335: “There’s Something Missing.”

“There's Something Missing”

If you're experiencing a strange sense of something missing or a gap or something that you are craving and you can't quite put your finger on it, I want to encourage you to listen to this episode. We're gonna talk about the gap and how you can begin to find out what's missing.

Hello my friend. How are you doing today?

So today's episode, you're not imagining things, is a bonus episode that I decided to do. I wanna do some extra episodes here coming out on Tuesdays so that I can express some things that maybe I don't necessarily share on my Thursday editions where I'm sharing something that's maybe more mindset, more tactical. This is gonna be mindset on Tuesdays too. But I wanna share things that I've been thinking about, things that are on my heart, that I know that the lawyers that I work with want to hear.

And maybe you want to hear them too. And one of the things that's been coming up in my private coaching sessions, as well as my Time Peace for Lawyers Group program, is this sense of something that's like this thing that's missing, right? And, and I saw this quote today, which is why I wanted to bring this up, which was…

“You must listen to your heart and follow it or it will find a million ways to remind you that there is something missing.”

And if you notice this sensation that there's just something that's not there, you have all the accolades, you have accomplishments, you have money, and yet there's this gap.

There's this thing that's missing. I want you to listen closely to this episode because for a really long time I felt like there was something missing and I didn't know what it was. I thought maybe I just wasn't enough because I didn't have whatever it was I thought I was supposed to have, and I was a DA. So I had the title, I had a great income, I had all the things that I thought I was supposed to have, the house, the car, like all the things. And yet there was still this, this gap between where I was and where I thought I should be.

And so there was always this focus on and always this sense that I was missing something. And I thought it was money. I thought that that really was going to be the thing that was gonna make me happy, because what if I had more money than if I had more money than I could go on more trips? And if I went on more trips and had more experiences than I would be more happy that didn't do it. , right?

I've been on the trips, I've been on the first class flights. I've done those things, and doing those things didn't fill the gap. I have left my job that didn't fill the gap on its own, right? I needed to actually start thinking about what I was doing in the present. 'cause I want you to get some awareness around if this is happening for you, so that I could see, oh, wait a minute, these things aren't creating the sense of fulfillment and fullness in my life that I desired. And so what else is there? So let me share with you how you can know if there's this gap, because you might not even notice this feeling.

How to Know You're In the Gap

You might just notice some of the actions that I'm gonna share with you. So some of the ways you can know that you're sensing a gap in your life is that you chase accomplishments.

You know, you want the biggest, best thing all the time. You're always looking for the next promotion. You're always looking for the next accolade. You're always looking for the next thing that is going to be the indicative of you being there, being successful, right? I did that for a really long time, right? It's something that our culture, culture actually puts into us. A lot of our family, we have cultural backgrounds where our families told us that to have these accomplishments meant that you had made it and that you were just as good as the other people who were in your, your surrounding, right?

So I was, I grew up, I didn't grow up with a lot of money, and so I was chasing accomplishments so that I could prove to myself that, ah, yes, I belong, I belong here. Right? So that's, that's one way you can know if you're kind of chasing this gap or maybe you notice you're chasing money, you might notice that you're always going after money, money, money. And you feel like it's really exciting when you're going after it, but you know, you hit your goal and then you just don't feel good afterwards.

You're just like, wait a minute. Maybe that wasn't enough. Maybe that's not the number. And you keep moving the number, you keep moving the goalpost. And I'm actually gonna be talking about this in the training that I'm doing for my, my private clients and my business strategy calls. This week, we're gonna be talking about doing revenue goals and how to really create a goal around revenue and to hit those target goals.

I'm all for that. But when we're chasing money just for the money, it feels very empty. And even when you hit the goal, you're gonna feel empty inside. And when you're going and af going after a goal and you're just chasing it, like you're chasing an accomplishment, you can feel a lot of anxiety. You can feel a lot of stress and angst going after it, and you're, you're not gonna feel good going after it.

How to Think About Goals

What I look at when I look at a revenue goal, and this is what we're gonna be talking about in the training this week, is that you are not going after the goal to hit the goal, which sounds counterintuitive, right? What you're actually doing is you are transforming yourself into the person who can hit the goal. You're transforming yourself in a way that allows you to go after bigger things in your life, not to hit the bigger things, but for that self-satisfaction, that fulfillment of becoming the person who is calm under pressure situations, right?

Someone who can think clearly, someone who can pivot and do it in a way where you're a leader on your team and you're not, you know, yelling at them or snapping at them, right? You're becoming the person who can go after anything in your life. Revenue just happens to be something that's easy and measurable. And I really enjoy doing it because that's something that I learned over the years.

But when we're just chasing money after money's sake, or any goal after just the goal sake, we're missing the point. We're missing the plot, which is for me, and you know what I teach in this podcast, what I talk to my clients about, it's all about who do you wanna become? Who do you wanna evolve into? And that's really why I love doing the work that I do. And that's what this episode is all about, is really understanding that that gap, that thing that's missing isn't anything that you're doing.

It's has to do with what's going on inside that, that being inside of you.

So let's talk about what else? How else can you know this, right? It's not just chasing accomplishments and money, it's also chasing pleasure, right? You see this in a lot of addictions, right?

How Lawyers Try to Fill the Gap When They Feel Like Something's Missing

Whatever kind of addiction, addictions to food, to alcohol, to sex, to drugs, to anything, right? Anything where you're constantly chasing pleasure watching TV all night, right? It can be anything that's like chasing pleasure, but you still feel empty afterwards, right? Or you feel guilty afterwards. Another way you can notice is if you're chasing approval and validation from others, you know, going out with the wrong guy over and over and over again, right? Doing those kinds of things, being around people and, and trying to please all of the people pleasing your clients, all of those things.

Chasing approval is something else that we can do to try to fill that gap inside. And I have done almost all of these things, okay? So if you notice yourself in this position right now, just know that you just have to start somewhere, right? If you wanna transform yourself, you just start somewhere.

You don't even have to do it all at once. I certainly didn't. And you'll also notice that you try to fill this gap with constant activity. And this is something that I saw in myself and something I see in my brand new clients, they come to me and they are filling up their time with back to back meetings, late nights, working, constantly checking email, constantly working. For some of them it's like constantly finding things to do, whether it's a board meeting or some activity. Like there's just always something that needs to be happening.

It could be constantly having a radio on in the background or a TV on in the background. Like there's always something happening in the background. It's this, this interesting, this interesting thing that happens when we fill up all of the time that we have, is that we create even more noise and it blocks out our wisdom, our wisdom to be able to fill the gap.

How to Reconnect with Our Higher Purpose

We can't fill the gap with all the noise, but we don't know that. All we know is that the noise is preventing us from hearing how hollow things sound in the echo chamber, right? How hollow it is in the gap that we're in right now. So when we have all of this noise, we cannot even connect with what the dream is. What we really want. And this was something that I heard a, I heard Steven Spielberg say something to the effect, and I'm just gonna paraphrase it, is that dreams don't batter us over the head.

They're not going to just knock us down and boom, we're gonna have a dream, we're gonna have a vision, and boom, that's the thing we have to do. They come in the form of a whisper and we need to listen to those whispers, but we can't hear them when we're creating all this noise, when we're chasing all of these things that are external to us. 'cause What we think is, and this is, this isn't our fall, right?

This is how we are trained, is that we need to be seeking external pleasure, validation, accomplishments, proof that we are doing the right thing in our life. Proof that we are successful, proof that we belong. But what if you are already enough as you are? What if you already had everything that you needed? What if when you showed up in the world, you showed up knowing that you were good enough, that you had it all and you didn't need any more accomplishments to prove anything, you didn't need any more money to prove anything.

You didn't need to have that numbing of whatever it is that you're trying to, to numb with, whether it's a radio or food or alcohol or whatever it is. What if you are enough? And I will share with you from my experience and my learnings, that you absolutely are enough.

That you absolutely have everything that it takes right now to quiet your life and to begin to connect with the whispers. And this doesn't mean you have to drop everything, quit the Lord, you know, go on top of a mountain somewhere and meditate. What it means is starting to notice the little ways that you are tuning out and how you're making noise happen in your life, and how you're busying yourself.

Questions to Ask Yourself

Where are you abandoning yourself? Your ability to hear the whispers so that you can hear the dream, right? So that you can figure out what is that thing that I feel like I'm missing? And you're not missing anything. It's just so loud. You cannot hear what's already there.

I wanna say that again. It's just so loud. You cannot hear what's already there. I want this to be something that you really think about, that you mull over.

Are you living the life that you want? Or are you living a life that somebody else designed for you? Are you living a life where you think it's pretty good and you're telling yourself you should be grateful for it, but there's just something missing? Are you listening to the whispers that you hear, those things that are telling you, Hey, go start your own business.

Hey, go for the promotion. Hey, why don't you try this other practice area? Hey, why don't you do this fun thing? Like go learn how to shot, put . I don't know why that was the first thing that popped in my head, but are you going after the little whisper in your head?

Because that's what it took for me to get where I am, where I started quieting my life enough so I could hear the whispers, the whispers that were telling me, Hey, this coaching thing, this is amazing and you can help more people this way.

Oh, okay, well let me try that. Oh, I really enjoy this. And I kept listening to the whispers, right? Or I, you know, I am very spiritual and I have a mentor who I just adore because this person is allowing me, it allows me to see things that I didn't see before and how connected I already was. But it allows me to hear the whispers more about who I am truly and what it is that I truly want. And it's not the accomplishments anymore. It's not chasing the money anymore. Yeah, I want money because I wanna live a good life, but it's not like, Hey, I need to have all the, all the things.

It's not chasing pleasurable things anymore. Yes, I love ple pleasurable things, but just like anybody, but I don't allow it to give me a net negative impact.

And what I mean by that is if you are doing anything to the expense of yourself or your dreams, it's giving you a net negative impact in your life. And are you having those kinds of situations? And that can look like a relationship too. It can look like having a relationship that's gone on far too long, and that you are not taking the authority to step out of that relationship. It's just causing noise. And it's not allowing you to step into the person who can quiet yourself enough to listen to the whispers that tell you what your dreams are.

And maybe that dream is a more beautiful, loving relationship. So this is something that will apply to you no matter what area of your life.

But what it does require is that you change how you live and who you are being.

Who you are being day to day. So I wanna offer to you that you just have some awareness around who you are, being day to day, who are you allowing in your ear day to day? Who are you allowing to be in your space day to day? What are you allowing to occur that doesn't feel good, but you do it anyway?

These things are causing this noise, this friction. And you won't be able to hear the whispers as long as that noise is so loud. And if you want help with this, this is something that I work with my clients on. So I have a lot of lawyers who come to me and their brain is just packed with noise and I get it. I've been there. You gotta start somewhere.

And we start really clarifying what it is they want, and we start taking away everything that distracts them from their goal, from what they truly desire. And it is a step-by-step process because not everybody who comes to me knows exactly what they want, but we just start somewhere and we start clearing up the roadblocks one by one by one. And then they have a beautiful life where they get to take their life in any direction that they want because they can hear the whispers, they can hear themselves, think they can connect with that higher part of themselves that's trying to connect with you right now.

But when we have so much noise in our heads, we cannot hear it.

Your Next Step

And so if you'd like some help with this, you can book a strategy session with me at dina cataldo.com/strategy session. Alright, my friend, I hope this gave you something to think about.

That's really what the point of this episode was, is to really give you some, some thoughts around the life you're creating and whether or not that's truly the life you want. Because when I started doing this work mindset work, all of these things, I didn't really think about whether or not I liked my life. I just kept going thinking this was the only option. And it was not the only option. In fact, I was talking to a client a few weeks back and she was saying how she had decided she was gonna go in one direction in her practice and follow one particular practice area.

And I think I mentioned this on a prior episode when I started asking her about it, it was very clear she didn't want to expand that practice area. She didn't even like it. And we found out why she wasn't marketing the practice area she truly desired. And it was just self-doubt.

It was all of the noise that I'm talking about here that prevented her from seeing that path and opening it up so she could expand her practice in that direction. That's where the magic of getting out of the noise, and that's what a coach does, it's a get, they get you out of the noise so you can connect with the whispers. Alright, my friend, I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day and I will talk to you on Thursday too. All right, bye.