Why Hitting the Goal Doesn't Fix the Feeling

What if you hit the goal and it still doesn't feel like enough? Not because something went wrong. But because nothing feels the way you thought it would.

In this episode, Desi digs into why high-achieving women hit their revenue targets, build the business, do everything right, and still feel like they're winging it. She breaks down the difference between imposter syndrome and what she calls identity lag, why research shows it can take up to 10 years for confidence to catch up to your income, and what the women who actually break through do differently.

If you've been stuck at the same level no matter what strategy you try, this is the episode that explains why. And Thursday, Desi drops a conversation with a woman who lived this exact pattern and broke through it. You're going to want to hear how she did it.

If this episode sparked something in you, share it with a woman who needs to hear it.

DM me "stuck" if you're doing everything right but can't break past a certain level.

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Transcript

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Imagine for a second that you get a call from your accountant and your accountant is like, you won't believe it. You just made one million dollars in revenue. Would you A be ecstatic and can't wait to celebrate with everybody in the office? Make those phone calls, B, take the day off because you deserve it. Or C sit in your car and start crying your balls up. A woman built a million-dollar business, and instead of celebrating, she was crying in her car at 9 a.m. And there's a real reason why that happened. So I've been talking to women that are making six and seven figures for the last couple of months and like real conversations, not surface level. And they keep telling me the same thing. They finally hit that number that they wanted, got the clients, built the business. And when they finally did, it didn't feel the way they thought it would. One woman had a million-dollar business and felt like she was winking it. Another woman thought that she wanted a real business. And it's like, girl, come on. You have a six-figure business. What do you mean a real business, right? But she didn't feel like it because she felt like what she built was luck. Now imagine that luck. Her dedication, her discipline, her strategies, her creativity, all luck. Isn't that ironic? And I just kept thinking and wondering, why is this happening? Why is this happening at every level? Because I keep hearing from women making maybe 90,000, women making half a million, making six, seven figures. So I started looking into it. And here's what the research says self-concept theory. And basically what it says, we don't perform based on what's true about us. We perform based on how we see ourselves. We perform based on how we see ourselves. Period. So when your revenue grows faster than how you see yourself, you've got a gap. And this is an identity lag. The outside is saying you made it, and your inside is saying, mm-mm. No, you didn't. Your results move faster than you did, than your identity did. And this shows up in many ways that you probably didn't even realize. You finally get a client and you immediately think it was a fluke. You got lucky. You raise your price and then you offer a discount. Nobody asks for it. Nobody's even fighting your price, but you're already discounting your work. You do the work, you send the DMs, you post the content, and then you're there at 11 p.m. at night. And was that even good? Was that good enough? Did I say the right things? Maybe I should redo it. Maybe I should delete it. Maybe I should change the whole thing. I think I need a new strategy. And that right there, that's not you being a perfectionist. That's your self-image pulling you back to what it recognizes as safe, right? And here's what got me there's a study that's actually published in the journal Emotion that found that higher income does lead to more confidence and pride, but not like for 10 years. 10 years, just think about that. So you could be making more money right now, but your brain hasn't caught up to the fact that you belong there yet. Your brain has a thermostat. And when your income goes above what it thinks it's normal for you, it'll find a way to bring you back down. I'm not gonna sound like a broken record here, but you will overdeliver, you will undercharge, you burn out, you start second guessing, everything. And then you blame the strategy. But it was never the strategy, and strategy is needed, don't get me wrong. So here's what I've seen from women that actually broke through. They didn't find a better funnel, although it's important, you need a funnel, right? They didn't get a new certification. I know some of you are out there getting certifications after certification. Your wall is probably covered in certificates, which is not bad. I'm gonna say any of these things are bad. Okay. But what made the difference was that something on the inside shifted first. In the business research, they talk about this as the biggest identity shift for entrepreneurs. Going from the one that's doing everything to the one that's leading everything. So going from an operator to a CEO, because you can become a successful entrepreneur, you can create a great business and still be an operator in your own business. Now, that shift does not happen because you read all these leadership books. It happens when you see yourself expand enough to hold a bigger version of your life. One of the women I interviewed said her clients come to her looking successful on the outside, which, you know, by all means, they are. They have the revenue, they have the team, the clients, all of it. And yet, on the inside, they still see themselves as an employee. They never made that internal shift. So they're working 80 hours a week inside a business that should be giving them freedom because their identity is still in employee mode. If you feel like you're doing everything right and it still doesn't feel like it's enough, that's not imposter syndrome. I know everybody loves that word right now. But this is different. Imposter syndrome says you're a fake, and someone is going to find out or you could find out. Identity lag says you're real, your results are real, but your brain hasn't updated the file yet. The evidence is right there, you just can't feel it. And there's no amount of revenue that's going to fix that unless you wait 10 years, right? For that confidence, you'll hit 100K and you'll move the goalpost. You'll hit 200k and you'll move it again. And the problem is not with moving the goalpost. The thing is, you're not moving the goalpost because you're ambitious. It's because you're self-image and that little voice in your head keeps whispering, this still isn't enough for someone like you. The women who break through stop chasing the next number to fix the feeling. They close the gap between what they've built and who they believe they are. And when that gap closes, everything changes. It flows better. How you price, how you show up, how you delegate, how you sleep at night, everything. That's not a strategy shift, that's an identity shift, and it's the only one that actually holds. If this sparks something for you, Thursday, I'm dropping a conversation with a woman that lived this exact experience, this exact pattern. She built a million dollar business working 80 hours per week. Then she made a shift. She made one shift and she went from working 80 hours to 16 hours while her revenue grew. Subscribe so you don't miss it. Am I recording? There better be recording. Yay!