Written by Ali Williams, Therapist
Ali Williams is the 'uncomplicated' therapist specialising in healing trauma codes in the brain and body. After losing her mother at the age of 16 to breast cancer, and receiving two cancer diagnoses herself, Ali chose wisdom, not war.
Many people believe to be successful they need a high-powered career, perfect family, a big car, and a big house. While those aspects of life can be rewarding, true personal success results from feeling fulfilled through living in alignment. It is a state of being at peace with life’s circumstances, healing the past, and releasing subconscious beliefs to live joyfully with purpose and contentment.
As a therapist and healer, I believe personal success is different for all individuals and is achieved through deep emotional release of the hidden limitations we have accumulated along the way. With guidance through four key pillars of personal success, they create a foundation for developing new empowered beliefs and an increased capacity for happiness that attracts new opportunities.
1. Acknowledge
The first step in achieving personal success is to deeply embrace the ‘what is’ of your current circumstances. Acknowledging life’s difficult experiences will help you understand your mindset. How you think and feel, and the choices you make, are all determined by your earlier environment and past events. How you communicate, prioritize, self-nurture, and cope day-to-day, have developed through external information perceived by your brain, and the meaning it created. If you have been through trauma, relationship difficulties, or have suffered.
An example may be a working mother in her late 40s who feels constantly overwhelmed and overly critical of herself. By exploring her past, we may discover she grew up with a mother who often criticized her, creating a belief that she was never good enough. These early experiences create subconscious patterns that continue to shape her mindset today. She may lack confidence at work, feel undeserving of happiness, and avoid expressing her needs in relationships.
Being honest with yourself about what you have experienced will help you understand why you continue to experience the same circumstances, and how you react. Discovering patterns of self-doubt, perfectionism, guilt, and rescuing (just to name a few) may feel uncomfortable but is the first step forward to change.
How to acknowledge: For maximum benefit of the four-pillar process, it is important to be honest with yourself. It requires awareness of your thoughts and behaviours. Set a reminder on your phone to check-in with yourself at hourly intervals each day for a week. Use a notebook to record what you notice at those times. What is your internal dialogue in stressful moments in comparison to calm moments? How do you react towards others, and what do you say to them? Notice any patterns, particularly when under pressure. Do you react the same at home as you do at work? Acknowledging your current mindset will help you understand what you want to change as you take action for personal success.
2. Accept
Once we acknowledge life’s experiences, and your behaviors, the next step is acceptance. This is not always easy. Many people willingly hold onto resentment and anger around their past events and the people involved. The truth is, harboring those feelings is hurting you. If you think of a situation you feel resentful about, how does it feel in your body? Feelings of anger may arise, or anxiousness. In these moments the body responds through ‘fight or flight’ in your nervous system which can negatively impact your physical and emotional health after long exposure to such stress. It is important to manage your prolonged emotional stress for your well-being, decision-making, and happiness.
Acceptance does not mean letting someone off the hook or pretending a challenging event didn’t occur. It also doesn’t mean you avoid feeling all the feels. It means to be free of the heightened emotions limiting you. By allowing them to flow through you without judgment is a necessary part of moving forward from guilt, shame, and resentment.
An example might be a woman who was betrayed by a friend. Such a hurtful experience resulting in intense feelings of sadness, and abandonment, may cause her to feel resentful towards that person if the situation is not resolved. Strong emotional experiences create intense memories. Each time the woman thinks of that person she may reignite those strong negative emotions. If the woman were to accept the outcome of the situation without judgment, she may still remember the event but without the strong feelings affecting her mindset and well-being.
How to accept: Embracing acceptance around your current mindset and nervous system patterns will enable you to connect with self-compassion. An important part of personal success is recognizing when we need to be kind to ourselves. It may initially feel confronting to discover the truth of your thoughts and feelings that you haven’t previously understood. Leave the judgment aside as you practice the following steps for acceptance. At the end of each day, in your notebook, review your list of thoughts and reactions. At the bottom of the page, write the following sentence, “Even though I thought … and felt …, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.” This sentence is based on the EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) modality that I use to help my clients release difficult emotions. Repeat the sentence as many times as you wish. There is more involved in the practice of EFT, but this is a great place to start.
3. Release
While the pillars all build on each other, number three could be considered the most important in one’s pursuit of personal success. Acknowledging and accepting the challenges you’ve experienced in life allows you to release the subconscious beliefs and behaviors you have developed from a young age. Operating from these hidden patterns reinforces your ‘fight or flight’ nervous system response. In such a stress response you may default to reactive or impulsive choices, shut down in communications to protect yourself, and engage in unhealthy behaviors.
Typical experiences in these circumstances may lead to feeling overwhelmed, anxious, stuck, and dissatisfied. These patterns keep us trapped in a cycle of repeating the same behaviors. Our decisions once helped us cope and adjust throughout life but will eventually hinder our ability to experience joy and build our confidence.
Once unhelpful thoughts and feelings are released, new neural pathways in the brain will form and strengthen into new positive beliefs. A healthy mindset will then develop which is the starting point for a happier experience in wellbeing, relationships, and career development.
Consider a corporate mom who is a workaholic. She feels guilty trying to maintain work-life balance with family responsibilities but is a highly efficient employee climbing the corporate ladder. She cannot say no to others who ask for help, and volunteers to complete more tasks than she has time for. She feels overwhelmed, burnt out, and exhausted. She is grumpy at home with her children and can appear abrupt to her co-workers. She discovers through therapy that because she was raised by her hard-working mom who was never around she created the belief that it is not safe to ask for help. She also realized she felt resentful of her mom. By acknowledging and accepting her mom did her best to provide for her, she released her feelings of resentment and instead embraced compassion and forgiveness.
How to release: There are many different options to assist with releasing limiting thoughts and behavior patterns. The most uncomplicated practice is that of uncensored writing. Create a block time for yourself that will be peaceful and uninterrupted. Grab a notepad (not a journal) and pen and allow yourself to write letters to people you feel have hurt you. You will never send these letters, so go for it. Say everything you’ve always wanted to say but didn’t feel safe. Keep writing until you feel the emotional shift. You will know when you reach that moment. After you feel you are done, destroy the letter. Burning it is the best option, but if that’s not possible, rip it into small pieces and discard it in the rubbish. Do not read the letter back to yourself, and don’t be concerned with grammar or punctuation. This is free-flow writing. It is also important to handwrite your letters as it helps the emotional centre of the brain regulate your feelings. This is not always an easy process, but it is free-ing.
4. Heal
Acknowledging, accepting, and releasing unhelpful beliefs and thoughts will help heal the past. Healing the old patterns that limit us from living our happiest life allows us to create new empowered thoughts. Taking back control of our emotional health supports a joyful life assisting us in seeking out opportunities that align with our desires.
When we let go of big emotions such as fear, anger, resentment, and behaviors like perfectionism, people pleasing, and over-working, we expand into greater enjoyment in our careers and relationships. Healing is the key to personal success through feeling fulfilled in all areas of life. People who have faced difficult challenges in life can often feel out of control of their circumstances. We choose to blame, leaving us powerless.
The one thing we all have control over is the actions we take for our health and well-being. Taking responsibility is an act of self-empowerment. However uncomfortable it may feel initially, it sets us free of the current reality we wish we could change.
A woman, who is a perfectionist, can free herself of her self-imposed expectations if she discovers the reason why she created that behavior pattern. The never-ending need to ‘get it right’ feels overwhelming. We all make mistakes, even those who need to get the details perfect. Letting go of self-criticism and shifting her mindset from focusing on what’s gone wrong to focusing on the positive, allows her to feel more joy instead of angst in her career, relationships, and personal satisfaction.
How to heal: Fully immerse in pillars one, two, and three. This healing process can be repeated over, and over, for any situation or relationship challenge. Don’t underestimate the simplistic nature of these practices. As a therapist I work with clients through this process and in every circumstance, they achieve powerful results. Benefits such as reduced overwhelm, less reactivity in communications, feeling less victimized, more in control of emotions, improvement in health conditions, increased well-being, and a solution-focused mindset are all possible.
Empowering your path to personal success
Personal success is not about perfection; it’s about growth, healing, and expanding your capacity to receive love, joy, and opportunity. By following the four pillars—acknowledgment, acceptance, releasing, and healing—you can transform your life from struggle and self-doubt to aligned empowerment. Letting go of old beliefs and thought patterns that limit you will help to nurture a new positive mindset. Many people never realize how they are keeping themselves trapped in the same cycle of experiences and feelings. After taking responsibility for their healing, life opens up in ways they may never have imagined. We all have the potential to experience greater personal success if we are willing to work through the four pillars.
My mission is to help women, especially working mothers, break free from the hidden patterns that hold them back, to step into the life they deserve. Download this free guide to discover three ways your past experiences have affected your mindset, and how to overcome them. The four pillars for personal success are part of my five-week Resolve program. If you are interested to learn more and join the waiting list for the next round, please email me. If you’re ready for your own personal success, I invite you to contact me to discuss how you can take the next steps toward your empowered life, in your career, relationships, and well-being.
Read more from Ali Williams
Ali Williams, Therapist
Ali Williams is the 'uncomplicated' therapist specialising in healing trauma codes in the brain and body. After losing her mother at the age of 16 to breast cancer, and receiving two cancer diagnoses herself, Ali chose wisdom, not war. After studying formally to become a qualified therapist, Ali has developed programs and strategies to help women focus on healing their own lives. Her first published book reflects the theme of taking responsibility for happiness. Ali believes everyone has the opportunity to claim their birth right to be happy regardless of circumstances.
