Unlock Genuine Joy and Success in your work from Within

Feeling like you can’t find fulfillment without achieving external goals? Are you sacrificing your happiness to chase success? We've all caught ourselves in the cycle of thinking that reaching a certain milestone will bring us joy, but today, we're flipping that script.

In this episode, I delve deep into the myth of "once I achieve X, then I'll feel Y," revealing a powerful perspective shift that can take you from surviving to thriving.

From presence and acceptance to widening your perspective, I'll guide you through the steps to unlock your inner purpose and unleash your fullest potential.

Transcript

Michelle Dowker: 1:11

Today I want to talk about a phrase that I commonly see and a perspective shift on how we think about achieving the things that we want and the goals that we want to accomplish. I see over and over again a tendency to have the mindset and the perspective of once I achieve X, then I'm going to feel Y, right. So some examples might be once I make more money, then I'll be a success. Once I lose weight, then I'll be happy with myself. Once I get my chronic illness condition under control, then I'll be happy. These are just a couple of thousands of different examples of this. Once I achieve X, then I'll feel Y. I've done this myself. It works to a certain extent, but there is a better way and a better perspective that will get you past just surviving results into thriving results. And here's the perspective flip. Finding happiness is an inside job. Finding satisfaction with yourself is an inside job. Seeking satisfaction from external things like how you look, what other people think of you, achieving degrees, status, money, job promotions, all the different things, will not give you what you think it's going to give you. If you have not found a way to establish that satisfaction from within, I mean sure topically, you can say okay, well, what if I'm not financially secure? Making more money is going to make me more happy? Okay, to an extent, yes, and the thing is, though, is that once, say, for example, you make more money, new problems are going to show up, new desires, and then, believing that you need more in order to get more of what you're chasing, it becomes an endless cycle, and it's kind of what fuels the rat race of this constant go, push, need more, need more in order to accomplish some sense of satisfaction by chasing external goals, other people's acceptance and validation, external goals of achieving material things, achieving status, achieving position, achieving money. I'm not saying that any of those things are wrong, but what I'm saying is that there's a perspective here. If you want to end the vicious cycle, and that is instead of thinking once I achieve X, then I'll feel Y it's about thinking, I feel Y about myself and, as a result, I achieve X. If you're happy with yourself and you are confident about who you are, and you are aligned with the things that you enjoy doing, and you are standing in your power and your center and operating from that place and giving from inner overflow in your work, then you will naturally bring success to you. So once you are happy and aligned with yourself, as a result, you become a success. And, to tease this out in a more logical manner, think of it like this when you're happy with yourself and you accept yourself and you are operating from this place where you can deliver the most impact in your work, because you are operating from your gifts and owning them, as a result, you show up differently and people sense that they pick up on that and they want what you have to offer. You will become a magnet for the people who are meant to be impacted from what you are here to deliver in your work.

Michelle Dowker: 5:21

Versus, if you are not happy with yourself and you are maybe doing something that you don't necessarily love, but you're chasing financial success, then you're not going to be fully authentic and people are going to feel that. Or maybe you are seeking validation from other people instead of feeling confident and accepting yourself, and so the work that you're doing you're doing in order to gain validation, so that you feel better about yourself, and that impacts how you show up in your work and how you respond to your clients, and that's going to impact your success as well. Another example would be so say, for example, with autoimmunity. This is a big one that I've worked through myself and I've worked with many, many clients who have struggled with autoimmunity. Oftentimes there's this desire of once I get my condition under control, then I'm going to be happy with myself. Now here's the thing about autoimmunity. One of the patterns, the energetic patterns that I see over and over and over again with this condition, is that there is this tendency to have this inner dialogue of there's something about myself that I don't accept. And if you think about this logically, autoimmunity is in a nutshell there's some part of the immune system that is thinking that there is some part of you that is foreign, that it doesn't accept, that is trying to eliminate. I see this energetic association of typically there is something within that person that they don't accept within themselves, that they're trying to hide or eliminate about themselves, maybe so that they could feel better about themselves or be accepted by other people. And this was the case for myself. There were so many things about myself that I didn't accept about myself and it was eating away at me One of the pieces of the puzzle that I've seen over and over again when I was working with people with autoimmunity, to get better control over their conditions.

Michelle Dowker: 7:40

One of the main things that we were doing is I was helping to guide them to accept themselves, to become happy with themselves, regardless of their condition and their state, and find acceptance with that. What happens when they do that is they disarm the inner judge and that inner judge takes a lot of energy and it puts a lot of stress and strain on the nervous system. And, as I've mentioned before and I'll mention again, the nervous system is the bridge between the inner emotional terrain and every single organ system in your body and physiological system in your body. And if that nervous system has too much stress and strain on it for too long a period of time, it becomes dysregulated and that will impact your physical systems, that will impact your physiology, it impacts your health and with autoimmunity it is seen that nervous system dysregulation triggers and worsens physical symptoms. And once we do that deeper inner work of finding acceptance with yourself and finding happiness from within, regardless of your external situation, what happens is all of that pressure on the nervous system eases and then what happens? The body has a better chance to regulate itself, to optimize itself, to regain balance and what happens naturally is that those autoimmune symptoms tend to lessen and ease and sometimes even go into remission.

Michelle Dowker: 9:30

And I use this example of health because I've had enough years of experience now to share with you these stories of how this actually works. But this can be translated to every single aspect of your life, including and especially your business success and the enjoyment that you're getting from your business. So now I know you're probably thinking well, okay, michelle, so how do you do that? How do you find happiness within yourself without chasing the X, without chasing the status, without chasing the business success, without chasing the money, without chasing better control over your symptoms, without chasing whatever it is that you think the external thing is that's going to bring you the happiness? How do you find the happiness first? How do you find that inner success first? How do you find that inner desire that you're wanting to feel from achieving the external thing? Doing a little bit of reflection before I hit record, there's three. There's many things, but there's top three that spoke to me that I wanted to talk about here. That might be helpful for you as you're discovering and journeying through this yourself, and you might already be on this road of having figured out a lot of this.

Michelle Dowker: 10:57

Whether or not this is brand new to you or this is old hat for you, these reminders are always helpful and every time you hear them, depending on where you are in the path, you're likely going to see it from a different perspective. That's the way my work works. Oftentimes, this journey of stepping into more of your deeper inner purpose is a spiral rather than linear. So oftentimes you go through this cycle of awareness and understanding and acceptance and integration and alchemization and transformation, only to be brought back to the initial thing that brought you to doing this inner transformation and inner purpose work and inner identity work. And the original theme will likely come back to you, but in a new way, almost like you've shed a layer and now there's this completely new layer underneath it to take a look at, but in a completely new way. And every time that you do one of these cycles in the spiral, you move deeper and deeper into your center, more aligned with who you are, and as you do, then there's less and less influence from the external world. That's pulling you in different directions, kind of like growing those deep roots of a tree, like I mentioned in the last podcast episode, and the deeper the roots, the less likely you are to be uprooted in the big windstorms of life.

Michelle Dowker: 12:39

Coming back to the three different things that I thought about today to consider when it comes to finding why, within yourself first, instead of needing to rely on achieving X in order to get it, those three things that I've come up with are presence, acceptance and perspective. Starting with presence, when you're thinking, once I achieve X, then I'll finally feel why You're thinking about the future, you're thinking about in the future. If I get this, then I'll feel this instead of being in the present moment. And here's the thing is when you're focused on the future, you have less and less focus on the now, and the now is the only moment that you can control with your actions. And what happens is if the less and less attention you have on the now, the less and less control you have over your actions and, as a result, the less and less in control you feel. And what tends to happen then is the subconscious mind will sense this feeling of not being in control, and there is this survival response of I don't feel in control. So, in order to try to regain a sense of control, I need to prepare for the future, I need to plan, I need to think, I need to think of all the what ifs, I need to think of all the situations. I need to be thinking ahead in order to regain this control that I feel like I've lost. But the problem is that the more and more you start to think about the future, with the what ifs and the anxieties and the worries and the planning of but once I get this in the future, this, the less and less focus you have on the present and the less and less your control is in the present, on your present moment actions, and the more and more your subconscious will try to regain that sense of control through focusing on the future. And it creates again a vicious cycle, just like that vicious cycle of once I achieve X, then I'm going to feel Y. It's the same thing of once I think about the future, then I'll feel in control. But it's an illusion. It's an illusion that actually will keep you caught in this constant cycle that will never bring you peace.

Michelle Dowker: 15:10

One point to consider is really noticing where your focus is. How much do you focus on the future versus how much are you focused on what you're actually doing right now? And I know this is easier said than done and I'm not going to go into a lot of detail in this particular episode about that. Know that mindfulness is one way to consider looking at how to readjust your focus to the present moment, and mindfulness isn't just about sitting on a cushion and meditating. That is one way that you can go about practicing mindfulness, but it's certainly not the only way. And know that science has begun looking at mindfulness as a way of helping people to feel better about themselves. It's often used in places like the military and with emergency service operators, firefighters, police officers, those types of things In order to help them to prevent PTSD and help to manage and treat PTSD. It really is one piece of the puzzle if you haven't looked at this yet to consider in terms of where you're noticing your presence. So I just want to mention, for this particular episode, the first step is awareness. So pay attention how much of your focus is on the present moment and what you're doing right now and what's happening right now, and how you're doing things right now and how you're focused on the actions that you do right now, no matter how mundane the action is. This is a really helpful trick that you can use.

Michelle Dowker: 16:58

To practice mindfulness is to take those mundane activities that you typically don't usually focus on, like brushing your teeth, for example. Oftentimes, when we're brushing our teeth I know for myself I have been locked in thinking of things like well, what am I going to make for supper today? What am I going to wear? What does my day going to look like, instead of actually focusing on the action of brushing your teeth? And so if you instead spend those two minutes brushing your teeth and actually paying attention to the action of brushing your teeth, the motion that you're making, the pressure that you're putting on a toothbrush, the sound of the toothbrush, the taste of the toothpaste, for example whatever you feel is most appealing to you to focus on, as long as it's in the present, you'll probably notice that your mind will easily go into focusing on the future.

Michelle Dowker: 17:53

Oh, I don't need to focus on this. I need to focus on what my day is going to look like. I need to focus on planning. What am I going to take out of the freezer for supper? It can be a little bit of a practice of herding cats, right? So your mind will wander. Become aware that your mind is wandering and then rain it back into the present. Okay, I see where my mind is going, without judgment. I'm just going to bring it back to the present. I can think about that in two minutes when I'm done this exercise, but for now I'm going to re-focus on brushing my teeth, for example.

Michelle Dowker: 18:27

This is one of a million different ways that you can practice focusing on the present moment and strengthening your muscle of being present, so that you can feel more in control of your actions, and that makes a difference. It makes a difference not only in the actions that you're taking, but especially if you have clientele, if you're a coach, if you're a practitioner, if you're working with other people, if you're helping other people, it is imperative that you are present. I know for myself it is super important for me to be completely present with my client when I'm on a client call with them. If my mind is wandering and thinking about other things while they're speaking, there's only so much that I'm going to be able to pick up about what they're saying and how they're saying it and the energy behind it and what they're looking for, and there's only so much I'm going to be able to channel with them the answers that they're looking for and provide suggestions and provide strategy and put puzzle pieces together for them. If my mind is not fully focused on what is happening right now, as I'm in conversation with them, I like to call this therapeutic presence. It's not only effective and helpful to improve the level of service that you can provide for your client and, as a result, the results that they can get from having a consultation with you, but being fully and completely present with somebody. They feel that through coherence, they pick up on that energy and that in itself can be healing. That in itself can be helpful for them, because now they have an exemplar to attune to, to be present with someone who's present. That in itself can change a whole lot, and this is also something that can help you in terms of improving your success. If you're ex that you're desiring right. Once I achieve ex, then I'll feel why. If your ex is business success, one of the ways that you're going to achieve more business success is actually to be present when you are operating in your business, especially when you are connecting with other people, it makes a huge difference.

Michelle Dowker: 20:52

Now, the next word on the list that I've mentioned is acceptance. This is huge and I know it's not always easy In order for you to achieve what you want, and especially to feel what you want, there needs to be a level of acceptance of what is. Accepting what is in the present moment, even if you don't like it. It doesn't mean that you love what's happening in the present moment. It just means that you accept that it is what it is, because when you fight against it, it will control you. You will always be left feeling like you have to run away from it or avoid it or change it, and that will control your actions, your thoughts and your feelings. And instead of you feeling in control control is a whole topic for another day, by the way instead of you feeling in control, that thing that you're not accepting is going to control you Always. If you are thinking once I achieve X, then I'll finally achieve Y, and you don't accept where you are in comparison to that X that you want to achieve, then that thing is always going to be there, impacting how you operate, how you think, what you're doing, and it might cause you to actually never fully achieve the thing that you're looking for Acceptance. I think I will have to do a whole podcast on that another day, because this is a huge topic. And this is the thing.

Michelle Dowker: 22:32

The things that we don't accept are the things that are going to cause us suffering, based on the Buddhist concept of the Four Noble Truths, when you reject something, when you don't accept something, when you are desiring something to be different than what it is, then it will always cause suffering. And there is a remedy for that suffering, and that remedy is to let go of the desiring to let go of trying to run away from what is, because it sets up a whole set of inner judging that will control you and impact your nervous system and, as a result, it impacts your health, it impacts how your body operates and it impacts your relationships, on a personal level, on a business level, everything. The remedy for the suffering is acceptance. Now, that doesn't mean that you sit back and do nothing and just accept your lot in life and say, okay, well, I guess I'm never going to get out of this. No, there is still going to be action to take Present moment, focused action in your flow, with acceptance that things are the way they are. It can change, but the more you grasp onto that need for change, the more you're no longer going to be focused on the present moment and the more you're not going to be able to find that inner sense of the peace or happiness, the why that you're looking for, right, once I achieve X, then I'll feel why. The more you don't accept what is, the less you're going to feel why. Plain and simple. And finally, the third word that came to me before I hit record.

Michelle Dowker: 24:21

So we've talked about presence and acceptance, and the third word is perspective, and this is big Perspective how you're looking at things, how you see something, how else can you look at this situation? How else can you look at yourself? There's always different ways to look at and consider anything. And here's the thing the more that you're stuck in stress and survival mode, it's like we're looking through a peephole versus the entire picture and it really narrows down the possibility of what we're seeing. It narrows down our perspective. The more in survival and stress mode we are, the more we don't accept where we are and we don't accept ourselves, the more in stress and survival mode we are, and it really narrows down the number of possibilities that we can see and consider. And so when I work with people in mentorship and we work on deepening their presence and deepening their acceptance, especially with themselves and who they are, and they move more into this thriving overflow. Their perspective widens. They can see more and more of what's possible, what other ways to look at things. And when you do, you can see the picture of what's actually happening, not just what you think is happening based on your survival or stress mode responses. And when you can see the bigger picture, that's when solutions show up, that's when you can start to see oh, I see what's happening. And when you see it differently, everything changes, including how you think about and react to that situation or that person and yourself. Perspective is absolutely everything.

Michelle Dowker: 26:26

Coming back to the original point of this conversation today this tendency to think with the perspective of once I achieve X, then I'll feel Y. Once I achieve financial success, then I'll feel stable. Once I get control over my chronic illness, then I'll feel at peace. Once I achieve this promotion, then I'll feel happy. These are just examples. There's so many more things to consider here, but usually it's the once I achieve X, then I'll feel Y. So here's the perspective flip I feel Y and, as a result, I can achieve X. So, for example, I'm happy with myself and, as a result, I am experiencing success. I feel calm and accept myself and, as a result, I'm seeing my chronic health conditions are becoming more stable. I am happy with myself and I know myself and I accept myself and, as a result, I show up differently in the people sense that and more and more people are showing up and want what I have to offer and my business is blowing up, for example.

Michelle Dowker: 27:40

So can you see how flipping the perspective of how you are thinking and engaging with yourself and with life and how you are showing up as a result of these thoughts and this perspective can change absolutely everything about how your life is unfolding for you. And again, presence, acceptance and perspective are three points to consider here in terms of creating this perspective flip about how you're deciding to operate in your life and show up in your life and how you are looking at your goals, and this will set you up for finding a deeper sense of inner purpose, if you feel Y within yourself first, without needing to chase an external thing in order for you to feel that. There's a lot more that I can say about this, but I think this is enough for today in order to maybe just get you thinking a little bit differently if you've never considered this, and if you have considered this and you do know about this, I hope this is giving you another layer to reflect on and chew on, to help you deepen what you already know about this path and about this perspective, so that you can continue to evolve and deepen the inner purpose within you by deepening what it is that you're hoping and desiring to achieve from within you first, first and foremost and this is the thing it's not about okay, well, it's just about achieving this feeling. There's more to it than that. That I will explain more when I talk about the four levels of consciousness. But it's really important to establish all of this within yourself first and be rock solid in that, so that now you can go out and connect with the collective, so that you can help the collective achieve the same. But if you are going at it from this place of but I want other people to feel this without having an established it within yourself first, then there's going to be this bypass effect that happens and that will result in you not being able to fully break that cycle of constant chasing, amongst other things.

Michelle Dowker: 30:08

So I hope that this was helpful for you, if this sounds like the path that you're on and you know that deepening your center and your connection with yourself and widening your own personal perspectives so that you can deepen those feelings of strong inner knowing and confidence with yourself and your work, so that you can feel more fulfilled and really connect to doing what really makes you the happiest. This is what my work is about. If this makes sense to you and you've already done this to a degree and you are looking to go deeper with this these are the types of people that really get the best results from my particular approach and methodology. If that sounds like something you're looking for, definitely go to the show notes and check out the different one on one service options that I have available. I only have a limited number of spots to work with someone in a mentorship and through an eight week intensive.

Michelle Dowker: 31:18

It is by application only to make sure that we are a good fit, because it's when we are both a good fit to work together is when the magic really happens.

Michelle Dowker: 31:30

That's when you're really going to get those quantum leaps and breakthroughs, to really deepen and achieve that inner sense of whatever it is that you're seeking within yourself and find your flow so that all the things that you desire the fulfillment, the satisfaction, the success doubles, triples and expands exponentially the deeper you go to deepen those feelings of satisfaction and acceptance and connection and centeredness within yourself.

Michelle Dowker: 32:04

First and foremost I see it over and over and over again If you are an ideal fit, you probably already have a sense of that and you know that when you have guidance to walk through the labyrinth with you, to have a Sherpa walking beside you, that you know that you can see more of what you can't yet see more efficiently and effectively than if you're trying to figure it out on your own.

Michelle Dowker: 32:31

And so if that sounds like you, definitely check out all the service options that I have in the show notes and reach out to me if any of those feel like they could be a fit for you and we can have a chat and see if that is an option for you. I also have a really great free resource that you can download as a starting point. It's one of the introductory exercises that I guide my own mentorship clients through so that they can deepen their own inner connection with their own intuition and trust and knowing to find their own answers. So if that interests you definitely go check out the free resource in the show notes as well. I look forward to speaking to you again next week.