Note: if you’re more of a go-slow procrastinator this post will look like the rantings of a crazy bitch. If you’re an over-achiever, you’ll get it.
I created my own anxiety and I didn’t even realise it.
It was like I had a crack habit.
This is how bad it was…
I got the best marks in school, excelled in my corporate career and when I set up my own business, I worked my arse off determined to be top of the class and be one of those business women that ‘make it’.
I loved the thrill of setting up my business, the adrenaline roller-coaster of every launch and proceeded to get faster and faster and faster each week.
I would listen to audios, go to events and feel so totally revved up and ready to go by the end of each one: ‘THIS is the thing, I’ve got to do this!’ and I would.
I was on the edge of my seat (literally I would type standing up because it felt faster)- racing that adrenaline round my system morning, noon and night.
All night. Sleep? Not for me – I had too much on my mind that I had to figure out.
I read a marketing book every day for about three years (yes, you read that right, this was an expensive habit) and then moved to about one a week once I’d read most of the good ones I could find.
If I travelled on a long-haul flight, whereas most would watch movies and have a snooze, I welcomed the kid-free 10 hours to totally indulge in my habit and listen to back to back mindset and marketing audios.
I hired coaches who would deal to me and paid the most I could to have the most access to them I possibly could. If there was a risk the crack might be in short supply, I wanted to be top of the queue.
Just one more call, just one more launch, just one more audio – maybe what I was looking for would be there…
I became a crack dealer myself because I got high off seeing others get high. I’d take my clients and team, rev them up and send them out spinning into the world as high as kites.
In fact, I sold crack mainly to fund my own crack habit. Every penny went on coaching and training programs, my shelves groaned and my hard-drive gave up in the end under the strain of my habit.
I would lie awake at night ruminating over whether investing in this program or that one would satisfy my addiction the best.
How could I be the best? Reach the top? The unrelenting quest for more, more, more.
I NEEDED that high. That buzz. The adrenaline coursing through my veins that meant I got out there and did stuff.
I would go to marketing events and while others were still finishing up taking their notes and having a chat with other in the break-time, I would have gone up to my hotel room and implemented what we’d just been taught.
After all, wasn’t that what you needed to be successful in business?
Get into that buzzed up feeling and just go and execute?
My mentors loved it – my desire to be top of the class meant I implemented what they were teaching and I got results.
“Here, I can tell you LOVE the crack, have some more!”
I’d go to crack parties, hang out with my crack friends and we’d do it together, whirling each other up with ideas of world domination and ‘owning your niche, baby.’
We told ourselves we were ‘worth it’, that’ we had what it took’, we created vision boards to drive ourselves forwards and make sure that whenever we started to come down even a tiny bit, we had something to remind us why were in this game in the first place.
My head was FULL of whirring busy thoughts at all times – thinking, thinking, thinking and figuring stuff out.
Searching out challenges so that I could point my busy mind at things to find the answers to.
Ignoring my kids, my husband and my friends because, to be honest, when your brain is buy thinking up wonderful crack-filled future possibilities, to be frank, small children and ‘normal’ people are a bit boring.
I did six figure launches, took my twitter following to over 20,000 and created a million dollars in revenue – I was OFF MY FUCKING HEAD, MAN!!!
But the come-downs were horrible.
I would do a launch that would bomb and it would feel like the end of the world, I’d have clients and team members that just weren’t that into crack and they would drive me bonkers because they just would not get off their lazy arses and do what it took.
I wasn’t a very nice person when I was a crack addict.
Sometimes I’d just wake up down for no reason.
In fact I probably wasn’t even down, I was just feeling how normal non-crack addicts feels but as you know if you’ve ever had a smoking, drinking or chocolate addiction, when you’re not high on your thing, everyday normal life feels kind of yucky and beige.
I was anxious, I had panic attacks and migraines which I took great pains to hide from the world as everyone else knew me as a woman who had her shit together and was completely on her game and it was VERY important to me that no one knew what was really going on.
My solution to this problem?
Buy some more crack – wheeee heee!
I’d scroll through Facebook where crack is ALWAYS available when you’re a crack-addict and sign up for ooooooh, let me see, shall I choose a webinar or a 3 part video sequence?
I’d sit down with my journal or a business buddy and come up with new bigger targets and goals.
Somehow there was ALWAYS something that looked appealing.
I’d indulge in a motivational video and phew! Just sixty minutes later and I’d be high as a kite with my hand hovering over the ‘buy now’ button.
THIS IS THE ONE, I JUST KNOW IT. JUST THIS LAST ONE.
When I’d buy, the edginess would calm down.
It looked like the fix had ‘worked’.
I would calmly start on watching the training or videos I’d just bought and either
- a) get buzzed up again and implement like fury, creating chaos in my wake, or
- b) find them strangely unsatisfying so drop them after the first couple of weeks and go looking for my next fix
Resonating?
Tick one of the following options:
- Yes, OMG I didn’t even realise I was doing that (the dawning on the addict/ over-achiever that they might have a problem)
- Yes, but who cares, I LOVE that feeling, what’s your point? (the addict/over-achiever who believes their addiction is serving them in some way and is massively offended by this sentence)
- Crack problem? What crack problem? (the addict/ over-achiever in denial)
- Not any more – but this post makes me laugh because that used to be me (recovered addict/ over-achiever)
- I have no idea what you’re talking about but I wish I could get as much as you do (this post was not meant for you)
This is the biggest problem I see over-achievers face that hold them back from creating the results they want to see in the world with simplicity, ease and grace.
All of this drive, ambition and striving is actually keeping from reaching your full potential.
There is a simpler way.
Email me at [email protected] if you ticked 1, 2 or 3 above and you’re curious about how to do life differently.
