She Was Successful But Depressed, Here Is What I Said... | Ep 127

People seem to forget if you change today, today will change your life. If you're enjoying the Self Belief Chief podcast and you're looking for a online coaching partner, make sure to check out Self Belief Chief vip. It covers the five key areas. Performance, relationships, health, finance and career, and spirituality to really create a transformation for you in your life. You can visit it and find out more information at selfbeliefchief. If you're on the Self Belief Chief website listening to this podcast, it'll be underneath the episodes or on whatever medium or platform you're listening to this podcast. There will be a link in the description, but just visit selfbeliefchief.com VIP to access your online coaching partner with hours and hours and hours of content that's consistently being added to. So hopefully I'll see you there very soon. But otherwise, let's get on with the podcast. A while back, I was working with a very successful woman who had her own business and by anyone else's standards, just had a life that looked good, looked great on paper, the sort of thing that people aspire to be. And she said to me, david, I've got this, I've got that. And there's just this thing that's missing that leads me to. To not just quite feeling right or having quite the relationships I want or just living the type of life and having that feeling that I imagine, this feeling that I want to have that just seems to be missing. And she said, but I beat myself up because I should be so grateful. I should be so grateful for the things that I have. And I said, it's okay. I don't care about that. You know, gratitude, we can talk about that later. We all go through those sort of peaks and troughs and that place where sometimes we just feel like we can't escape the pattern that we're in, or our circumstances, our environment, or in fact, our success traps us. You know, high performers have a set of problems that actually they get. They get trapped in by their own success. And what I did with her was I told her a story first and foremost before we went through some steps and some strategies, but told her a story. And I said to her, I don't. I said, you know, if you go to a circus, if you go to a circus, you see the circus owner, you see everything else there. And you see the elephant at the circus, you see these giant elephants with a chain around his neck and a wooden stake in the ground. Now, the size of this elephant, you look at the elephant, you look at the chain. You look at the stake at the ground and you go, that elephant could rip that stake out the ground and run off. So why doesn't it? And if you speak to a circus owner or, you know, elephant trainer, this is what they will tell you. See, the elephant gets chained from a very early age when it's very, very small, has that chain with the stake in the ground. When it's young, it tries to pull that stake out the ground, but it can't. It's not strong enough, doesn't have the, you know, ability, the size at that point to do so. And the elephant keeps trying and keeps trying and keeps trying and keeps trying, but just can't. By the time the elephant grows up to be its full size, the elephant has a belief that it's impossible to pull the stake out the ground, even though it could. Now it doesn't bother because the elephant believes that it can't. I said to this woman, what limiting beliefs do you have that are still holding you back now? Because that's what it really is. It's those limiting beliefs. It's those moments in our past where we've made certain decisions about how life is, about how things are the way they are, that we are this type of person. And when I ask someone about making it, you know, we discuss making a change or shift, people will often go, oh, no, I can't do that because I'm this type of person. I'll go, really? When did you decide that? What age? What time? What day? Was it a Wednesday? Was it raining? Was it, you know, when did he decide this? And they'll kind of look blankly and say, see, identity is fluid. You're not the same person you were when you were 10. So if you want to make changes, it's not. It's simple. It's not easy, but it's simple. We can make those shifts and make those changes. But we have to identify the limiting beliefs that we create between the age of 2 and 10 that we decide when we're 20, 30, 40, 50 plus are just things that are the way they are. But nothing in life is as it is. It's how we perceive it. Everything in life is how we perceive it. We can look at the same thing together and see it completely differently. So therefore, things can be different. We can't control the events, but we can control what they mean. And when we're young, when we're young, we don't have the tools and resources to deal with things or those first moments where basically we get told we're not good enough, or that's what we define it as. Because when you're born, you're the best thing since sliced bread. And then actually, something happens, society, family, whatever, tells you no. Actually, no, you're not. That first time is difficult, and you don't have the tools and resources to deal with it. So it gets left unresolved, and that gets dragged like a weight around our neck our entire life. We just don't realize it. When you think of that weight and that pressure, it's that chain around your neck pulling that weight. And that stake in the ground is that unresolved moment. So when I work with people, I've got to identify what that limiting belief is that makes them do what they do. Because once you find that out, you realize that for the past 20, 30 years, you had that capability to pull the stake out the ground. Now, I've worked with people where they pull that stake out, the metaphorical stake out the ground. And it's very upsetting. And I'll ask them, why are you crying? Why do you feel down? Why do you look down, rather? And they say, david, I didn't realize I could have pulled this stake out of the ground 20 years ago, man. What I could have done differently. And I'll say to them that the way you've been for that last 20 years is perhaps what you needed to be to get through those 20 years. You've just got to a point in your life where that stopped working, and we need to make a change. We need to make a shift, and that's what we've done now. And so working with this woman was uncovering that limiting belief about her life that actually she had to be a certain way which led her to be very successful, perhaps not fulfilled. And giving herself the permission to heal and overcome that moment when she was younger allowed her the opportunity to, whilst with her success, give herself the time to find fulfillment as well. So I want to ask you, what limiting beliefs do you have that are still holding you back now because you have more tools, more resources? Things have changed. Now you can finally rip that stake out the ground. Don't let the past hold you back. You've got that strength to pull the stake out the ground. Use it. My name is David Holman. If you change today, today will change your life. So enjoy the rest of your day. Enjoy the rest of your life. I'll speak to you again soon.