The High‑Achiever’s Trap: 2 Mindset Shifts That Set You Free | 10
[00:00:00] For so many of us, our default mode is to achieve a goal and then literally move right onto the next one. That was me. Goal achieved, check, onto the next one. In fact, before that goal was even achieved, I was busy onto the next one. There was a crossover with me, always. I never celebrated the small little wins. I never stopped to take a breath.
Imagine if you are invited to a room filled with a collection of the most diverse, interesting, authentic women in business, leadership and entrepreneurship today, sharing their stories of growth, courage, risk, and change. Women who've declared enough is enough. These rules of success I've been asked to follow no longer work for me and frankly, who made them up anyway.
Well, there is such a room and my friend, you're here in it right now. Welcome to “According To Who?” the go-to [00:01:00] podcast for successful women who are ready to question the current status quo, do things differently and rewrite her next chapter.
I'm your host, Julie Cober, former C-suite corporate executive turned founder, CEO, and peak performance mindset coach to the female founder on a mission to build, grow, and scale on her own terms. If you're craving more for freedom, wellbeing, and true fulfillment both in your work and your life, guess what? You're going to love being in this room.
Hello. Hello everyone. Welcome back. We have a solo episode today. It's just me and I wanted to share with you today a couple of what I call golden nuggets.
Golden nuggets in leadership, in energetics in your business and or career that's going to help pull high [00:02:00] performance. Success, leadership and loving your life all together. You actually can have all of these working in sync. And I think these two nuggets as I go through them today for you, business nuggets, leadership nuggets I'm calling them will help you ensure that you have all of these aligned, especially the part about loving your life.
So let's dive in. These two nuggets that I wanna give you today. I call them gold, but they're just for you to ponder and hopefully gain some wisdom from. Um, I want you to think of today's podcast, today's conversation as leadership energetics, business energetics, because the energy that you have as a leader.
100% is what's gonna create your success or not success. And when I say success, whenever I define success on this podcast, I mean exactly what I said in the just a minute ago [00:03:00] where we are performing in the best way we can possible. We are a high performer. We are showing up in our leadership the way that we want to.
We have the success that we want, but it's completely aligned to who we are and why we're here. And therefore, that allows us to love our life. That's what I mean about leadership energetics. That's what I mean about business energetics. That's what I, that's my definition of success. So the energy you have as a leader is 100% gonna help create the success that you have.
So I want you to think about whatever I share today from a perspective of rethinking success. 'cause I, as I, as you're listening to this, I want you to think, what's my definition of success? Does it, it, does it have that alignment piece to it? And as you're listening today, I want you to do an assessment, a self-assessment, and say, okay, I'm listening to Julie, and you know what?
I think I'm bang on. I'm bang on with these two [00:04:00] nuggets that she's talking about, and I just need to continue to do this. Or do I need to rethink this? Do I need to rethink how I think about success? What definition do I have to it? Because remember, this is very much based on our conditioning. Success comes from our conditioning.
So if you do think need to rethink a few things, that's okay. Right? Who according to who, who said We have to succeed this way, who said that the journey up the mountain has to be this way. Right. That's what this podcast is all about. So do you need to rethink a few things and perhaps Course correct. Okay.
So that's kind of the overarching thing I want you to think about as you listen to these two nuggets. So the first golden nugget that I wanna give to you is something that I saw in myself for much of my career, especially, you know, in the height of my, my corporate success climbing the mountain. And I see it a lot with my clients now today.
And the word the nugget is celebration. [00:05:00] Okay? That's the word. That's the nugget. We spend so much time focusing on our goals, right? Focusing on going after an outcome, achieving, you know, getting again, those outcomes that we want. I want you to ask yourself today, the first question I wanna ask you have you ask yourself today is, are you celebrating the journey that you're on or have been on and are continuing to be on?
As much as you celebrate an outcome that you achieve or an outcome that you're going after, are you celebrating the journey as much as you celebrate an outcome? Are you embracing each level of the success, each cycle that you're in each season? Are you embracing them with joy? Are you recognizing the growth that is happening for you and the fulfillment that this journey [00:06:00] is potentially bringing?
Are you celebrating that journey as much as the outcome you're going after? And I ask this because this is huge. This is huge in high performance. So many of us, our brains are, are wired for rewards. Okay. We know this and for so many of us, our default mode is to achieve a goal and then literally move right onto the next one.
That was me. Goal achieved, check, onto the next one. In fact, before that goal was even achieved, I was busy onto the next one. There was a crossover with me, always. I never celebrated the small little wins. I never stopped to take a breath. For myself, I would do it for my teams. I probably could have got better at that too with my teams.
But are you taking the time? Are you enjoying the process? Are you enjoying the journey that you're on? Are you [00:07:00] celebrating the little wins? Are you able to receive this celebration or are you so focused on the outcome? That you're going after the goal, the promotion, the revenue, target, the next level in your business, the next level in your career.
Strive, strive, strive, achieve, achieve, achieve. Are you so focused on that, that you. Actually, perhaps, or even creating negative feelings for yourself within it. 'cause maybe there's, sometimes when this happens, we're, we're frustrated 'cause we're not getting to the goal fast enough. Or if things aren't going our way, we could even be angry.
We could feel defeated because we want this outcome so much. We're not even in the present moment enjoying the process. Like I never was in the present moment when I was climbing up that ladder. I had my eye on the prize so far down the road that I miss the journey [00:08:00] in a lot of cases. And the reason I ask you this, 'cause it's so important because the process is where the growth happens.
It's the journey. Where we find success, the outcome is an output of the journey. Celebrating the journey as much as the outcome is almost a new way to look at high performance. Okay? Celebrating the journey as much as the outcome, I believe, is a new way to look at high performance. When you are focused on the here and now and you are celebrating the wins, even if they're tiny ones, what happens when that happens?
That gives you more, more will come for you to celebrate. When you're embracing every single level of performance, every level of success with joy, that brings you more to be joyful about [00:09:00] because the, the emotion you're in is joy. Right, or, or you're proud of yourself for the things that you've tried, or, you know, we know whether you're, uh, being paid in a JOB job, as I say, or have your own business.
It's trial and error, right? So even when things don't go your way and the outcome didn't show up as you thought it would, what emotion are you in? This is the key. What are you celebrating? Are you celebrating that you tried, it didn't go your way, but you tried and you learned some things and you grew and you're gonna make some course corrections and do it again.
Or do some, you know, try again? Or are we frustrated and angry? 'cause the, you know, the, it didn't go the way we wanted and we're not closer to our outcome. Bracing each of these levels with an emotion attached to it and being aware of that emotion. Of course if we, if it's celebration and joy and a great attitude because we tried, that's the [00:10:00] leadership wisdom.
Not being in frustrated because whatever emotion we're in the universe is gonna bring us more of that. So if you're not enjoying the process, you're in the road, you're on the journey. Or you haven't enjoyed it? 'cause perhaps you, you know, by all external measures, you're hugely successful. Like I, I was hugely successful in corporate as you know, my story.
But I was not enjoying the journey. I was not fulfilled inside. I was not feeling joy. So if you're not enjoying it, that alone is a huge energetic block. Too high performance, true, high performance aligned, high performance success, and loving your life. Okay, that's the key piece. And loving your life alignment so that you love your life.
I am a high [00:11:00] performer. I always have been. I had huge success by all external measures, but I did not love my life because I didn't enjoy the journey that I was on at the time. So if we're focusing on what we're not enjoying, that brings us more to not enjoy learning how to celebrate, not going from one goal just right onto the next, like sitting in the celebration for some time as it's happening and when you achieve it.
Learning how to celebrate the journey, embracing each of those cycles, each of those seasons, each of those phases. So, so important. So I want you again to really ask yourself the question, am I enjoying the journey to my next outcome, or am I so overly focused on just the outcome? Can I celebrate even the smallest of wins?
Can I be in the moment? That is a huge, [00:12:00] huge, huge piece of high performance of success, aligned success, of loving what you do. Which is part of loving our life. Okay, so that's the first golden nugget. Celebrate, be in the present moment here and now, and celebrate the wins as you're moving along. Okay?
The second golden nugget I wanna share with you is what I call skillfully balancing the need for continuity, continuing to move forward, right with the inevitability of change.
Okay? So this is important right now because. The world we're in right now, the markets that we're operating in, just the way we're working right now is, is I'm, I'm using the word dynamic. It's very dynamic right now. There is a lot going on. There is a lot of change happening. There is a lot of uncertainty and that causes us to feel a little unsettled.
When [00:13:00] I talk about skillfully balancing the need for continuity, the need to be in your plan, but also recognize that things can change. This is about learning the skill of trusting your instincts. It is critical in leadership. It's critical in high performance. It's critical in that alignment is really getting quiet and listening to our instincts.
So the key here is we're we're going to always be focusing on a plan. We have plans, we have goals, we have business plans, we have strategic action plans that we're working on as leaders, and things are always gonna shift, right? Life is gonna throw us curve balls. The market is gonna throw us curve balls.
We're getting curve balls almost daily right now. Things are gonna shift in real time as you're working your plan. So whether you're a business owner, whether you are an executive and a leader in corporate, it, it applies to both. [00:14:00] And I know many of you're experiencing this right now. I am as well. So the question I have on this nugget is can you figure out what needs to remain in the plan and what you might need to dynamically change?
You might need to pivot a little bit on and be okay with that. It's almost like can you stay the course and make adjustments? This is also very critical right now in high performance and success and leadership, and especially when something goes in a way that you didn't expect. Do you scrap everything and go after a new shiny object?
That's a big thing in entrepreneurship for the entrepreneurs that are listening. Oh, I'm gonna go try this now over here. Oh, this is the new flavor of the month over here. And that might be happening. That happened all the time in one of the corporations I worked for at the CEO level. If something didn't go the way he thought it was, we were scrapping [00:15:00] the plan and over here onto this shiny object and it created havoc in the organization.
Havoc. So what part in your leadership, regardless of what, how you're leading in your life right now? Can you balance both? Can you figure out what needs to stay in your plan? And then what might need to dynamically change based on what's going on? This is a way of being, this is a leadership trait. This is a way of showing up.
Can you be that version of yourself in your leadership? 'cause it's gonna help you in a, in the alignment. It's gonna help you approach knowing. Coming to your, your right now, and the way the world is operating right now, I'm coaching leaders. You need to come to your day with this on your mind because you go to, uh, and this was, um, as many of you know, my background is hr.
This is how we operated every day in hr. We went into work with a plan. I [00:16:00] kinda had a plan for my day, and my husband used to say to me all the time, so what's on your plan for today? And I, my answer was always, well, I don't know. It depends on who's on the other end of the phone. At that time, our desks on our phone, because we were dealing with crisis all day, every day in hr.
We had a plan for the day, but we had to be able to pivot. And that is just a, that is a leadership skill we need right now. Okay. That this is a nugget that we need. This is a tool we need in our toolbox because change is inevitable. And we're feeling it on a big scale right now across the world, but change is inevitable.
But consistency is critical. So can you show up consistently every day as a leader, whether it's in your own business or if you're working for somebody else and go, okay, this is the plan, but I know this might change. And if it changes, that's fine. We're not letting it fluster us. We're not letting us take us off course.
We're not letting us, you know, get into those angry, lower vibrational energies of frustration and [00:17:00] anger and, you know, all the things. This is about attitude. High performance is all to do with your attitude. So are we celebrating? That's an attitude. Are we having a plan but pivoting with the change?
That's an attitude how, that's how we show up. That's an identity, actually. That's the identity of a high performing leader. It is as important to work on your attitude. The, and these two things that I'm describing today are attitude and you know, your perspective, your identity, your level of consciousness, how you show up, who you're being, setting some intention every single day as a leader, that is absolutely as important as your craft.
In fact, I would say it's even more important in the environment we're working in, like high, being a high performer, a high performance is trial and error. It's trial and error. [00:18:00] It's never gonna go as we expected. Right? And so think of it, I always think of it as being a scientist, right? Being a leader, a high performing leader, to me is almost like being a scientist.
So when you think of a scientist like Albert Einstein or any of the big guys, did they give up? Do they give up after their first experiment? Doesn't work. Something that we're trying to do in our, in our leadership, in our teams, in our work. No. They love the process. They love proving, they love the process, but they also love proving their hypothesis.
That's what we're doing here. We're showing up, we're trying things in our plan. They're not going as planned. We come back and we try again. Are we being an explorer? Are we exploring new things, new ideas? Are we going into new territories as leaders? [00:19:00] Are we an experimenter? And these are all not outside of ourself, but we don't take them personally?
Are we a determined discoverer? Are we discovering out what's gonna work? Oh, that didn't work. Okay, what did we learn from it? What can we celebrate in that trial that we just did in that experiment that we just did? We know we have to change. The plan is gonna change a bit because this piece of it didn't work, but what can we celebrate from it?
What can we learn from it? How can we grow from it? That's the attitude, what I'm talking about right now on in these two nuggets, right? How can we be persistent? How can we be resilient without taking it on personally? Knowing that experience creates wisdom. So we have to go to the trough and try new things, right?
We have to put a plan in place and pivot on the change because that's [00:20:00] experience We're gaining experiences, leaders or as, as CEOs, as business owners, knowing that experience creates wisdom. So, where do we get the most experience in the journey? Not the outcome. The outcome is an output of the journey you get, the most valuable experience you will ever get, and success and alignment in the journey.
So these two powerful leadership energies. This is what I call them, leadership energies, celebrating the journey and balancing the plan or the goals with change, being able to pivot. These are what help create success. So it could be monetary success, it could be team success, it could be growth in your leadership, growth in your business, growth in you personally.
Coming [00:21:00] at your work, your, your leadership, your team, your, your business, your career. Just with these two high performance, powerful golden nuggets potentially could change everything because it's all to do with your attitude and how you're showing up every day. Right. So back to my first question. Are you doing these two things well.
Do you celebrate even the smallest of wins, or are you just focused on the outcome and does everything fall apart when there's change, unexpected unpredicted change that happens to your plan? Or have we built that in the pivot, the necessary pivot? Have we built it in knowing it's coming? Are you doing these two things well or do you think you might need to course correct?
Where in your journey can you start to celebrate [00:22:00] today? What in your journey, even the smallest little thing, can you start to celebrate today? And if you're having trouble celebrating, if you're having trouble stopping, taking the time and actually celebrating, ask yourself why that's a problem with receiving.
And that's fine. I mean, it, it, it, it was a big thing for me. Had a very hard time receiving accolades, receiving recognition, celebrating myself. Okay, so that's a thing if you can't do that, but you can ask yourself why, where can you find joy in your moments? How can you be that version of you? How can you.
Retrain yourself, for lack of a better word, to experience the satisfaction of the progress. Don't think by doing that, you're losing [00:23:00] momentum because you're not. I got asked this question by one of my clients the other day. She specifically said, how can I retrain myself to experience the satisfaction of progress without losing momentum?
And you might be thinking, yeah, that's a great question. Well, that if you asked me that question, I know right away that you're not celebrating the journey because you think by stopping and celebrating, you're gonna lose momentum just by the nature of that question. In fact, it's the opposite. By stopping and celebrating and making the pivots when the change happens and, and celebrating that, but stopping and celebrating is what creates momentum.
It's going to create huge momentum for you, even the smallest celebrations, because when you do that and you're in joy and you're celebrating that moment, you're gonna have more to celebrate and it, it builds. Energy builds. The universe is mirroring you, so you're celebrating all the small stuff, you're [00:24:00] celebrating often. The universe is just a mirror of you. It's gonna bring you more to celebrate. That's what's gonna create the momentum. That's what's gonna create high performance match with your leadership, match with success, all being aligned so that you love your life. Those things, you're not gonna lose momentum.
By stopping and celebrating, you're gonna gain momentum. You're not gonna slip into complacency. That was another question I got. How do I celebrate the moment without slipping into complacency? Will you celebrate the moment? I think it's complacent. When you don't celebrate the moment, you're just moving on to the next thing.
It's literally the definition of the hamster wheel that we're all trying to get off of from this goal, to this goal, this goal, to this goal, this goal to G, and we're just on the hamster wheel and we're not taking any time to breathe. And go, wow, what a great experience that was. What a great [00:25:00] journey we all just went through.
It didn't all go exactly as planned, but oh my gosh, look at what we learned. Look at how much growth my I have, or look at how much growth my team has. That's really, really important 'cause it's gonna put you in an energetic state. This is why this is leadership energetics. The top leaders in the world understand this energy.
Celebrating the, even the smallest of things creates huge momentum and moves you out of complacency, doesn't have you slip into it, right? It removes the pressure of what's next, because you're in the moment right now, and that's all we have by the way, right? And when we keep going to what's next, what's next, what's next when we haven't even actually even finished what's happening now?
That's how we actually steal our own joy. Alright, so are you being this version of yourself, [00:26:00] do you need to continue what you're doing? If you're doing this well, kudos. If you think you need to course correct, that's great too. Now, you know, right? This is what I call the new version of high performance.
It's not about the outcome. The outcome will come and the more you actually focus on what I said today, the chances of getting to the outcome are even higher. Alright, my friends, implement these two nuggets and see how things start to change almost immediately.
Thank you so much for choosing to spend your time with us. I hope today's insights have empowered you and given you ideas and tools to start to rewrite your rules of success. If you loved today's episode, please leave us a review and be sure to share it with a friend. And if you'd like to hear more from these trailblazing women, be sure to hit the subscribe button so you never miss out on another powerful episode.[00:27:00]
Don't forget to connect with me on LinkedIn or Instagram for daily doses of motivation behind the scenes insight and to keep the conversation going. For additional resources and strategies, visit juliecober.com and subscribe to my newsletter where you'll receive life-changing content delivered right to your inbox.
And always remember you have the ability to create any change you want in your life at any time. You are 100% worthy of living a life that you genuinely love, that's supported by work that you truly enjoy. Keep pushing the boundaries. Question your thoughts. Step into the elevated version of you, and until next time, always be asking yourself “According To Who?”.
According To Who?
