When is Everything Ever Enough

00:08
Have you ever felt like no matter how much you accomplish,  it's never enough?  We reach one goal and almost immediately we're chasing the next one.  We wonder if we're doing enough,  achieving enough,  having enough, or even being enough.  If that sounds familiar,  you're in the right place.  Welcome to the Freedom of Love podcast.  I am Kim Patten.

00:36
author of Pivot and your host.  This is a place where we have honest conversations about ambition,  identity,  parenthood,  career,  money,  comparison, and what it really means to build a life that's true to ourselves.  Because we don't have to earn our worth,  we are already enough.  It is time to stop building rockets to space.

01:05
and start living in the world we have already built.  Let's discover what enough looks like,  starting now.

01:15
you

01:19
Have you ever noticed that the moment you hit a goal, the goalpost moves? You get the race, you buy the house, you lend the title, and within 48 hours, you're already looking at what's next. You feel like you're winning, but you're exhausted. For years, I was chasing a version of success I didn't even want. Fueled by a blueprint I never questioned. I thought I was running towards freedom, but I was actually on the treadmill of external approval.

01:49
that had no off switch. We live in a world obsessed with more, but we really stopped to ask the most important question possible. When is everything ever enough? I'm Kim Patten, and this is the very first episode of Freedom of Enough, a conversation I think we are all quietly having with ourselves, but really out loud. I'm so glad you're here.  So the million dollar question.

02:18
When is anything enough? We live in a world that's obsessed with more, more growth, more followers, more income, more productivity.  We were taught from a very young age that the sky is the limit. And once you hit it, you should probably go to space.  Nothing is wrong with that. But if it is actually making us happy, we rarely stop to ask the most important question. When is it enough? When is your bank account enough?

02:47
When is your house big enough? When is your career successful enough? The tension we feel every day, that low grade anxiety that we should be doing more comes from the fact that we haven't defined our own finish lines.  Many of you know me as the pivot mom and that titles come from a very specific turning point in my life. I spent the first half of my life as a high achieving career driven woman. Growing up in a traditional Chinese family,

03:17
My blueprint for success was clear, prestige and financial security. My mom was a stay at home mom, but she was unhappy. I grew up promising myself I will never follow in her footsteps. To me, that path looked like a loss of identity. Yet in my thirties, I did something my 20 something years old self would never have done and will have judged harshly.

03:43
I choose to take an indefinite career break to be there for my children. It wasn't because I had to, but it was because I realized the goals I was hitting were not making me happy. Even now with my children in school and my career back in motion, the ghost of more still haunts me. I have noticed a strange pattern. Every time I reach a goal, it becomes a new zero.  If I wanted a certain salary, the moment I earn it, it felt like the floor.

04:12
not the ceiling. I realized that if I didn't define enough for myself, the world would gladly define it for me. And the world's definition is always just a little bit more than you have right now.  So why enough is so uncomfortable? Why is it so hard to just be satisfied? First, there's the culture of infinite growth.

04:39
Modern society is built on the engine of dissatisfaction. If we were all happy with what we had,  the economy as currently constructed will struggle. We're sold the idea that enough is equivalent to giving up. Then there is ambition without boundaries. Ambition is a beautiful thing. It drives innovation and care, but ambition without a stop switch is just a never stopping treadmill.

05:09
It creates a life of perpetual arrival where you never actually celebrate your achievements. And finally, the comparison trap. We don't define enough based on our needs. We define it based on our neighbors more.  Defining enough is uncomfortable because it will require us to be secure in our own choices. It means looking at someone else's promotion and saying, that's wonderful for them. But it's not required from my happiness.

05:39
So what will we explore together? In the coming episodes, we're going to deconstruct these pressures. As the pivot mom, I want to help you find the courage to change direction when the path you're on no longer serves you. We'll dive into money and financial independence. Is there actually a number that buys peace of mind? Identity and career.

06:07
or are you when you aren't climbing or achieving?  Parenting, marriage and time. The tug of war between the guilt of doing enough versus the peace of being enough.  Success post-mortem.  Conversations with people who reach the top only to realize the view wasn't what they were promised. We will have guests,  entrepreneurs, philosophers,  experts,

06:37
and parents who have all had to wrestle with their own versions of enough. As we close this first episode, I want to leave you with one reflection. Think about a goal you're currently chasing. Ask yourself, if I reach this, would I allow myself to be finished? Or am I already looking for the next thing? If we never define enough, we will spend our whole lives chasing more.

07:06
and never realized that what we have might already be everything we need.  Thank you so much for spending this time with me today.  It really means a lot to me.  If this conversation resonated with you, I would love for you to follow the show so you don't miss what's ahead.  And if you know a friend who needs to hear this conversation,  would you share this episode with her?  You never know.

07:34
It might be exactly the encouragement she needs today.  If you are ready to keep this conversation going,  episode two is already waiting for you, where we'll explore identity and career.  You can also find more episodes,  stories and resources at freedomofenough.com.  Until next time,  remember,  the world will always ask for more, but you get to decide.

08:03
what enough actually looked like.