Doing everything you can and still feeling like it’s not enough

Do you feel guilty for not doing enough, even when you are already carrying so much for your business, your family, and the people around you?

In this episode, John explores how guilt can quietly eat away at your energy, confidence, and ability to grow. He talks about the impossible expectation of keeping everyone happy, the danger of constantly giving without receiving, and why letting go of guilt helps you return to the present moment with renewed focus.

For more on the Deru approach to leadership from the inside out, visit www.derunation.com

00:01:18 — Guilt and Self-Worth

00:03:09 — Impossible Expectations

00:06:32 — When Guilt Becomes Identity

00:08:18 — Guilt and Financial Pressure

00:10:07 — How Guilt Blocks Progress

00:11:57 — The Danger of Constant Giving

00:13:53 — Guilt as Judge, Jury, and Jailer

00:15:41 — Accepting Your Limitations

00:17:28 — Wipe the Slate Clean

00:18:19 — Closing Remarks

Transcript

0:00

This man was feeling guilty for not having done that. Yet he was actually doing the extraordinary and he was doing a pretty good job at it. But what guilt, guilt starts to eat at him, and it made him not focus on what he was doing, the extraordinary, and doing it well. It made him focus on doing the impossible and doing it perfectly. Welcome to the Grounded Man podcast by Deru. I am your host, John Douglas, and founder of Deru. And this space is for hardworking men building businesses, carrying responsibility, and providing for their families who feel they should be freer. You see, the world has changed, and leading through hard work and long hours now limits a man's influence. The new way is mastering the inner game of leadership so you can carry it well, enjoy what you're building, and still feel free. Deru is leadership for the 21st century. This episode is all about helping men to overcome that infectious disease that we call guilt. If you deserve more in life, if you deserve more freedom, if you deserve more success, if you deserve more ease and more flow and more peace and more presence, if you deserve these things, well then don't be guilty because guilt is what can take it away from you. Just the feeling of guilt. And that's what I'm going to get into today. Because I was talking to a leader very uh recently who was feeling a lot of guilt for not doing enough, feeling like he was giving 100% to both work and life, but actually failing at both, feeling like he was way behind. And I think already you're probably resonating with this idea. And men get this because we're providers and protectors. We see our roles as that. And so when we feel like we're not doing enough, that we're not providing enough, we're not protecting enough, we start to question ourselves and we start to feel guilt and shame about that. And when we feel that, we feel like we're not worth it, we're not worth the success, we're not worth the financial reward, we're not worth worth the wealth, we don't deserve the time, and we kind of distort that relationship with wealth in our lives. So this guy is in a situation where his wife is unwell and has been for a few years. He's kind of acting as a nearly a single parent, as a full-time carer, as a leader in a business. He's doing all the shopping, the cooking, the cleaning, the house chores, the looking after, family. He's running everything. And we were doing a workshop, and in the workshop, he said it was eating him alive that he hadn't cut the lawn at home. His wife had asked him to cut the lawn or said the lawn needed cutting and he hadn't done it. It had been a week since she said that, and it was eating him inside. This man was feeling guilty for not having done that, yet he was actually doing the extraordinary, and he was doing a pretty good job at it. But what guilt, guilt starts to eat at him, and it made him not focus on what he was doing, the extraordinary and doing it well. He made him focus on doing the impossible and doing it perfectly. So, where does your mind bring you? Does it bring you to doing the extraordinary things and doing them well? They might be imperfect, but they're done to a pretty high standard, or doing the impossible perfectly. Because that's where guilt brings you into those expectations. This is where your ego drags you. And we can always do more. In hindsight, we could have always changed things, made better decisions, but we're living life as we go. We're on the go, if you like. And so that's the way we live life. We're in a flow. And it's just about being more aware that all the roles and the hats we wear, whether it's as a father, a husband, a leader, it doesn't matter, that they are just roles and that we play them. And they're a good thing because they keep us on track. You know, we have an identity and we have uh standards and structures and that allow us to achieve success and be ambitious. And those roles and responsibilities help us. But what guilt does, what I'm talking about when I say the impossible expectation, this is actually when we start to look at we should be available to everyone all the time. And it comes back to this idea that we're keeping people happy. This is this is deeper than just people pleasing, because people pleasing is a little bit like you walk on eggshells or you tiptoe around a few people in order to avoid a difficult conversation, in order to avoid conflict, in order to cause any stress on other people. And obviously, that confessor in its own way is not that healthy. But I'm talking about this uh this innate kind of conditioning that I think has been passed down through generations of men where we have to keep everyone happy, whether that's family, whether that's friends, whether that's uh in-laws, whether that's uh in the in the business, in our teams, in our in our management team, in our customers, in our clients, it's all these people that we see, people in our community, we're trying to keep them happy. And in almost, in all fact, we're trying to nearly be the creator here, we're trying to be God here or something, because we're trying to be everywhere all at once. And that's impossible. We're finite men. We're only we can only be in one place at one time. And the place I suggest you be is always in the present moment and be present with where you're at. And of course, you you your decisions have got you there, but you're here. And the only way you can provide the best value and provide and protect is by thinking clear, being calm, um, taking clear actions, unapologetically, not worried about the outcomes, not dwelling on the past, and not overthinking the future. And that's where the guilt brings you. Because there's guilt and growth can kind of stem from the same place. You can feel guilty about, do you know what? I haven't done enough for my team, I haven't done enough for my wife, or haven't done enough for my kids, whatever. Okay, and then you can say that can bring you back on track and say, okay, what would I like to do for them? What would I like to, what kind of experiences would I like to give them? Might say I'd like to be home at six o'clock in the evening so I can have you know at least one hour of good time with my kids. And so that can bring you back on track and you can put the structures in place for that to happen. That's really healthy, it's a proactive way because you use guilt for growth, but you don't wallow in it. And so this is like if you're riding a bicycle and you're riding a bicycle and you fall off the bike. And let's say you fall off the bike and you land on a hard surface and you cut your leg. And so now there's a deep gash there in your leg. Now, the healthy thing to do is go and get the get the cut cleaned up, patch it up, and protect it and let it heal. Okay? And you kind of learn from it. You know, maybe I should slow down on the bends, or or maybe uh maybe I should have taken the stabilizers off too soon, or whatever. You learn something from it. But what happens when we start conditioning ourselves that we need to keep people happy, we fall into this conditioning that guilt becomes nearly our identity because the roles are our identity. If we feel like we're failing them, then guilt becomes our identity. We take that on that we're we're always feeling guilty. And so just measure yourself. In terms of guilt and shame, how often do they pop up for you? And when they do, how do they make you feel? Do they make you feel like you should be further ahead? Do they make you feel like you're not doing enough? Do they make you feel like you're failing? Or do they just bring you back on track and say, okay, I need to do X, Y, and Z, and this will allow me to grow better. So when you could when you don't do that, okay, you allow the guilt to kind of take over you and it starts to become an infection. It's like that cut on your leg. Instead of being cleaned, you forget about it, you you don't look after it, you don't deal with it basically, and you allow it to sit there. You're unaware of it, and it gets infected, and that infection starts to eat into your body and it literally starts to eat you from the inside out. And guilt is infectious that way. It's like an infection, it eats you from the inside out. And what's the cost of this when this happens? That means that you don't deserve the best in life because you don't feel worthy in life. You feel guilty, you feel like I'm not keeping everyone happy, I'm not doing my job well as a man, uh, I'm failing in these areas, so I don't deserve success. I don't deserve to achieve more. So ask yourself do I deserve to achieve more? Do I deserve more success? Do I deserve more wealth? This is a big one for five for finances. So people obviously get, you know, especially leaders and men, we have a lot of financial pressure to provide for our families, provide for our businesses, we're paying wages every week, salaries. There's a lot of financial pressure there. If you're a leader who feels guilty, this puts huge pressure on you because on one level you need to pay all these bills, and on the other level, you feel guilty about achieving more, wanting more. So you you end up in this kind of dirty cycle of needing more, but not actually feeling worthy of it at the same time. And that's a dirty cycle to be in. I'm telling you to change it. I'm talking to you right now. If you're listening to this and this is hitting home, I'm talking to you. I'm talking to you to make you aware of this. Because often you you might have felt this, but you haven't named it yet because it's unaware, you're you're you're you're just it's subconscious. I'm bringing it into the conscious for you to name it now. And now that you're self aware self-aware, you're aware of it, you can make a decision. You now have a choice. When you don't have self-awareness, you don't have a choice because you believe you are whatever's happening to you outside. You live from the outside in. When you get self-awareness, you can live from the inside out because you say, Who am I in all of this? Well, I'm just a man who can only be in one place at one time, and I take responsibility from my family, from my business, from my team for lots of things in my life. But I can't be there every single time to make sure every single thing happens. That is impossible. So I need to start trusting more, trusting myself, trusting that I'm doing my best, trusting that I'm doing all I can do. And this is not to set lower standards or accept less or lower your ambitions. I'm saying to trust yourself that you're doing all you can do, that you're being your best, you're showing up at your best, you know, your energy when you walk into your room, it's as good as it can be. And if it's not, go and clear it. Go and do something to get your peace of mind back. List out 10 things you're grateful for and reset your energy. Start focusing on what you do have rather than what you haven't done. Start focusing on what you have achieved instead of what you haven't achieved. And that'll raise your energy up. And then you start to, other people start to feed off that. But if you're feeling guilty about things, you're probably not making the decisions to go after the growth that you know is there, that can be one of the things blocking you. And people notice that in your team, people will see that in your decisions. You hesitate a little bit, you procrastinate a little bit. You might say, you might logical, you know, you might make it logical and practical and rational and say, oh, well, maybe the timing's not right or this isn't ready or whatever. But really, what is it? Because really, if you took the story away from the facts, you'd say there's actually nothing stopping us. Now is the right time. There is no right time anyway, but now is the best time to do it. We have everything that we need in place. We can handle everything. The trusting is in that not that we have everything ready, but that we can handle anything that comes. That's where it comes. But you won't enter that zone if you're feeling guilty, if that guilt is eating inside infectiously. And so this leader was really getting eaten up inside by this guilt. And he was doing so much for his family and for his team and for the business, all at the one time. And he wasn't taking any time for himself, and this is what I mean where you don't you feel like you don't deserve it. He was he he does a bit of running, and outside of running, he wasn't taking any time for himself to actually get an hour for himself to sit down, to go out, to relax, just to switch off. His laptop was on the kitchen table at dinner time, his laptop was at the kitchen table in the evening time, and he was there sending emails at nine or ten o'clock at night to keep everything going. Why? Because guilt makes you feel small inside that you have to keep giving and you're not allowed to receive back. So this is very damaging, especially for a man and a leader. It's very damaging, it's very destructive because at some point you burn out because you give, give, give, give, and you don't recover, you don't recharge, you don't enjoy. And so who's stopping you from really enjoying it? Now, this guy is in a situation where he has demands 24-7 for for care and for leading and for family. And what happens? Somebody actually asked him in the workshop, one of the other leaders actually asked him, What happens if something happens to you? What happens when if you disappeared? And his answer was, Well, everything would fall apart. Everything would whatever. So that pressure is there. And but if you don't look after yourself, who's gonna look after your family or your team or grow the things when you're not there? And sure, we're all replaceable at some level, but some people are very hard to replace. Some people leave a hole that never gets filled again. And I'd say if you're listening to this, you're probably one of those guys. You're probably one of those guys that if you disappeared, you'd leave a big hole behind. And so you don't want that. You want to be on top of your game, you want to be in a good state of mind. And give and take is the secret of life, and you have to give first before before receiving. But eventually you you hit a bottom, you hit a you go into a di downward spiral where what you're giving gets less and less and less because you just don't have any to give. It's it's exhausting. So you need to let go of the guilt. What do you need to clear? You need to clear the guilt. And what is what is the guilt coming from? It's coming from the idea that we can keep everyone happy all the time. We can keep everyone happy all the time. And we also need to separate the decision from you. Because the decisions that you've made to do to be in a certain place at a certain time, you made them with the best of intentions. And because you can't be somewhere else, why are you why are you getting up, you know, giving out to yourself and judging yourself for being wrong? It's very easy to judge yourself in hindsight, and that's what guilt is doing. It's judging yourself in hindsight. And so guilt becomes the judge, the jury, and the jailer all at the same time. You know, we we we played Monopoly growing up, and we say, you know, you get a get out of jail free card. Guilt is the opposite. Guilt is a get into jail free card. You're not even guilty, but you put yourself in jail, you trap yourself, you imprison yourself here. And that's not a good place to be. It's also like uh guilt is also like playing against a casino. What do they say about playing, you know, betting against a casino? The house always wins. Why does the house always win? Why does guilt always win? Because guilt plays an infinite game, because it doesn't have any physical boundaries. But when you when you need to grow, when you need to focus and take responsibility and take actions, you're a finite man that has only a certain amount of hours in the day, certain amount of energy to give. Guilt is not. Guilt is is an elusive, uh, it's an abstract idea, it's actually an illusion that can just keep building and building and building in your mind and in your body, but it's actually doesn't have it's not around you in your environment. It's all in the mind. And that's where all the pressure comes from. So, what do you need to accept here? You need to accept that you can't be everywhere all at once, that you can't do everything. And as a man, that might feel like weakness or failure, but it it's just it's just facts. It's just facts, okay? So it's not too hard to get around it. We can't be everywhere all at once. We can't clone ourselves, although many uh sci-fi movies have kind of you know have kind of focused on that idea, but we can't. And so we need to give ourselves permission. And so I'm gonna leave this one to Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln said you can fool some of the people all the time or all the people some of the time, but you can't fool all the people all the time. And why am I saying this? Because we can't we can keep some people happy all the time, we can keep all the people happy some of the time, but we can't keep all the people happy all the time. That's what I'm getting at. But our mind thinks it can do that. That's where guilt sets that expectation, and it's it's an impossible expectation. So instead of being extraordinary, an extraordinary man doing extraordinary things and doing extraordinarily well, it mightn't be perfect, but you're doing your best, you're focused on doing the impossible and setting impossible expectations, and then when you fall short, you get you you fall into that trap of guilt. And so then you play it small, you think yourself small. So if we flip this around and we can accept that I'm just here, I'm I can if I get back to the present moment, that's that's the only place I can be. And to get myself there, I need to release the guilt, release the shame, let it go. I know what my roles and responsibilities are, but I'm actually not my roles and responsibilities. I'm a human being behind this, and as a human being, I have a presence. So I need to be I need to bring my presence into the present moment, into the today, and focus on what I can do. Focus on what I can do today. Because that's the only way, that's the most proactive way to grow and to set about it. So I want you to use this episode now as a way, whatever you're thinking, you feel guilty of in fatherhood, as being a husband, as being a leader in your business. I want you to wipe the slate clean right now. I want you to let it go. I want you to let it go because it's done. And now ask yourself, get your energy back, focus on today, and say, what can I do as a husband, as a father, as a leader today to be even better, to give even more. And I'll I'll leave you with a short note. That guy in the workshop uh later on that evening, he actually went and he bought petrol for his lawnmower and he actually got the lawn mode and he sent me a picture that evening. But he didn't do it out of guilt, he did it because he released the guilt. He actually got his energy back to focus on what mattered most. So, wipe the slate clean and start today afresh. Thank you so much for listening today. I really enjoy sharing this wisdom because it doesn't come from me, it comes through me from the work I do with men like you that I serve. So if the idea shared today resonated, be sure to like and follow the show. And if another man would value it, share this episode with him. Because the more men who hear this, the more of us can break free from pressure and enjoy what we're building. So let's enjoy the build together. Thank you for listening. I'll see you next week.