Success does not guarantee happiness. Too often, those who achieve their wildest dreams find themselves trapped in the clutches of overwhelming misery, despite their triumphs. There are countless untold stories of entrepreneurs on the precipice of greatness, whose lives seem picture-perfect from the outside but are burdened with unspoken struggles within. What’s causing this and how can you make sure it doesn’t happen to you? In this episode, April Shprintz gets to the bottom of the problem and teaches us how to create space for ourselves, slow down, and give ourselves time to savor our achievements instead of moping around in spite of them. Tune in!
Reach out to April Shprintz:
Email: april@drivenoutcomes.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aprilshprintz/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aprilshprintz/
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What Do You Do If Success Is Miserable?
I am glad you’re here. Last time I had a conversation that I haven’t had that often, or at least I haven’t had similar conversations that often, but it’s one that we should talk about because it happens. If it happens to you, I don’t want you to think that it is incredibly weird and isn’t fixable because it is. I was talking to one part of a business partnership, and they are building a business that is almost at seven figures, which is a wonderful achievement and very excited about that, especially because it’s a brick-and-mortar coming out of the pandemic, all of those different things.
One of the folks is candidly completely overwhelmed, overworked, about to achieve the success that they’ve been driving for, but in many ways, miserable. We don’t talk about it that often, that sometimes the dream that you push hard for can come into your life, but you are not happy in the way that you’re getting it. A lot of times, that’s from a business perspective about overwhelm and needing some space for yourself.
Miserable Success: Sometimes the dream that you push so hard for can come into your life, but you are not happy in the way that you’re getting it.
I want to share with you some ways that you can get this. This is a triage way. There are lots of other things that you need to do in your business because when you’re completely overwhelmed, no matter what, there’s always a boundary issue. You’re always not guarding your time, not guarding your energy, or not putting up boundaries for those around you in a way that you need to.
There are some episodes earlier on about boundaries. For those folks who find themselves in that state of overwhelm and where they’ve achieved that success that they wanted, or they’re right on the precipice of it, but they’re miserable, I want to give you a little bit of a pain killer that will get you to that place where you can proactively start to work on the things that are taking your time.
When I say create space, people are like, “What do you mean to create space? Should I have another office? Should I get away from people? What are you talking about?” I mean, create space between you and those who are making demands on your time. I say demands, but a lot of times, they’re folks that need to talk and need to interact with you, but there can be a different way to do it and organize how it happens that will leave you feeling more replenished.
Create space between you and those who are making demands on your time. Share on XIt will also encourage them to develop the skills to get things done on their own. It makes it a win for you because you get space and the ability to think and function in the best way for you, but it’s also a win for them because every time you’re doing this, they’re becoming more capable, empowered, and continue to grow as the people that are working on your team.
The first one is for you to create space by being a little less available. I’ll give you a couple of examples. In the corporate world, that means don’t jump to answer that email right away or with a remote team. Don’t give them the answer right away. Sit on it for a few hours. Give them time to figure it out for themselves. If you’re in an environment where you’re right there with your employees, and let’s say they say, “There’s a customer on the phone. They need to talk to you right away.” They know if it is an emergency or not.
Miserable Success: Create space by being a little less available.
If it isn’t, you can teach them, “This situation is urgent. If it’s any of these other things, let the customer know that I call those folks back personally myself at X time on X day every week,” and maybe it’s a couple of times a week, but you’re putting everyone in your schedule instead of stopping everything you’re doing to be in their schedule.
This also gives you time to think about and focus on the things that you’re working on instead of constantly having things come at you from different directions, switching gears, and feeling like everything is urgent. In most cases, things seem very important and they are, but they are not life or death. It will help you to create that space to address them in the best way possible while keeping yourself under much less stress.
Here’s another one. If you have folks who are repeatedly asking you how to do things, you need to ask yourself if you’ve thoroughly trained them and empowered them to make a decision that you will stick beside. For example, I tell people that when they’re not in my presence and they make a decision, they don’t have the information from me, but if they go ahead and make a decision and they do something, they are never going to get in trouble for that. I may say, “Let’s make a different decision in the future, but I want them to be empowered to move forward and to do things.”
Miserable Success: If you have folks who are repeatedly asking you how to do things, number one, you need to ask yourself if you’ve really thoroughly trained them and have you empowered them to make a decision that you will stick beside.
One of the ways that I like to help empower people is if they’re asking me a question because I have a depth of knowledge that they don’t. We start some sort of FAQ document. This can be in a Word document, a database, or however you want to do it, but if you’re going to ask for my knowledge, I’m going to give it to you, but then you own putting that knowledge in a document that the next person, employee, and team member who has a question has got to check before they come to me.
A couple of things happen here. 1) You get a whole repository of information. 2) People are again being modelled and taught that ownership of, “Let me check for myself before I quickly go to the person who I know has the answer,” and it’s the easiest way to do it. As the business owner, as the leader, you’ve got to reinforce that they need to do that because the reason they’re coming to you is because you’re a little like Google. It’s pretty quick and easy to get the answer.
The last one is, “Yes, if.” All of this comes down to boundaries, creating space around yourself so that you can do the things that matter most and are the most life-giving to you in your business. If boundaries themselves sound scary, starting with, “Yes, if,” can be much easier. Instead of always going with a no and that feels too far of a reach and you can’t do that, and you don’t want to keep saying yes because you have way too much on your plate, say, “Yes, if we put this on the fifteenth of next month. Yes, if I don’t also do this other thing that we had talked about and we push that, or we give that to Bob. Yes, if you go ahead and speed up the deliverable that you have for me so that gives me a little more time to work on this new thing you asked for.”
Slowing down is the only way that you can figure out what things are really important to you, what really makes you happy, and what will allow you to continue on this journey in a way that you love. Share on XYou’re saying yes if they can help you in some way that you can better balance what you have going on. These are a few ways to create some space, slow things down, and allow yourself to find the ways that you can get your life back to what you wanted so that success does not have to seem miserable. When you find yourself feeling overwhelmed and you want to speed up, because we tend to want to go faster when we’re overwhelmed and feel like lots of things are coming at us all at once, remember that slowing down is the only way that you can figure out what things are important to you, what makes you happy, and what will allow you to continue on this journey in a way that you love. Here’s to your success.