UIP- Episode 21: The Energy of Enough
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[00:00:00] This is unapologetically in power, the space for ambitious women who are done proving, done,
performing, and ready to lead, earn, and live from truth.
I am Jennifer Damaskos, and today we're talking about something that every high achieving woman wrestles with, mostly in silence. What does it actually mean to feel like you have enough? I wanna start here. Most of us were raised on the belief that more is the goal. More effort, more credentials, more results, more evidence that we are doing enough to [00:01:00] deserve what we have.
I lived that way for years, and I know you probably did too. The patterns look like this. You hit a goal, you celebrate for about five minutes, and then that quiet familiar whisper shows up. Okay? What's next? And just like that, the finish line moves again. The brain has a built in mechanism called the hedonic treadmill.
It's the tendency to return to a baseline level of satisfaction no matter how much external success we achieve. Harvard psychologist and Gilbert's research. In 2015 showed that within weeks of a major achievement, whether it's a promotion, a new home, or a financial win, [00:02:00] most people's happiness levels return to their previous baseline.
That's why so many high performers live in a constant state of almost satisfied, but not quite there. And the problem isn't ambition. Ambition is beautiful. The problem is when your nervous system ties safety to progress. So it's
When you only feel safe if you're growing, when stillness feels like failure. When resting makes you restless. Does these sound familiar? Let's talk about wealth for a second, and not the spreadsheets and bank accounts kind, but the identity of wealth. We think wealth is created through grind energy, the discipline, the [00:03:00] productivity, the relentless motion.
But true wealth, the kind that sustains, multiplies, and feels anchored comes from capacity, energy, and capacity. Says I can hold what I've built without needing to chase something new to prove I deserve it. I call this energetic profitability. Because it's not just your money that earns returns. Your energy does too.
And the more grounded and regulated you are, the more opportunities flow your way, the clear your decision making becomes and the faster you recover from challenges. And there's research to back this up. So a 2022 Yale study on emotional [00:04:00] regulation and executive performance found that leaders with higher emotional capacity, meaning their ability to stay calm and grounded under pressure, made 27% faster and more profitable strategic decisions than those who were operating under chronic stress.
So in another words, peace is profitable. Here's what that means. Practically. You can be wildly ambitious, but you ambition should come from desire, not depletion. See, desire says, I want this because it expands me. However, depletion says, I need this to finally feel safe.
Let's go [00:05:00] deeper into that because scarcity doesn't just show up in your finances, it shows up in your identity. A scarcity identity says, I'm only okay when I'm producing. When I'm achieving, when I'm in control. But here's the truth, you can out earn everyone around you and still live from lack because lack isn't about money, it's about self-trust.
When you don't trust yourself to hold what you have, you unconsciously sabotage it. You overextend, you overspend, you overgive, and you confuse activity with progress. Stanford had a 2023 study on female founders that women with high achievement [00:06:00] conditioning, meaning those of us trained to equate worth with results.
We're 2.6 times more likely to experience financial anxiety, even in stable or profitable conditions. Why? Because when your self-concept is wired around earning safety, no amount ever feels safe enough. And the moment you stop moving, your nervous system goes into alert mode. It's why burnout often happens right after a big win.
Not during it. The body finally pauses, the adrenaline fades and the emptiness hits. So what does enough actually feel like? It's not [00:07:00] complacency, it's not giving up your goals. It's the moment your ambition shifts from fear to fullness enough does not sound like, I guess I'll settle. It sounds like I can want more without hating where I am.
It's a grounded desire. Not a frantic chase, psychologically, this state is called sufficiency consciousness. Brene Brown's 2019 Research on Worthiness showed that people who cultivate sufficiency, it's a belief that what they have is enough display, higher self-trust, more consistent boundaries, and greater financial stability.
Because when you operate from sufficiency, [00:08:00] you stop making fear-based decisions. You stop signing clients from desperation. You stop creating offers from scarcity. You start leading from expansion, and that's when wealth starts to compound emotionally first, then financially. And here's how to know you're still stuck in the never enough loop.
You feel guilty resting. Even when you're exhausted. You move goalposts the second you reach them. You equate downtime with lost time. You avoid looking at your numbers because they never feel good enough. You struggle to celebrate wins without already thinking about what's next.[00:09:00]
And if you nodded through those, it's not a character flaw, it's conditioning. And every high achieving woman I've coached has had to untangle the story that peace equals laziness and that wealth equals motion. But here's what I've learned. Stillness is an accelerator because integration happens in the quiet.
You don't need to chase financial freedom. What you actually need is nervous system freedom. You can't feel wealthy in a body that only knows survival. When your nervous system is constantly in a do more, prove more, earn more loop, it doesn't matter what's in your bank account, your body will interpret stillness [00:10:00] as danger.
Neuroscience research from the University of Toronto found that high achieving women who practiced intentional nervous system regulation like breath work and visualization before financial decision making increased their profit margins by 23% compared to those who didn't. Again, not because they worked harder.
Yeah, but because they made decisions from clarity, not cortisol, that's what wealth safety really is. So here's your reflection for the week. Where in your life do you keep moving the finish line? What would change if for the next seven days you decided everything you've built so far is enough evidence that you're capable.[00:11:00]
That you're safe and that the next level doesn't require overworking for permission. How would you lead your team differently? How would you price your offers? How would you speak to yourself when you pause? Instead of push, write them down. Let them sit in your journal until they start to feel like truth.
The next set of episodes on Unapologetically in Power is all about wealth. Not just the kind you deposit, but the kind you embody. Because wealth isn't about what you own, it's about what you can hold, and I want you to be able to hold joy. Without guilt to hold money, without fear, [00:12:00] to hold visibility without overexposure, to hold rest without shame.
That's the work of wealth embodiment and it starts with how you relate to enough. When you master that energy more becomes inevitable. And if this conversation is stirring something in you, if you are realizing that the all rest when mindset has been running your wealth identity, I built something for you.
It's called the five Day Wealth Activation. It's five focused days of recalibrating your mind and body to hold wealth differently. We're not talking about spreadsheets or strategy. We're talking about the inner operating system that decides whether wealth feels safe or stressful. [00:13:00] Inside those five days, you'll learn how to release scarcity based conditioning in your body, how to make decisions from sufficiency instead of urgency.
How to expand what you can receive without burning out. You can start right now at the link in the show notes because your next level of wealth doesn't start with doing more. It starts with feeling safe with enough.
This is unapologetically in power. I'm Jennifer Damaskos. Lead with ease, earn in alignment, and live like it's already enough.
