We talk about wanting to be successful, but most of us are not doing the work in order to be able to have that success. So today, we're gonna be talking about three things that are impacting your success as we prepare for Season 4.

Welcome to the Balance Code Podcast, a place for high achievers to step outside the hamster wheel of day-to-day life and start learning tools for more balance. I'm your host, Katie Rustler, and I will be guiding you on this journey of discovering your balance code.

Welcome back to the podcast! It is Season 4, and I wanted to start us off with some practical tools to start understanding how we can really achieve success. These are three things that are impacting your success; three things that I have noticed, after 15 years of working with clients, that, on repeat, are blocking people from reaching the success that they desire.

I think often we're looking for that short- term gratification of success. We're looking for that first hit of, like, "Yes! I'm in the right direction!" We're not actually training ourselves to hold the success that we desire. What do I mean by that? Okay, so, number one is, we are not preparing ourselves for the inevitable success. And here's my example: When someone wins the lottery— I don't know if you know the statistics on the lottery, but 70% of people who win the lottery go bankrupt, and that's not by chance. What's happening when someone wins a lottery, and they're not really prepared themselves to win that much money? I mean, how can you? You're literally just putting a small amount of money in, maybe weekly, hoping that you win this big amount. So, once you do win it, the chances that you're fully ready to have that amount of money are low. So, often, what happens when somebody goes bankrupt after winning the lottery is that they have poor boundaries around money, they do not know healthy investment and techniques, they're buying those things that they've always wanted without thinking, really, "Do I need this?" And ultimately they're losing the money fast.

So, what do I mean by preparing ourselves for inevitable success? Let's say in the case of the lottery, right? If I wanna win the lottery, then I'm gonna be taking the time to learn about healthy investments. I'm gonna go ahead and create a plan: that when I win that money, what will I want to purchase? Does it make sense to purchase those things, or is that just an ego-driven decision? Who am I gonna want to support or not support, because people are gonna come out of the woodwork asking me for money, right? One of the ways I'm gonna make sure that this amount of money can last as long as possible, and I wanna educate myself on these things. I want to learn from those who went bankrupt after winning the lottery. I wanna learn from those who are very successful with their money.

This is the same for any goal that we have. Whatever goal you have, are you preparing yourselves for the inevitable success of that goal being reached? Probably not, because often, we're just thinking in the short term of, like, "I want this goal! This would be great!" We visualize it, right? We feel it, but then we're not doing the things to, in a sense, prepare our nervous system and our minds for having that success occur.

Here's another example: I have a client who has grown in their business to such a level that they're like floundering in other areas of their life because they weren't prepared for the success they've been asking for, right? They wanted their business to grow, but they weren't thinking about how that would impact their time with their family, with their friends, with all the things that they were normally doing— their self-care. And so, a lot of the work we've had to do is, how do we simplify and look at what self-care is now, with less time? How do we create healthier boundaries around people needing things from them, right? Like, we had to get really smart about the things that would have been great to already be working on before. Basically, it's putting in habits to be able to sustain the success that my client wanted to have. And this is something that I wish all of us would work on.

When you sit down and write out your goal, and you start working towards achieving the goal, also prepare yourself for the inevitable success. What will be the things that need to be in place for that success to stay? For me, basically, not to go bankrupt, right, in whatever form or fashion that means for that goal. Once we achieve something, once we have it, we don't wanna lose that success, right? We want to obtain it, be able to maintain it. So, what are the things that you need to do to prepare yourself for the inevitable success of your goal? That's your homework. You're gonna have more homework, but that's a really big piece of homework that I want you to think about today.

The second thing that's impacting your success is that most of the people I work with, and I have known for a long time, still wrap up success as a marker of their worth. So, when they reach that level of success, they're still not happy; it's not enough. Those who are able to remove that— success is a marker of my worth, or I'm valued, or I matter— as soon as they can remove that, they're able to sit and enjoy success for longer.

What I mean by this is, probably, you have reached different levels of success in your life, but we're not able to feel it because you were driven to do the next thing because it didn't actually fulfill the need you were looking for it to fill. Kind of like a hit, right? With an addict, it wasn't enough. "I need more! I need a stronger... I need a different kind." We get so addicted to the hit, a feeling like we're worthy or enough, but we don't realize being successful, earning those gold stars, will never fulfill that need.

So what's impacting your success is that you're not able to actually experience the success. You're not actually able to sit with, "Good job! Well done! Stay here! Don't jump to the next thing!" We jump to the next thing because it doesn't provide the fulfillment we thought it would, because we've wrapped it up in a present of: "I'm enough. I'm worthy. I'm capable. Look at me now! Do you love me more?" We cannot wrap up our own emotional needs, our own emotional wounds, into reaching success, or you won't even be able to experience success for very long. I was working with a client once who finished her bachelor's, was moving on to her master's, and I said, "Whoa! Whoa, whoa! Have you taken a moment to just, like, 'Wow! I did four years of schooling! I worked while I was doing the schooling! I,' you know, 'developed lifelong friendships! I volunteered at different things! Like, I really did this college experience great!' Did you ever, like, sit down and enjoy that?" And she was like, "No. No, because in my family, you don't...like, culturally, you don't do that. You move on to the next thing." And I said, "Can we stop right now and just enjoy it?" And she started to tear up. And I said, "You have done so much over four years! You've learned so much! You know what you wanna go on to next. Do you feel a life purpose now that's why you're getting your master's and going, 'I need more education in this'? Can we stop and enjoy this success?" And she said, "All I've wanted is that people around me were able to celebrate me." And I said, "Well, great, but why don't you celebrate yourself, right? If your culture and your family's norm is not to celebrate success, you have to do it for yourself. If your culture and your family— you know, everything around you—says, 'It's never enough! It's never enough! It's never enough!' then you have to be the one to say, 'This is enough, and I'm gonna enjoy the ride right now. I'm going to just take a week off before I focus on jumping into my master's program and go for a road trip and go see new things. Every step of the way, celebrate me and what I've been able to accomplish.'"

Some of us think that's selfish. Some of us feel uncomfortable doing that— celebrating ourselves. It feels ego-driven. But no! If we are not able to enjoy our success, and we jump to the next thing, again, you have wrapped up success in a sense of, "I'm not worthy. I'm not capable. I'm not lovable. I'm not enough if I'm not constantly going towards a level of success." This is perfectionism at its best, right? This is also people-pleasing. We have such a desire to have better, more, next level, we can't sit and enjoy it. And that is impacting your success because you've probably already reached many levels of success and not enjoyed it.

So, those of you who have known me for a while know I have three kids. If I don't stop and praise them and encourage them every step of the way towards them having a healthier, more successful life, right? If I am not able to give them that empowerment within themselves to encourage themselves, they will go, "Well, screw it! Why am I even doing these good things? I don't even get recognized for it! I don't feel good about it," right? Our brain is the same way. If we don't stop and go, "Good job! Wow, that's amazing! God, let me just sit with this; this feels so good!" then our brain's gonna be like, "Why do I keep trying? Why do you keep going?" So we have, on the one hand, "I need more! I need more! I need more to finally feel worthy and capable!" and on the other hand, "Why am I doing this? It's not getting me anywhere! It's not getting me what I want!" 'Cause it's never going to, because success is not about our worth. Success is not about our being loved or enough. So be careful, 'cause your brain will then go, "Well, what's the point? I'm not even gonna strive for success." All of a sudden, I've lost motivation. "I don't care anymore," because I never was actually encouraging myself every step of the way. Okay, so now here is No. 3: The third thing impacting your success is that, as you're working towards being successful, you're not strengthening your relationships. When I feel my most successful in life, not only am I doing well in my business, doing well with my family, but my relationship is thriving. And that is a piece most people overlook. They will put their relationship last on the priority list. They will put all their hours and time into that goal they're focused on, and not realize that once they reach that goal, if their relationship is falling apart, they will not feel successful, nor will they really have been successful.

I don't think too many of us write down a goal to be successful in something and go, "And I want my relationship to be damaged! I want to be alone! I wanna have no one at all!" No! I mean, most of us, even introverts, would like to keep our relationships around. So, inevitably, as we put all our emphasis and focus into one area— "I want to reach this goal in my career! I want to reach this health goal or this exercise goal! Right, I want to start running marathons!"— you know, when you want to start running marathons, you are taking time away from your relationship. You are taking time away from other things that you used to do, because you're committing to hours, hours of training. Great, wonderful goal! How are you gonna continue to strengthen your relationship as you spend those hours away from your relationship? And I'm assuming, in this goal, that your partner is not like, "Yeah, I wanna run a marathon too!" So you see what I mean? Nobody wants to end that marathon with nobody on the other side to cheer them on and go, "I'm so proud of you!" right? We want to celebrate together. We want to be able to feel that success together with others. We are relationship-focused beings. Again, I don't care how introverted you are, you do need people. And there is a type of resilience called social resilience, which is about our ability to surround ourselves with those who can help us when we need help, that we can offer help to as well, that encourage us, that are also motivated and driven, too, right? Who have goals that we see them, you know, striving for as well. We wanna be motivated by each other, but we also wanna know we have someone to fall back on if we need support. We need to be able to say, "Hey, I'm really struggling. Do you mind kind of encouraging me right now? Hey, I'm...I'm feeling a lot of loss right now. I'm feeling very alone. Do you mind us having some quality time tonight together? Just some time talking about life or doing a funny thing, or can you help me take my mind off of stuff?"

If we're not strengthening our relationships, when we get to the end of that marathon, there's nobody there to cheer us on. There's nobody there to celebrate with us. And so, with No. 2, removing our success marker as, "I am finally lovable! I'm finally...finally capable! I'm finally worthy!" didn't mean then remove yourself from relationships so that it's only about you. It meant stop assuming that that's intertwined. And now, with No. 3, make sure you're still strengthening your relationships.

I can't tell you how many clients I've had who have been on a personal growth journey of some sort— spiritual, emotional, mental, even physical, whatever it is— and they didn't consider their relationship as important to continue to bring along with them. I'm not saying you need your partner to do the same goals as you, like, "We're all changing our eating habits! We're all doing this!" No, but they didn't consider that the more they grew personally, they would be pulling themselves more away from their partner. However, those clients who are able to say, "I'm about to go on this journey. It's gonna be tough, I know it's gonna impact us, so here are the ways I wanna carve out time for us, so we're still growing. And yes, you may get tired of me talking about running the marathon or hitting that career goal, or whatever it might be, but I want you along for the ride. I want you at the end of the marathon. So, whenever it comes too much, you tell me, and we'll change the subject, or we'll go do something else. But I don't want it to feel like it's just me who's reaching these mile markers by myself." And then your partner can go, "Okay, here's my boundaries around this: Like, I support you, however, I don't wanna talk about it every night at dinner." "Okay, that makes sense. That's fair," right? Like, it needs to be a discussion, and then you continue to bring them along.

I have noticed, especially in the spiritual personal growth realm, often people isolate themselves from their partner, and they feel more and more like, "They don't get me! I'm at a different level than them! We're on different pages now!" And I think, "Gosh, that's a shame," because had you brought your partner along for the journey, even to just be, you know, a bystander, like, there with you, it would have been way more powerful personal growth. It would have a lot more purpose to it, because the reason we work on ourselves is to be better in the context of relationships. I'm gonna say that again: The reason we work on ourselves is to be better in the context of relationships. Why on earth would you work on yourself then if... if it wasn't so? Why would you work on your personal growth if it wasn't to be better in the context of how you impact others, how you interact with others, for some of you, how you are seen by others, right? It is always in the context of relationships that our personal growth journey needs to be happening.

So, if we're not strengthening our relationships, if we're not doing the things to make sure that we've got somebody at the end of the marathon who's right there going, "I was with you! And I watched that journey, and that was powerful! I'm so proud of you, and I'm proud for you! And I'm here to celebrate with you!" then what was it all for? Because it's just us, isolated, trying to celebrate for ourselves, and that can be really difficult to do when we had somebody at the beginning of our personal growth journey right beside us.

So, taking time to create boundaries around your relationship, to continue to build your relationship... And I hear some of you: "But my partner is not the type who wants to work on the relationship." You know what? There's some really cool ways to still work on it without them even realizing you're doing it. It's suggesting, "Hey, instead of date night being, um, going out for dinner, what if we go try the indoor trampoline park? What if we go to an escape room with friends? What if we..." And if they keep saying no, be like, "What would be a yes? What, to you, would be a yes?" "Well, just sitting on the couch." "Okay, let's sit on the couch together, but I'm doing it with the intention to spend time with you, because I love you, I miss you, I wanna spend time with you," right? It is kind of pushing yourself on that person in the sense—emotionally, mentally—being like, "I am here, and we're going to connect." And if there's things we need to work through before we're able to really fully connect, let's talk about that, because there might be resentment, there might be frustration, and it might be uncomfortable for your partner to connect with you again if you've pulled away for a while. It may feel like, "I can't trust they're gonna still be there." It may not even be about your marathon. It might be, "They're changing and growing in ways I don't feel like I can keep up with, and I feel a lot of shame and guilt around that. I don't feel as motivated as them in life right now, and I feel like there's something wrong with me." So, see, it's not always our marathon we need to focus on, but also bringing our partner along to know that they are worthy and enough, 'cause I got success wrapped up in that, too, even as we go on our journey.

So, those are your three things. The first one: Are we preparing ourselves for inevitable success? Are you building the foundation to hold that success so you don't go bankrupt after you win the lottery? No. 2: Are we removing success and the marker of my self-worth? Are we untangling those two, like a really horrible... like... three necklaces that have been tangled all together? Are we detangling it, going, "Okay, no. I am worthy and enough no matter what, and now I want to achieve this goal so that I can celebrate it and enjoy it and not jump onto the next thing, so my brain goes, 'I like this, and I want more of this'?" And No. 3: Are we strengthening our relationships as we reach success, as we move and strive towards reaching that goal? Are we making sure to hold boundaries around our relationships, to connect, to check in, to bring them along, so that at the end of the marathon, we have someone to celebrate with? These three things are impacting your success. I don't have to guess that they are. I've worked with clients long enough. I have lived in two countries. I have moved around my whole life. I've met lots of people. These three things are impacting your success.

So, what are you gonna do about it? As high achievers, as highly motivated individuals, we don't like when things block us that are in our control, and these three things are in your control. So, what are you going to do about it today? I would sit down and do a little bit of journaling on this. Honestly, these are three pretty heavy things, even though it seems like, "Well, you know, I mean... maybe the first one is tough." No, the second one's really tough. "Oh, the third one..." Yeah, they need time and focus. So, take some time today, journal it out. See how you're preparing yourself for inevitable success. How are you removing that marker of, "I'm worthy," with "I'm successful"? And how are you strengthening your relationships as you work on being more successful?

I hope you enjoyed today's episode! And we're in Season 4! I am so excited for what I'm bringing you guys this season. I know it's going to be super helpful as you grow and achieve more balance in your life. So, here's to finding our balance code!

Thank you for listening to today's episode! I hope you enjoyed it! Take a moment to leave a rating and a review on your favorite podcast platform; that helps other listeners, just like you, to find this podcast, too. Want to connect and learn how we can work together? Check out the links in the show notes below. Discovering your balance code doesn't have to be a one- person journey. You can have a team, and I'd love to support you. So, here's to finding our balance code!