. And this has been a big thing. My husband has done this for me because I'm not a big celebrator, and he will frequently remind me we should be celebrating this. That's a good thing.
Keep that in mind. He'll call me out on the celebrations. So it's something to do with your girlfriends, or your partner is really to encourage. You to celebrate and also for you to be encouraging them when they need to celebrate, stop, you need to be celebrating this, doing a reminder.
Notice how often you diminish or disregard a win and force yourself to celebrate, no matter how small. So that's another way of bringing in that celebration. Throw a dance party for one in your office. Enjoy a cupcake or tough friend about your victory. Vocalizing it out loud, sharing with other people, allowing the victory to be, and the victory can be, I made it to work on time, or I got up this morning and worked out, or I recorded the podcast.
They can be little tiny things. They don't have to be these huge momentous. I did something perfect. And it was amazing. No, I've got up out of bed, and I got dressed victory. That could be a victory for some people. And then the last thing I want to say would, you've heard me say this before, but it is so powerful.
Remove the word, but from your cab vocabulary and instead use the word. And so if we go back to the example that I talked about, where let's take the, one of you have a great time with your girlfriend. And you ended up drinking too much. So instead of saying, you have a great time with your girlfriends, but you ended up drinking too much.
You can say you have a great time with your girlfriends and you drank too much. So if you could go back, you probably wouldn't drink that much again because you were hungover and you still had a great time with your girlfriends. Both are true. One doesn't take away from the other. And so, adding and into the vocabulary has made a big difference for me and my clients and recognizing I can be holding two opposite truths at the same time and one isn't diminished the other.
+ Weekly Ritual Challenge
One thing that has really helped me reduce anxiety is adding regular ritual practices to my daily life, so each week, I am going to be sharing a ritual with you and challenge you to complete it.
This week's ritual: Clench and Tighten All your Muscles
So scrunch your face up. Squint your eyes, and country fists do that for five, 10 seconds. However long you can hold that. A lot of times, when you're doing that, you're holding your breath. So to remind yourself not to do it too long, or you won't be able to breathe. And then, after you're done, release everything with a big exhale you realize how tightly you were holding your body before you crunched everything. And then B, it allows you to release all that tension.