EP113: When Your Life Looks Great on Paper (But Still Feels Like Sh*t)

You’ve got the job.

The house.

The friends who think you’ve got it all together.

On paper? You’re bloody nailing it.

But inside? You feel… flat. Disconnected. Like you’re living someone else’s life with your name on it.

This week, we’re talking about why that happens, and how to rewrite the invisible rulebook that’s running your life.

Because let’s be honest, half of us are still living by the values we inherited from other people (our parents, the ex, our boss, society) and wondering why it all feels off.

In this episode, I’ll walk you through:

 ✨ The difference between a life that looks good and one that feels good
✨ How your real values show up in your time, money, and energy (not your Pinterest board)
✨ Why “achievement” might actually be your secret craving for validation
✨ The 3 steps to updating your internal operating system so it matches who you’re becoming
✨ And what it really means when I say “every reinvention has a funeral”

If you’ve been feeling like you’re stuck in a life that looks picture-perfect but secretly feels like Groundhog Day, this one’s for you, love.

This episode will help you stop living by someone else’s code and start building a life that finally fits.

Because the goal isn’t to look successful. The goal is to feel at home in your own damn life.

Listen if: You’ve been wondering why everything looks fine but still doesn’t feel right, and you’re ready to find out what actually makes you feel alive again.

You’ll love this if you like: Real talk, a bit of swearing, and practical reinvention tips that don’t sound like a TED Talk.

🩷 Mentioned in this episode:

• “Every reinvention has a funeral, you have to let something go to grow.”
• Why “freedom” beats “validation” every time.
• The 3 questions that expose your real values.

Do let me know what you think, tag me over on Instagram @queenofreinvention

And do please rate and review the episode too. It helps like you wouldn’t believe!

Thank you, 

Sarah x

👑

🔥 DOWNLOAD FREEBIES TO FUEL YOUR REINVENTION

📲 FOLLOW on Instagram and Facebook

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Transcript

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Reinvention, values, identity, confidence, corporate values, integrity, excellence, collaboration, freedom, future self, value swap, energy hygiene, alignment, personal growth, authenticity.

SPEAKERS

Speaker, Sarah Elizabeth

Sarah Elizabeth  00:00

Hello. Hello, and welcome to the reinvention era podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Elizabeth, a reinvention crack dealer, if you like, and professional wake up call. I help women who are done living meh kind of lives, and together, we rebuild identity, confidence and your fire so you can stop apologising for wanting more and finally, live like you mean it. No bullshit, no fake positivity. Just over here we have the truth, which is a bit loud and sometimes a bit pink, because we love a bit of pink. So if that sounds like you, you're in the right place love. So you ever had, one of those moments where you kind of look at your life on paper and think, Well, technically, it's fine, but emotionally, you feel like someone else is living it, you know, like the LinkedIn version of you is absolutely thriving, but the actual you, the Real Life you you know, she's like somewhere between mildly numb and Googling if you can get a refund on adult words. Yes, that that's what happens when your life looks good but doesn't feel good, and that is what we're talking a bit about today, values, values for the way we live, because 

Sarah Elizabeth  01:49

so often we treat our own values like those corporate ones, you know, nice words we say, but we don't actually live, like got the laminated poster kind that they stick on the office walls. And you know, 

Sarah Elizabeth  02:06

the ones that scream integrity, excellence, collaboration in some bold blue font next to a stock photo of people high fiving or some shit. Because, let's be honest, what the hell does excellence even mean when half the team is a walking HR complaint and everyone's drowning in back to back meetings, about meetings, about meetings. Let's have a meeting so we can talk about that meeting. So remember, can talk about that meeting. Fuck off. You can slap the word excellence on a wall, but that does not make it true. 

Sarah Elizabeth  02:45

It's not excellent when you're working three times your contracted hours just to keep shit going. It's not excellent when the person preaching collaboration is the same one taking credit for everyone else's work, and it's definitely not excellent when your company's idea of integrity is quietly brushing bullshit out of the carpet because it's not a good look, right? Now, you know, you see, that's the thing about corporate values. They look good in the onboarding pack, but they fall apart in real life. Real excellence isn't a slogan. It's how you treat people, it's how you treat yourself. It's whether you own your mistakes, it's whether you can look yourself in the mirror after work and actually feel proud of what you've done, not just the hours you've sacrificed. So yeah, 

Sarah Elizabeth  03:49

I'm not talking about the PowerPoint version of values. I'm talking about the humankind, the ones that don't need to be printed out and laminated to actually exist. They're the quiet rules, if you like, that drive your decisions. They shape your identity and basically decide whether your life feels aligned or more like a constant performance review you didn't agree to fully attend because 

Sarah Elizabeth  04:20

we all say we know our values, right? We'll tick the boxes in a quiz online, or, you know, there'll be something on Instagram, or we'll list out a few wholesome ones, like honesty. That's the value of mine, family, compassion, you know. But honestly, while we're talking honesty, if I looked at your calendar, your bank statement, your energy levels, I'd probably get a far more accurate picture of your values, because you'll be. Behaviour is your real value system in action 

Sarah Elizabeth  05:06

if your calendar is packed with things you absolutely hate but suggest to out of guilt, or maybe your bank statement screaming, go big mechanisms and Amazon Prime might just be me. Your body, you know, can feel like you're sprinting through freak almost days. And if you feel like that, then you know, just saying your values might not be what you think they are, what you do is the truth. Everything else is just PR. And actually, most of us didn't really choose our values consciously. We absorbed them from parents, our mates, culture, school, religion, partners, society, we inherit shit like, oh,

06:13

be useful.

Sarah Elizabeth  06:16

Don't make people uncomfortable.

06:20

Success equals stability.

Sarah Elizabeth  06:24

Work hard, and maybe one day you'll be allowed to rest. So when we then hit our 40s or 50s and start asking, Why does none of this feel like me? It's not because we're lost, it's because we're still living by some hand me down code you're not broken. You're just running software that was written by someone else. You don't need fixing. We just need a bit of a system upgrades. It's like still using Windows 95 and wondering why nothing loads. You get me like, Do you know what? For years and years, I thought achievement was one of my core values, right? It made sort of sense. I'd always been ambitious, driven people, you know, all those bullshit words, you know, when I became a teenage Mum, I had to prove I was so much more capable than any stereotype. I couldn't just do a degree while I was being a mum as well as fostering kids, I had to go on and do a masters. And oh, I liked gold stars, you know, very pretty, and I was bloody good at earning them. But somewhere, somehow along the way, achievement, quietly, sort of shape shifted into validation. It wasn't even about the thing itself anymore. It was about proving something. So no idea, invisible panel of judges. Probably no, actually, that's a lie. I do know it was my dad, predominantly my dad, who had ridiculously high expectations of me,

08:17

because he thought

Sarah Elizabeth  08:20

for my intelligence, I could do more than I actually did. 

Sarah Elizabeth  08:23

Little known fact, I joined Mensa when my eldest was a baby, just to show my dad that just because I hadn't done things the hashtag right way round, I was still clever, right? And I told myself I valued growth, and I do value growth now. But then I told myself I valued growth, but what I actually valued was proving I was good enough. 

Sarah Elizabeth  08:55

Oh, let that land, proving I was good enough. That's not gross, that's not achievement, that's survival with fucking lipstick on. And that's the thing, when your worst gets tangled up with achievement, you stop asking what feels right and start chasing what looks right and what I've realised for me in this next chapter, the Reinvention era, building this business, creating this podcast, learning so much, designing a life that fits me is actually what I realise is what I really value, is freedom, freedom, freedom to work in the way that feels right for me. Freedom to say, Well, I actually think without editing myself or giving shit, what other people think, freedom to be do? How. Have things because they light me up, not because they'll impress anyone. And weirdly, when I've started living by that value instead of the borrowed one, I've become way more productive, more creative, ultimately, more at peace. Because when your values line up with your vision, you stop needing permission. And I can't tell you how amazing that piece feels. So how do you actually do this? How do you update your values operating system so it matches the woman you're becoming. Well is where it gets juicy, my love, because we're up levelling this week, my beauts. So

10:49

step one,

Sarah Elizabeth  10:51

audit your current values, the codes you live by right now, because values aren't found in vision boards or Pinterest quotes, they're hiding your habits love so ask yourself three brutally honest Questions, right? What does my time say I value? I What does my money say I value? What does my energy say I value? If your time goes to every other fucker, including the job. Your money goes on coping or emotional shopping anyone else, and your energy goes on keeping up appearances. You don't value peace or happiness or growth. You value approval, and that's okay. We've all been there. And as always, awareness is the first key unlocking your reinvention babes, you know, okay, then we now know where our current values are showing up. So step two, and you know, I love a bit of future self stuff. I want you to imagine your future self's day. This is where the gorgeous identity alchemy starts. Picture your future self, the one you're building towards, what gets her out of bed, what fills her calendar? What does she not do anymore? What does she say no to? Where are her boundaries? Because if she's calm, magnetic as but creative, financially free, then she future. You probably values, integrity, self, trust, abundance, spaciousness. She's not over committed or over explaining herself. She's deliberate. She's aligned every time you act in alignment with those future values, you're casting a vote for her. It's like a present, a future you gift wrapped. You're not waiting to become her. You're rehearsing her, practising her, which kind of brings me on step three, the value swap. 

Sarah Elizabeth  13:47

Every reinvention has a funeral, right? Every reinvention has a funeral, we have to let something go to grow. That's going to be a tagline there. We have to let something go to grow. I like that. You have to let an old value die away so a truer one, a more aligned one can breathe, can come alive, right?

14:24

So pick

Sarah Elizabeth  14:25

one outdated value you don't need anymore and swap it so it could be you replace productivity with presence, or you might swap perfection with progress, or it might be adios to approval and hola

14:50

to authenticity,

Sarah Elizabeth  14:55

or another one I need to practice what I preach, a move with trust. World over control, because when you can swap out the old shit, when you do that, your choices change, and then your identity shifts with that, and then we get to live it, because values aren't like I say words on a vision board, just like they don't work in the office space. They need to be lived and breathed. They're like micro moments, tiny, ordinary acts that you do, one after another, after another, after another, that eventually builds a new normal. And every day, you actually get hundreds, hundreds of windows to practice who you're becoming. You can't think your way into new values. You have to live them, you know. So how do we do that? Well, we take these micro moments over mantras. Now I'm the first for a quote and a mantra and a sign finding me out giving mixed messages. But as we now realise, your brain doesn't learn from what you say. It learns from what you repeat. Every time you pause before saying yes, every time you rest instead of pushing through, every time you speak up instead of staying quiet. That's your new code of conduct, embedding itself. So then, why not anchor each of these values with an action? So choose two or three of your future self values that you've picked out, and give each one a simple daily action, simple so say like me, it's freedom, right? So one simple daily action that you could take for freedom is deleting one air quotes should from your to do list something that doesn't light you up. Why are you doing it? Who for who says should? Where's it written? Is it law? No,

17:24

out, gone,

Sarah Elizabeth  17:27

or if it's connection that your future self values, something simple that you could do every day is call or message someone who energises you, who does light you up, or if it's happy, do one completely unnecessary fun thing. Because, you know, when do we have fun? Have fun play. And it doesn't matter what it is. It's not about the size of the action, it's the consistency that ultimately reprograms and reinvents you, though, do expect a bit of resistance as well, and I don't just mean from other people who might lose out from you changing. You know them, those people, you may well get some resistance from yourself and all, because the minute you start to live differently, your old self starts to panic, she'll be all like, Who do you think you are vesting when they're still washing to do? But that is just the old operating system screaming to be seen doesn't like change, and that discomfort isn't proof you're doing it wrong. It's just proof you're doing it differently. That's all and you know, once you've been living these micro moments, have a check in with yourself, bit like an embodiment check in. Ask yourself, How does this feel in my body? Because let me tell you, your body will tell you instantly whether something is in alignment with a value or whether it's betraying it, a feeling of

19:25

expansion

Sarah Elizabeth  19:28

equals alignment. If it all feels a bit tight and constructed, then it probably means something's off. Love. You know, values work isn't mindset. It's almost like energy hygiene. So let's go in a bit deeper still. Let's slow it down for a minute. Right if you're walking or driving, just listen, you know. But if you're at home, maybe grab your journal or something to note these down for later to go. In on right. So think about when we're thinking about energy and energy hygiene and embodying it. Think about a day when you felt most like you, not your most productive, not your most impressive, your most alive. Where were you? Who were you with? What were you doing? Because that that moment, that feeling that holds clues, because when we feel most ourselves, we're living our values without even trying. You know, there's a saying in business that success leaves clues, but actually that applies here too. It probably applies a lot of places so just have a think about that, and when you felt you're most alive, because that leaves you a clue. And now flip it Okay, think about a time you felt completely drained and resentful and invisible. What value were you betraying? Maybe you value honesty, but you kept the peace instead. Maybe you value creativity, but you've been stuck doing admin share. Maybe you value freedom, but you keep saying yes when you mean no, your body fucking knows it always, always does. So now imagine again your future self walking through her day right. Notice how she moves, what she says yes to, what she ignores, what matters to her. What does she no longer apologise for? And let one word come up for you one word rise up, just one and that that word is the energy that drives her. Maybe it's peace, maybe it's play, maybe it's power, whatever it is that's your anchor for this next era. Right somewhere, you'll see it every day, not as a reminder of who you're not yet, but of who you're already becoming. So when you have one of those hundreds of Windows, you've got the opportunity to embody it again, because you have to bring this baby home. You know, values aren't static. They evolve as you do. So as you're living them, they will grow. They will change as well. And the point isn't to get them right, it's just to make sure they're yours when your values match your vision your whole life starts to almost buzz at a different frequency, hum. Work feels different. Decisions get clearer. Relationships recalibrate. You stop chasing shiny shit that doesn't actually fucking matter, and start building a life that does so. If you take one thing from today, just let it be to stop building a life that looks good, and start building one that feels like you actually value it, because the goal isn't to look successful, the goal is To feel at home in your own goddamn life, because you deserve a life that doesn't just look like you've made it actually

Speaker 1  24:28

feels like you have preach sister. Oh, okay,

Sarah Elizabeth  24:37

if this landed for you, if you've got any value from it. Pun intended, but if you're realising maybe you've been living by some borrowed code of conduct, if you will, please, please, please share this episode with someone who needs that reminder. And all and tag me over on Instagram at Queen of reinvention and tell me the one value you're claiming for your next chapter, your next era, your reinvention era. So next time, just choose what you actually value, because alignment isn't found in a spreadsheet on an office wall. It's built moment by moment in how you live. Okay, that's all for me. I'm sending you so much love sound like a horse, then I will be back in your beaut. Badass earbuds again next Friday.

25:49

Bye.