When Success Stops Feeling Like Success
Episode 45 with Jill Griffin & Molly Bierman
In this episode of No Permission Necessary, Jill and Molly explore what it means to reach a version of success that no longer feels aligned.
They discuss the internal experience of feeling disconnected from a path that once felt right, and how high-achieving individuals often continue pushing forward even when something feels off. The conversation highlights the difference between burnout and misalignment, and the importance of reassessing goals as life evolves.
This episode offers a reflective perspective on growth, change, and redefining what success means over time.
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Jill Griffin (00:00)
I mean,
when I broke the news, people are like, ⁓ okay, so you got another job? No. They're like, so what's the plan? Have none. Zero plan. Like, it'll be fine.
Molly Bierman (00:04)
Nope.
Guys, welcome back.
on today's episode, we've been getting a lot of great feedback from people loving the way that we're mixing up both our interviews and our short segments. And today we wanted to really give you guys something to walk away from that's tangible, that feels also vulnerable and clear. And so I drafted up this episode that I thought would be fun to talk about, which is when success stops feeling like success.
So today we're gonna talk about something that a lot of high achieving people quietly experience, but I think rarely admit, the moment when success stops feeling like success. So.
Jill Griffin (01:06)
I mean,
I think this also happens when you get the success and you don't want it anymore. It's almost like you built everything, the business, the career, and you should have that moment of I've made it and from the outside it looks like that, but internally something's really off.
Molly Bierman (01:26)
Well, I think there's a couple of examples that I know that I walk away from when I'm feeling out of whack, right? With not feeling gratitude for where I am, not having appreciation for the things, not feeling opportunity and that each day really does bring a great deal of opportunity no matter what you're doing in your business. So some of the examples where people will start to wonder what's happening is...
You just feel tired all the time. You don't feel like sleep fixes it. It feels just heavy, like trudging almost through the day to day. Everything feels like a responsibility rather than an opportunity. And at times you can even feel trapped in the way.
you can feel trapped in the very thing that you built. And I think as as people in a leadership position, you literally plan your whole life in some instances to get to that place, right? You start at the bottom rung and you work your way up and you trudge through the different levels of management and you trudge through the different levels of entrepreneurship and business and you're just
reaching and reaching and reaching. And sometimes you look back and you don't really have the appreciation or the understanding of how far you've come. And so there's this level of exhaustion, I think, and where does that exhaustion stem from? So really what we want to talk about today is how entrepreneurs, therapists, people in recovery, even moms, you know?
even in your element of maybe being at home and being a mom and saying this is everything that I wish for and why do I feel
unfulfilled or tired or frustrated, etc. etc. that we really want to kind of expand our experience both in our personal and professional lives and hopefully it'll help somebody who's listening.
Jill Griffin (03:19)
One of the quotes that I've seen recently that comes across for me lately is like, you did get, you did reach your goal. You just keep changing the goalposts. Like, and I think that's so true for a lot of us where we just keep going, going, going. And, and the, the goal for a lot of people who growing a business is like,
expanding, expanding, expanding. And I think we've talked about this in a systems level, how that's disorienting. But I think for the leaders, if you're the one creating growth and always looking, you can be growth minded and also know when it's time to, like there's all, there's seasons, there's season for growth and there's seasons for Like we're just good where we're at. We're going to just enjoy where we're at. Like,
you'll never have this moment again. I guess I'll ask, do you have an example in your career where, like, what were the signs for you when you were like, this isn't it?
Molly Bierman (04:19)
You know, I was thinking about this as I was laying out the episode and I think that probably where I felt the most
I think where I felt the most defeated leadership was when I felt that the organization that I was a part of many years ago, and it was really my first leadership position. Being a director, being a supervisor, working in a long-term extended care men's unit in Connecticut, feeling really passionate about, you know, where we were headed, those early days, building and building and building.
And when I started to feel that the leadership was misaligned and the ownership started to feel...
disingenuine, almost to a defeating level, right? That we kind of flew this flag for the organization, myself and many others. And there was this level of misalignment between us and the owner. I knew at that point that even though I had built this program with all of these wonderful people together, we built it shoulder to shoulder, that I had to leave.
I think that that was probably the most defeating and felt really like a grief process. Cause I, I just felt like the misalignment for me was can't go out and represent something that I feel like is not going to be able to be sustainable. And what was happening was that it wasn't going to be sustainable and the writing was on the wall that they were going to sell. And I just felt
I just felt misaligned with being talking to my colleagues that trusted me, that
honored my recommendations that if was selling them something that no longer was being fulfilled, I just couldn't do it. couldn't, I couldn't be behind something that I felt was one thing at one period, at one period of time. And now it's going to be completely something different.
Jill Griffin (06:04)
Yeah.
How did that show up in your body or like how you felt though? Like what was that?
Molly Bierman (06:20)
God, mean, lethargic. mean, I can so relate to that. So I ended up working remotely for the organization for a period of time because I had moved down to Maryland to be with my husband. We weren't married at the time. We were dating long distance. And then I made the plunge to come and move back to the Maryland region.
Jill Griffin (06:37)
Side note, I still remember where I was when we were having that conversation. I was driving on 95 and you're like, I think I'm gonna move to Maryland. And I was like, whoa, that's a lot.
Molly Bierman (06:47)
Serious.
Jill Griffin (06:50)
Are you for real? I don't even know this person.
Molly Bierman (06:50)
So true. God, I love when we remember those types of conversations and life changing moments in one another. And so, you know, I remember sitting at my desk, I had this like lovely office that I made at our townhouse and, you know, got the desk that I wanted, got the desktop that I needed. Everything was all put together.
I had like a really nice couch in the background that I could like switch spaces. The couch that I kind of wish I could podcast from right now. I wish I had that big of a space now. But I remember sitting at the computer and being like, I cannot even get through the day without taking like a nap. Like I feel so exhausted. And that was a stark difference, okay? Because what I was doing with the organization prior was I was on the road half the year.
Jill Griffin (07:16)
you
Molly Bierman (07:35)
Okay? On planes, trains, automobiles. I was in school, taking three classes each semester at night. I was doing an internship and I was working full time and keeping up with friendships, relationships and my own personal support. That-
Jill Griffin (07:51)
Not high performing
or a lunatic at all. No, no.
Molly Bierman (07:55)
But it was a fraction of what I was doing when I moved, right? School had ended, was now an out-call-in-dorm counselor, I had done all the things, right? So to me, I was so confused. I'm like, why am I not feeling energized? So the writing was on the wall. Within a few months, I knew it was time for me to resign.
Jill Griffin (08:13)
I have had the experience of working with a lot of people when I hold that mirror up of like, well, let's look at, you know, what's going on in your life. And if that, if it feels aligned or, where these touch points are, I think that if you suggest,
kind of uprooting your life in some way. mean, in that way, it's not your business at that point, right? You can switch jobs, you can go somewhere else. So I do feel like that's a little bit different, right? But if you're a business owner and someone's like, well, is this what you want? Like, do you want to continue with this? That's like, well, I have to. I've gotten that response a lot. Well, I can't not see this through. is, however, I also have seen examples
maybe not just in the behavioral health field, but from a lot of people that they just give up, they give up their career, they give up their business, they switch direction completely because I think and I believe this wholeheartedly, there's no amount of money that your peace of mind can buy. so, you know, sometimes
Molly Bierman (09:15)
Well, will tell you
that I will tell you that I had a, you know, I had interest in the company. And so I want to speak to this because I think it's important. I kind of forgot about it, but it was, it was, it was a minority interest in the company, but I, once the sale went through, I would, you know, earn X amount of dollars. Right. And I don't know what it was at the time, but it wasn't, it, to me, it was substantial for someone who
had made this as their kind of career path and had only been a few years of being in that upward trajectory. So I really grappled with that. I grappled with, am I gonna leave this position and leave that on the table when I feel like I've worked so hard to...
Jill Griffin (09:57)
Yeah, and give it up.
Molly Bierman (10:01)
create a name for ourselves, a trusted resource for families and clients. And a lot of guys got well. I'm still in touch with some of the gentlemen and young adult men that went through. So I really, really struggled with that. And finally, what it came down to was if I was going to wait it out for that amount of money, whatever it was going to be, I
felt like I was passing up other opportunities where I could probably grow more quickly. And so I said, it's time for me to go. And I did leave it on the table. And I'm really glad I did, because it definitely wasn't valued at the level that we thought it would have been at.
Jill Griffin (10:42)
I honestly think that that's a difference though between a growth mindset and a scarcity mindset. And also I can speak to both of us where we have a strong faith practice, right? And, you know, rely on other people, mentors, people that we run things by, but also like prayer and kind of opening up to like what the universe has in store, right? Because I often will limit what
is a potential for me in the future by what I can understand and know now, right? So I always talk about this, but when I left my agency position, I think the same experience happened to me where by all accounts on the outside, it was success. I had made it. I was a clinical director. I was only a couple of years out of school. My trajectory was up into executive level management. Very probably could be there now, you know, and like that's what
Molly Bierman (11:26)
Yes.
definitely
would have been there by now.
Jill Griffin (11:36)
Yeah, and that's what school teaches you to do and strive for, right? Like, you're going to do this, you're going to do this. And so I was way past my peers in terms of where I was at in my career. And making six figures, opening programs, you know, we opened the first of its kind in Connecticut for, you know, the crisis programs that I was working in. But I do remember it was still that question that my boss at the time
He was like, it wasn't a question. It was a statement. I feel like you're taking my job. I feel like you want to take my job. And it just, it really allowed me to have this like moment of, I really don't though, you seem burned out. You're working three jobs, but you are an executive level. Like this is actually not what I want. You know, and I left with,
Molly Bierman (12:24)
Mm-hmm.
Jill Griffin (12:26)
six private practice clients and I started moonlighting at Yale. And like, if I look at that, I had no plan, but I guess it was just being open enough to the possibility and putting faith over fear of like, something better has to be there. There has to be something better on the other side of this that I can create around my family versus my family having to like react around my career, which is kind of how it felt.
and I think explaining myself, when we talk about feeling trapped by success, I feel like a lot of people are nervous about explaining their decision to other people. You know, when I, when I kind of broke the news,
Molly Bierman (13:10)
I have so many
good examples of this.
Jill Griffin (13:13)
I mean,
when I broke the news, people are like, ⁓ okay, so you got another job? No. They're like, so what's the plan? Have none. Zero plan. Like, it'll be fine.
Molly Bierman (13:18)
Nope.
Jill Griffin (13:24)
They're like, ⁓ okay, like, how are you supposed, I mean, again, I had, I always talk about this, but like my husband had a full-time career, which that ended up getting Rocky unbeknownst to us, you know, pretty early on after I left, but you know,
I had some sort of safety net because I had two young children at the time, but we also just took the leap of faith. Like it's going to work out. Everything's going to be fine. but yeah, explaining it to my parents, they were like, what do mean? You don't leave a job without another job. You don't like, and I think that's a big part of it.
Molly Bierman (13:51)
Well, mean, you paved the way.
You paved the way because when I, and I was really reflecting too on my experience on the, you know, on the detox unit and thinking about what you would say in many others is like, you do have the option to leave, right? You do have the option to say, this is no longer a lie. Right.
Jill Griffin (14:10)
It's not serving me. It's not serving me anymore. Like I don't like that.
Bottom line, if it goes back to what we always say, right? If it's not a hell yes, it's a no. And if I don't, do I like this? Sometimes I have to ask myself, do I still like this? And what don't I like about it? Because there's hard seasons, but if the season is like perpetual, like it's on and on, it's like not ending. We need to ask ourselves that question.
Molly Bierman (14:35)
Yeah, and I did have to ask myself that question many a times and but I loved what I did. I just struggled with all of the.
I struggled with a lot of the components of the facility, right? You know, whether that's insurance, whether that's bottom lines, whether that's profit margins, all the things, right? And some things that felt very out of my control, that I was doing everything that I could do that was in my control and I didn't feel like I had the opportunity to do it was outside of my control. And no matter how much I pushed and pulled and moved things around, it still didn't work. And so when I decided to take that leap of faith and say, okay, I'm gonna move on and do something different.
It's really funny because a lot of people had working theories on what I was going to do, right? And many people were like, so you're going back to Mark. You know, you're going to go back to working with, you know, your husband and, know.
Jill Griffin (15:24)
Because that's the frame, the framework. There must be a safety net there. You have to go to something else that's like a sure thing.
Molly Bierman (15:32)
Right, right. And I was like, no, this is like less than a sure thing. And I am actually petrified. I am totally not sure this is gonna work. But there was a lot of due diligence and a lot of faith and a lot of, you know, I'm gonna take the risk and see what happens. And thank God I did, honestly. I mean, it has been such a...
Jill Griffin (15:40)
Now.
Molly Bierman (15:55)
Game changer. Full game changer.
Jill Griffin (15:57)
Anybody
that I've talked to though, and I've had these conversations with people around these decisions, I end up being the call that a lot of people make. Like, should I leave this? This is what I'm thinking. Like, I've walked people through these choices before. know, there's this benefit package, there's this on the other side. And it ends up boiling down to how much risk you're willing to take in that faith versus fear.
you know, because we allow fear to rule that, I actually just had this conversation with somebody today. Somebody contacted me this morning and was like, Hey, should I do this thing? And I was like, what's the fear? Because it always boils down to fear. And when we talk about being trapped by success, it goes back to, know, I am responsible. I'm going to be seen as like, you know, a flake. If I give up on this, I am, it's expected of me.
Molly Bierman (16:49)
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Jill Griffin (16:52)
⁓ and this is what about my reputation? People are going to see me bailing on this thing. Right. And so I asked what the fear was and the fear was it's going to damage my reputation. People are going to judge me. And it's like, it all boils down. If we talk about X, Y, A, B, C things, it all boils down to a self-centered fear.
Molly Bierman (16:55)
Right. Right. Right. Yeah.
Right. Yes.
Right, I'll those down too. Yeah, fear of what
people think or fear of what you're not gonna get. But I will say too that I was just talking to somebody else about this in terms of individuals majority of the time are thinking about themselves, okay? So even if you are the biggest splash for a couple of hours on social media when you put that.
Jill Griffin (17:26)
Yeah!
Molly Bierman (17:33)
I am now leaving. You know, people like to keep you on your toes, right? So they say, I have now decided that I am going to be stepping away from such and such role at such and such place, more to be revealed, dot, dot, dot, right? And so you make that, you know, announcement, people create their hypotheses for a couple of hours. And then before you even announce your next position, they've already moved.
Like no one's thinking about it anymore. They're onward and upward. And again, because really what also is created in our space is a really open field for gossip. And I think that's every field, right? But in behavioral health specifically, we've witnessed that. So when we think about what it felt like.
Jill Griffin (18:00)
They don't even care! Yeah!
Molly Bierman (18:22)
What if, you know, for those that are listening, what it felt like when the dream now needs to evolve, you know? And for me, I think what I needed to realize was that it was okay to say, is the end for now. And that the next thing is gonna be something different. And I can always, always, always.
choose to go back in a different direction if I want to, you know? I don't know. I think that's really where I had this level of acceptance. It's like, okay, I could try this on for size and if it totally doesn't work or if I don't love it or if I feel like I want to be in some sort of different scenario, then I have the option to pivot and go something different.
Jill Griffin (18:53)
Yeah.
You're always allowed to change your mind. There is a big value in doing these periodic checks, especially when you're in a leadership position of evaluating your life honestly. And I'm grateful. I know you're one of these people, but I've had the, I've had other people. One thing that is coming up is after opening the IOP, I remember I would say, I don't have to do this if I don't want to. Like I think in my mind, I had to have an out.
Molly Bierman (19:36)
Many a times.
Jill Griffin (19:36)
And I would say to
Alan, listen, I could give this up tomorrow. I don't need to do this. I had to have this non-attachment to it because I knew that hopefully this is a season. But if I continue with this feeling over and over and over, month after month, I'm not doing this. I don't care what the money is. don't care what the... I don't care. I'm not doing it. And I remember having those conversations with you.
and you walking me through it and just being like, yeah, yeah, but you're not there yet. So we're just going to keep moving forward. And, and I'm on the other side of it now. Right. But I think the point is that it's isolating when you're in a leadership position, because you're not going to have these conversations with people in your organization. You know, you might have them with your counterparts, but it really depends on the organization you're in and how transparent you really need that outside mentorship. And it can't be overstated how important
Molly Bierman (20:29)
100%. It has to
be different. It has to be, it has to be.
Jill Griffin (20:31)
And that is, yeah, you need an
outside point of view because the bottom line is success is not supposed to trap you. Success is supposed to be something, especially when we're talking about career success. That is not the end all be all. You know, I saw something this morning. The only people that are going to remember you working late are your family, your kids and your spouse. That's the reality. So all this career accolades and everything in the field.
Molly Bierman (20:57)
Get it yourself.
Jill Griffin (20:59)
And all these things like,
Molly Bierman (20:59)
Get it yourself.
Jill Griffin (21:01)
yeah, it's nice, but that's not my value system. That's not my North star. That's not, and that's what I made those decisions based on. I want to be at my kids' games. That success to me looks like being available for my children when they need me the most. So that when they are off on their own, right? Like they still have a part of me with them because I was there during those pivotal times, you know.
And that's probably part of me as a therapist hearing all the attachment trauma stuff like in the room, right? It's like, well, I don't want to create that.
Molly Bierman (21:30)
Exactly.
And I think as a closing, for those that are in deliberation, in question, unsure of what's next, if the version of success you built in the last couple of years, five years, 10 years, whatever it's been, is no longer fitting what you expect today, it's not failure, it's just time to change.
It's time to shake things up. It's trying to, it's, time to have some open discussions with individuals, get a mentor, find someone to start to challenge you and say, is this really where you want to be right now? Or is it what's comfortable? so, you know, permission. Go ahead. Go ahead.
Jill Griffin (22:02)
Yeah.
Permission slip, I have it, I have it. The permission
slip is permission to change your mind. You are allowed to change your mind because I think sometimes we think success or ownership or a position, X, Y, Z, a career is what we thought it was gonna be and it's not working for us. It's not what we wanna do. You're allowed to change your mind.
So I hope this episode was helpful to everybody. As always, please follow along on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, but also send us in suggestions. We've been getting texts, we've been getting messages. It would be helpful to know what's resonating, what's not, what you'd like to hear more of that is helpful for us to keep putting out content that is helpful to you. So until next time.
Molly Bierman (22:59)
Until next time. Thanks
guys.
