LAST WEEK'S BREAKTHROUGHS

In last week’s newsletter, I asked you to start working on an area of your life you were hoping success would fix.

Our first reader stopped waiting to feel enough:

“I think the thing I used to believe success would fix was the feeling that I wasn’t enough.

For a long time, I measured myself by what I could accomplish. I built a career, worked my way into administration, took on more responsibility, and spent a lot of years being the person everyone expected to have the answers. I took a lot of pride in being successful professionally and, more importantly, in being someone my family could depend on.

Then life threw me a pretty significant curveball.

The last couple of years have forced me to look at myself in ways I probably wouldn’t have chosen voluntarily. My marriage fell apart, my family dynamic changed, and I found myself trying to navigate separation, my career, my responsibilities, and a lot of emotions all at the same time. Working for the same organization as the person I was separated from (and that same person had an affair with a co-worker) made it even harder to create any real distance between what was happening in my personal life and what was happening at work.

And honestly, that experience has taught me something I probably needed to learn.

You can accomplish things, make good money, have a respected career, own a house, take care of your kids, and still feel completely unsettled inside. None of those things are bad—in fact, I’m proud of them. But they can’t do the work of making you feel secure in who you are.

So that’s the thing I’m working on now: learning to be genuinely comfortable with who I am, regardless of what is happening around me.

I’m trying to stop measuring my worth by whether someone chooses me, whether a relationship works out, whether I get the next promotion, or whether my life looks the way I once imagined it would at this point. I’m learning that being a good dad, a good person, a good friend, and someone who can get knocked down by life and still find a way to get back up probably matters a hell of a lot more than having everything perfectly figured out.

I’m also trying to remind myself that rebuilding isn’t the same thing as failing. Sometimes life forces you to let go of the version of yourself and your future that you thought you were supposed to have before you can figure out what you actually want and need.

Maybe that’s what this chapter of my life is really about—not becoming more successful, but becoming more comfortable with the person who is already here.

And maybe, for the first time, realizing that I don’t have to accomplish anything else to prove that I’m enough.”

Eric is writing for change:

“Mark, this is a close one. Success won't fix anything for me either. I don't think anything fully fixes anything, honestly.

What I'm actually hoping for isn't fame or money. What I have in my heart is this: I self-published a memoir last month, no following, no platform, under a pen name, for privacy reasons. It's something that started pouring out of me after an ayahuasca retreat last year. I think it's a decent book, a real story, and I'm hoping it can reach a few people and mean something to them. Not self-help. Just sharing what I've been learning about myself and seeing if it lands anywhere.

I went to another retreat this past weekend, a tough one. I came back understanding something in my bones I'd only understood in my head before: that letting go is the actual key to any kind of peace. Not full peace (I don't think that exists), but some. I also felt this pull to express myself more, and I think it comes from a decent place, wanting to share something that might do for someone else what this path has done for me.

I'm 54. I'm not trying to change the world. I know I'm one person doing a small piece of the work. But if the book or the songs I'm working on now help even a few people loosen their grip a little, that's the whole goal.

Thanks for sharing and for what you do.”

Finally, Adam redefined success for himself:

“For the last five years or so, I’ve been climbing the ranks professionally. I worked at one company for nearly 11 years and left to take a risk on a new start-up that hired me to start their sales department. It was what I thought I always wanted until it wasn’t. I was butting heads with the CEO, traveling all the time (while I have two little ones at home), and under constant pressure and criticism.

I left that job and started all over at a new company. It’s been a very difficult process, in fact the hardest professional chapter of my life. However, I’ve learned that success for me isn’t about making a ton of money. It’s about having a job I enjoy, that I’m good at, with job security, and allows me to live a comfortable life. Most importantly, to be there for my wife and kids more often.”

As always, send your breakthroughs by simply replying to this email. Let me know if you’d prefer to remain anonymous.

Until next week,

Mark Manson

#1 New York Times Bestselling Author
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