From Burnout to Balance: How to Redefine Success + Feel Fulfilled

Are you considered “successful” by societal standards, but can’t enjoy your success because you’re busy moving on to whatever’s next?

Or do you constantly feel behind, like you could be doing more?

Have you checked all the ‘big’ boxes in life (degree, career, love, stuff), but still feel unfulfilled or uninspired by what you’ve achieved?

If you answered yes, this episode is for you because I am talking about the power of redefining success for less burnout, especially for high-functioning codependents (HFCs). I’m also giving you real-life examples of how our stories about success can lead us astray and practical steps to take to clarify what success means to you.

https://youtu.be/5dvNYmp8mD0

Prefer the audio? Listen here.

Successful + Unfulfilled

Two things inspired this episode: grappling with what success meant for me after ‘making it’ as a bi-coastal talent agent and feeling unsatisfied, and talking to a woman in my mastermind (applications are open!) who wasn’t able to enjoy her success because she was exhausted and burnt out from over-functioning. (She got into recovery as an HFC during her time in the mastermind and is thoroughly enjoying her life and success right now!)

Can you relate to this feeling of being successful, but feeling exhausted or unfulfilled? Like there has to be more to life than…this?

To change the way we relate to success, we need to first examine where our beliefs about success come from.

Your Downloaded Success Blueprint (What Stories Do You Tell Yourself?)

Growing up, what did you learn about being successful?

Was success good or bad in your family of origin?

It’s not always straightforward, and societal, family, and cultural norms influence us in different ways.

For example, a working-class family may look down upon someone who gets a degree and works on Wall Street.

A family that owns a business may expect all members to work there by a certain age.

A farming family may not accept someone dreaming of becoming an engineer.

Other cultures value education and success over almost everything else.

We all have our reasons why we relate to success the way we do and whether we enjoy it or not.

Download the guide to answer questions you can use to uncover your downloaded trust blueprint.

My Downloaded Success Blueprint

I learned what ‘success’ was from watching my father’s career, but I was also influenced by my mother’s advice to get an education and make my own money if I wanted to be free.

My mother’s advice came from her own experience of working two years to save up for college and, once there, getting pregnant with my oldest sister before Thanksgiving break.

My parents married quickly, and my mother dropped out of college. She never returned.

My father seemed to have the power in my parents’ marriage because he had the education and made all the money. I followed in his path.

Shortly after graduating, I began working in a talent agency and soon became an agent. My ambition told me success was all about making money and having lots of famous clients (which I eventually did).

While I would have been considered ‘traditionally’ successful, I wasn’t satisfied or happy, and I felt like I had become too mentally healthy to stay in the entertainment business.

It became clear I was in a misogynistic business where women were expected to be a size 0 and stay young forever.

Yet, what lit me up was helping them with their mental health. Not the brand or movie deals I was negotiating for them.

Eventually, I couldn’t deny the truth of what was driving my behavior. I had to break free from my ingrained idea of success and leave my ‘fancy’ job behind, even if no one understood why.

This looked like going back to school to become a psychotherapist with $900 in the bank (my lousy money management back then is a topic for another blog ). It was scary but so worth it.

Staying Healthy Matters, Too

Many years ago, my friend, Kris Carr, received a literal prescription from her long-term oncologist to take one week off per month.

He was very clear she had been working too much. To be truly successful, she needed to have balance.

I remember being so impressed with him. Prescribing one week off a month was serious!

It also caused me to reflect on my own life and how much I was working.

While I had stopped drinking when I was 21, workaholism and striving for success had become my new addiction.

Years of therapy have helped me be in the present moment rather than looking for the next thing to do and to be grateful for the success I do have.

Not Letting Others Dictate the Terms of Your Success

In my therapy practice, several clients let others dictate what success meant for them.

I remember one client who became a lawyer because it was the path everyone in her family followed.

She was in her early 30s, extremely smart, and miserable. Art was her true calling.

She didn’t see a long-term future for herself as a lawyer, so we worked together to figure out how she could fulfill her artistic pursuits.

She began painting on the side and eventually opened an Etsy shop. In time, she began earning as much from her art as she did from being a lawyer. She then reduced her hours at the law firm (they weren’t happy) and transitioned out.

I was proud of her for making the move- she’s still painting and creating today.

If you’re stuck in a similar position, I want you to realize that one day, our parents will transition, and their approval or disapproval will matter way less than our level of satisfaction and joy in what we are doing.

We’ll be left with the lives we’ve created for ourselves and likely regret the degree to which we self-abandoned to please a parent (or anyone else for that matter).

Steps to Figure Out Your Definition of Success

It took courage for my client to decide what success meant to her.

I now believe success is only real if you enjoy it, have a balanced life, rest when you’re tired, and take care of your health.

The first step to figuring out your definition of success is to slow down and self-reflect. We must slow down. We can’t just be on autopilot or reactive mode.

Think about how you want to feel and how you want to spend your time.

As my pal Danielle LaPorte would say, what is your core desired feeling?

Mine has always been freedom. Want to know yours? Download the guide, which includes a few questions to help you get clarity here.

We also need to figure out what we feel resentful about.

Often, when it comes to success, work, or entrepreneurship, we’re resentful because we’re over-functioning, over-giving, and overdoing.

Once you figure out where you’re resentful, you can begin setting boundaries around your time, energy, and bandwidth.

When someone asks you to do something, two questions to ask yourself are:

Do I have the bandwidth to do this without becoming resentful?Do I even want to do it?

You are one person with finite energy. Be mindful of where it’s going.

Prioritize doing things simply because they’re fun. Make time for play. When you slow down, you’ll gain more capacity to notice the small things that bring you joy.

When we don’t slow down, and we’re constantly onto the next thing, we’re not in the present moment. We’re focused on the future, uninspired, and doing things just to get them done. It’s important to be here now.

Getting into recovery from high-functioning codependency can help us reclaim bandwidth, too.

Another woman in my mastermind was codependent in her relationship with her brother, who had addiction problems.

On the surface, she had a successful business, but the situation with her brother took a toll on her emotional and physical bandwidth.

In our time together, she disentangled herself, set better boundaries, and stopped trying to control him and over-function for him.

As a result, she gained so much bandwidth and a greater depth of intimacy in the relationship. (He’s also sober!) She’s a different person than she was when we began and now enjoys her success.

If you find yourself living other people’s lives for them, too exhausted to take care of yourself, know that this freedom is possible for you, too. It’s why I wrote my book, Too Much: A Guide to Breaking the Cycle of High-Functioning Codependency. 

I hope this episode inspired you to consider your definition of success and how you relate to it. If it did, let me know in the comments or on Instagram!

Have an amazing week and as always, take care of you.

P.S. Applications for my mastermind, Flourish, are open! We begin March 1st and if you’re a woman healer, helper, or entrepreneur, I’d love to have you. We focus on both personal and professional growth. I can teach you how to create a highly-rated podcast, get a book deal, and write and sell a bestselling book. But I can also help with the psychological and emotional challenges that come with success and building/growing a business.

Flourish is the only way to work 1:1 with me, and it’s intimate- there are only 10-12 spots. We stay together for 9 months and during that time, we gather in person twice for three days of intensive transformation.

If you join us in Flourish, your life will change for the better. If you’re interested, the details and application are on this page, and once you apply, you can hop on a call with me to make sure it’s a good fit!