The weird disappointment of reaching a milestone

3 ways you're ruining your wins and how to adjust

The Simple Mind is a newsletter to help you reduce overthinking and boost self-confidence- Read or listen online - 4 minutes read

Disappointment is showing you a much-needed mindset adjustment

Any feeling is a signal. So, when you feel disappointed despite reaching a milestone you really wanted, what is it telling you?

The Now what? effect

Yay, you made it, but you’ve just passed the finish line, and instead of enjoying the high of your race, you’re already thinking about your next run. You don’t want to be stagnant, to stop growing (I should talk about this high performer fear in a soon edition).

So you maintain some sort of dissatisfaction cycle, where nothing is good enough, and you should always seek out more. In last week's edition, I talked about this, it’s about the energy you infuse. You're using the stick to keep yourself moving, could you switch to the carrot?

What you need: cultivate being content.

How?

1 - Accept that you can be content and desire more, that’s the very first step. Be happy for what you’ve achieved, and excited for whatever you choose to do next. Why should your next step rain on your milestone’s parade?

2 - Decide on your next step, based on a strong desire, not an obligation. If you don’t know your next step, just be in this win for a bit. Observe what you really enjoyed about it, leave room for new ideas and challenges to arrive. If you know your next step, take a moment to enjoy the win anyway, and create space to decide if that next step still makes sense.

3- Practice being content with the small things. Meaning practice gratitude. Create a habit of appreciating the small things, so when the big things happen you know how to appreciate them too.

List every day three things you deeply enjoyed, no matter how small they seem. The magic often is in the small things. And that magic can be used as fuel as you reach your next goal (you know, instead of guilt, and negative self-talk).

The mental hassle is not worth the results

You get the yes, you get the promotion, you raise the money. But man, you went through hell and back in your mind. So now, this win that is awesome and you wanted so much isn’t worth it. It’s not worth the mental roller coaster you put yourself through. It’s not worth how complicated it became.

Know the feeling?

You made it complicated. Well, your anxiety did, but you let your anxiety take over.

It’s normal to feel anxious and have fears when it comes to doing something you truly desire. What you want to avoid is your anxiety taking the driver's seat, instead of just hoping on for a few miles.

What you need: work with your mind. Observe the panicky thoughts, but don’t let them run the show. Learn to quiet your mind in these moments and stay in charge instead of being overruled by your emotions.

How to do it:

1 - Back in your body, out of your head. You can do that through meditation, a workout, a gentle walk, a shower… Anything that grounds you back.

2 - Don’t ignore the Panicky Betty inside of you. Let her express her concerns, then move on. You can list all of your worries and how you feel on paper, as a way to acknowledge panicky Betty but also distance yourself from her and her irrational fears. You’re not your panic or your fears, dissociate from that side of you, so you can acknowledge how parts of you feel and get back in the driver's seat from a quieter mind.

Learning to foresee panicky thoughts and quiet your mind takes time and practice, try out different things, observe what works, and keep practicing.

The Too-late Phenomenon

Yea, you got the promotion, it’s great but frankly given how it is, you could have gotten it earlier. You made a big deal out of getting there, this milestone is nice but you could have done it earlier in your career, had you trusted yourself.

That one is tough. Getting somewhere, realizing it was not as hard as you imagined, and could have been done much earlier.

What you need: eyes on the right prize, and frankly more confidence.

How?

1 - Eyes on the right prize. We get it, you have big ambitious goals, that’s awesome.If you want to run 10 miles, you can’t be mad because you have to go through 9 other miles before arriving on the 10th.

You need steps to get to your big goals. Yeah you could run faster, but can you actually handle it?

Your mindset couldn’t handle going faster, that’s why you stopped yourself.

The different parts of you (including Panicky Betty) are trying to protect you. You needed this meh feeling to realize you need to trust yourself more. Now what do you do about it?

2 - Work on your self-confidence. One aspect of self-confidence is your belief in your ability to overcome challenges. If it took you so long to tackle this challenge, it’s because you did not believe you could.

Now you’ve given yourself proof that when a challenge arises, you can overcome it. Keep giving your mind proof that you can overcome challenges. List past challenges (big and small), and acknowledge every time you overcome a challenge, even if it’s just 1 mile.

This leads back to point number 1, practice contentment.

Let’s recap

1 - Practice being content, even for the smaller wins. Use it as a fuel.

2 - Don’t let anxiety run the show and add complications

3 - Accept - and be content, where you are at.

As always, thank you for reading,

Orianne

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PS: If you want to lead from a quieter mind, I can help!

If you’re new here, welcome! I’m Orianne, I share weekly tools to help you reduce overthinking and boost your self-confidence.

A bit more about me: I coach brilliant humans who perform very well but want to improve their relationship with themselves (their minds). I am a chocolate addict, live by the beach, and always read several books at the same time (currently Brain Damage from Freida McFadden and The Almanack of Raval Ravikant).

If you enjoyed this newsletter, you can read the previous editions and subscribe here. If you want to improve your mindset, I have a 1:1 coaching program for Founder’s mindset. Check it out here.