I’m not very successful

Hey there, and Happy Sunday!

I’ve been working with a business/mindset coach for a few years now, and one of the mental blocks that she’s noticed will come up for me over and over again is the thought that, “I’m not very successful.”

It’s a weird block because it’s not something I think consciously out loud, but my coach can tell by the way I speak that it’s what I subconsciously believe. She finds it amusing because she could sit down and write a huge list of all the ways I’m already very successful but my brain doesn’t want to acknowledge them.

I had heard a few people talking about this book called “The Gap and the Gain” by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy and figured I should probably finally get to that.

And boy did it really have an impact on me. It’s one of those books I will likely come back to again and again.

I won’t spoil everything in it, but the main premise is that highly successful people tend to be unhappy, and the reason for this is because they measure their successes incorrectly.

Typically we will measure our success against The Gap between where we are now and where we’d like to be.

But happiness is created when we measure ourselves against The Gain between where we are now and where we once were. And the happiness we get from noticing our gains fuels us which leads to more and more gains. A beautiful cycle.

Anyway, I’ve been applying the principles from this book in my life and have noticed a massive spike in my contentedness. It’s been nice, and I’d highly recommend giving it a read if you also struggle with feeling successful.

We’re all extremely successful people, but only if you measure success in the right ways!

New from my studio

When I went skiing in Snowshoe, West Virginia a few weeks ago, there was this beautiful print of historic rosette paintings above the headboard in our bedroom. I took a really terrible photo to use as inspiration later—

I learned about these classic rosettes in a pattern design history course I took a couple of years ago. That class was amazing and I started identifying these historic styles everywhere, but I had never actually seen rosettes in the wild!

So of course that led to a full collection of rosette designs, a style I love because I get to turn my brain off and just focus on drawing random lines.

For most of these designs, I placed the rosettes close together to create a bit of a tiled look, and I love how they turned out! You can find the full collection on fabric, wallpaper, and home decor products here—

Thanks for reading, and if you’re not feeling too shy, will you reply to this email with one of your gains from the past few months? I’d love to celebrate you! 😊

Until next week,

~Rachel

P.S., if you enjoyed this email and know a friend who might be inspired by it too, please forward it along! And if you ARE that friend, subscribe here.​