126: What sets us apart from achieving success?126: What sets us apart from achieving success?
You're Sober! Now What?
Tamar Medford reflects on how belief, childhood messages, spiritual growth and support have influenced her long-term sobriety and sense of success. She talks about shifting limiting beliefs, avoiding complacency and finding purpose in recovery.
21:19•19 Aug 2021
Belief, Sobriety and Success: Why Some Keep Growing and Others Stay Stuck
Episode Overview
- Success in sobriety and life is closely tied to believing in your ability to reach your goals.
- Childhood comments and expectations can quietly create limiting beliefs that follow you into adulthood.
- Writing out your life story can reveal how unmanageable things became and spark a shift in belief about alcohol.
- Asking for help, building a spiritual practice and processing emotions are key habits for long-term recovery.
- Helping others and reconnecting with purpose can pull you out of complacency and bring new energy to sober living.
“Two people can be on exactly the same path, they could have exactly the same goal, they could take exactly the same steps. But the person that believes in their ability to achieve that goal is the one that's going to make it.”
Curious about how others navigate their sobriety journey? This episode of "You're Sober! Now What?" zooms in on one big factor Tamar Medford believes separates people who stay stuck from those who build lasting success in recovery, business, and life: belief. Speaking directly from her own experience, Tamar shares how writing out her life story exposed just how chaotic and unmanageable things had become.
That exercise became the starting point for shifting her belief from "I don't really have a problem" to "If I take another drink, my life will fall apart again." As she puts it, "two people can be on exactly the same path, they could have exactly the same goal, they could take exactly the same steps.
But the person that believes in their ability to achieve that goal is the one that's going to make it." You'll hear Tamar unpack how childhood messages like "we're not very good at math" or "we'll always have big hips" quietly shaped her self-esteem and fed limiting beliefs around intelligence, confidence, and body image. She connects these patterns to codependency, depression, and using alcohol and drugs as a shortcut to feeling confident and loved.
The episode also walks through the practical tools that helped her build a different kind of success in long-term sobriety: becoming willing to ask for help, developing a spiritual life through prayer and meditation, learning to process emotions instead of suppressing them, and getting out of self by helping others. Later in recovery, she describes feeling complacent and stagnant, and how reconnecting with her purpose, learning new skills, and taking personal development seriously reignited her passion.
If you're wondering why success in sobriety feels out of reach, this honest conversation might nudge you to look at your own beliefs, your daily habits, and your support network. What could shift in your recovery if you changed what you believe about yourself?
Do you want to link to this podcast?
Get the buttons here!
More From This Show
The latest episodes from the same podcast.