Ep 32 Divine Worth Podcast: Dismantling the Achievement Mindset with guest Michelle Keil

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Welcome to the Divine Worth podcast, where we are letting go of our self doubt anxiety, fear, and limiting beliefs so that we can step into the divine roles that God has for us. I am your host life coach, Karen Papin, and together we are embracing our divine worth.

Karen Papin: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Divine Worth Podcast. Our guest today is Michelle Keil. She is a newly empty nesting wife and mom to six plus two kids, six whom they’ve raised, and two who have chosen to love her family through marriage.

She lives in Gilbert, Arizona and is a master certified life coach that works with women to jokingly hate themselves, Les, which means she helps them improve their physical and mental health in small, doable steps using emotion work, nervous system awareness. Action strategies and creativity and doodling to reach more peace with themselves.

So Michelle, thank you so much for being here today and coming on the podcast. Yeah, thank you for having me. I’m excited. I’m excited too. One of the things that you mentioned in your intake form for the podcast was that growing up you mentioned that infinite worth always felt like it applied to others, but not to you.

I would love to hear more about your story behind that and kind of how you really [00:01:00] came to understand that and see your own worth.

Michelle Keil: I think infinite worth growing up, I think it was a nice phrase, but for whatever reason I had always tied my worth with achievement and productivity and then of course in church culture in general, with being worthy, right, worth and worthy are so conflated. And so of course I couldn’t be of infinite worth if I was not worthy or if I wasn’t achieving or if I wasn’t always moving on to the next thing and improving and growing. And literally it’s only been in the past.

 probably five, maybe 10. That seems like a stretch years that I really have learned to embrace the fact that worth and worthiness are not intertwined, [00:02:00] worth, it cannot be changed. Worth is something that we’re born with. We can’t make it any greater. We can’t make it any less. Worthiness also.

Slightly in our control, but also not in our control because we have to rely on the savior for him to increase our worthiness as we move towards him. But learning that has made a huge difference. And of course brains have very strong neural pathways and so it still comes up, but I am more easily able to.

Recognize when I’m trying to earn my worth instead of just recognizing it for what it is, and allowing that to be and trusting that, you know, our heavenly parents and the Savior really are telling us the truth when they say that we are worthy, that we have divine worth [00:03:00] and that they love us no matter where we’re at.

Karen Papin: I love that. And I love how you kind of pointed out there’s, there is a difference between being of worth and then worthiness. I know that like the church’s emotional resilience class kind of breaks that down a little bit too in, in talking about like the difference between the two. If you don’t mind, I would like to kind of focus more on the thoughts around this and what specifically are some of those thoughts that are showing that we’re linking our our worth to our worthiness.

Michelle Keil: I think for me personally, it is when I see things that come up that are like, you know, well, I could have done that better.

 I could have done that differently, but meaning that my lack of ability somehow doesn’t allow me to ask the savior [00:04:00] or heavenly father for help. Like I didn’t give it. My All right. You know, misconstruing, we love to misconstrue scripture, right? That, you know, it’s by grace that we are saved after all that we can do.

And my brain is like, well, you, you didn’t do all that you could do. Like you, I mean, come on. You could do better than that. And, learning that, I think mostly recognizing that those thoughts. Come from the adversary and he’s like, no, if, if you see your worth and you see the power in asking your heavenly parents and your savior for help in doing these things, then you will be unstoppable.

But if I can keep that distance between you and them, then you won’t go anywhere. And you can be miserable just like I am. Like, thanks, thanks so much for that. But always [00:05:00] trying to earn approval, earn validation, earn you know, the external things even from the people around us, but then always feeling like you’re falling short, for heavenly father and for the savior, and just not being enough.

A good person which what even is that right?

Yeah, that’s a good

Karen Papin: point. What was like really the turning point for you in recognizing this?

Michelle Keil: I think there was a time when life was really crazy, and. It has been, you know, again, it’s like elder Bednar spoke about, and Elder Dushku gave another talk about it’s, it’s not necessarily a light switch moment, it’s more like a sunrise or [00:06:00] with elder doku, it’s like the rays of light, instead of a pillar, right?

Just collecting little rays. And, so I know that over the years I have. I’ve always known that my heavenly father is there and that my savior is there and that they love me. But, for whatever reason, a lot of different times that was questioned because I wasn’t doing enough for myself to deserve that love and that support.

But. We had, our son pass away when he was not quite two years old. And I can remember thinking, there were days, he was the fourth, our youngest at the time, and there were days that all I could do was get up and make breakfast for my other three kids before I needed to go lay down or just, I couldn’t, [00:07:00] I could barely do the things.

And I can remember feeling held literally by the savior and knowing that that was enough and that was okay. And even though I felt like, you know, maybe I was failing as a mom because I wasn’t doing all the things, that my brain was telling me I should be doing as a mom. Because brains are so good at that, it’s like, no, this is enough for you for today.

And, then progressing through that. Up until, probably like I said, five or 10 years ago. Realizing the expectations that I had been placing on myself, I was very unhappy. , I was doing all the things and I was very unhappy, and I was waiting for the people around me to make me happy. And shockingly that was not happening.

Number one, because they had [00:08:00] no idea that was their job. And number two, because. That’s just not possible. Right. And finally coming to a point that I realized if I wanted to feel differently, I needed to take some responsibility for that. And through different writers and different, speakers found.

Some tools that started me on the path towards coaching, but also, through different conference talks and scriptures, realizing that no heavenly father really does want us to be happy. And that is possible even when we’re going through difficult things. Maybe not happy in the world’s view of happy, but we can have joy and we can have peace and be content with where we are.

While still growing and moving forward,

Karen Papin: it sounds like it would be like a juxtaposition, right? [00:09:00] Yeah. And yet it, it works. Like we can still have those moments of joy even in those hard times. Yeah. And so thank you for sharing your story and your thoughts around that too.

Michelle Keil: Yeah, of course. I appreciate it.

Karen Papin: One of the things that kind of keeps coming up is this idea of enough, and I think sometimes we focus so much on you are enough, you, that kind of aspect. But what I’m hearing from you is it’s like, am I doing enough? Like it’s more the action behind it too. So what would you say to those who are really.

What? Yeah. Like what is the process that you go through to be able to pull yourself out of the, I gotta do this, I gotta do this, achieve, achieve, achieve. how do you kind of pull yourself out of that and just have that joy e in of the journey? Yeah.

Michelle Keil: I think it is starting just with curiosity.[00:10:00]

Like what, what is it about? What I have learned, what I have taken in, whether consciously or unconsciously, about what these achievements mean about me, and when did I start to figure that out? Why did I start to figure that out? Because, it’s so fun. We have, our first grandchild that was born about two and a half months ago.

Congratulations. And it’s so fun just to see her and just love her and she can’t do. Anything for herself. She doesn’t need to earn my love, she doesn’t need to earn her parents’ love. But at some point in our lives, you know, like I said, either intentionally or unintentionally, we learn that we need to earn that love and acceptance from other people and we stopped giving it to ourselves as [00:11:00] well.

 And so learning how to question when that happened or why that may have happened, and just being curious about what would happen if I just started to love and accept myself. Jokingly, we had a group call with some of my clients last week and we did. A doodle, entitled This Is Me. And we wrote down things that we like about ourselves or things that, you know, we can give ourselves credit for successes.

And then we wrote down things that we might like to change, things that we maybe don’t like about ourselves. and on both sides of that, writing the phrase I love and accept myself. And one of the ladies in the group, she’s like, you know, I was with you right up until you said to write down I love and accept myself.

And then I was like, wait, do I do, I mean like, I don’t hate myself, but do I love and accept myself where I’m at? And just getting curious about [00:12:00] that. Realizing, I can be excited about the accomplishments that I’ve done, but what happens? When I can no longer accomplish those same things, whether it’s, running a race at a certain time level, what happens if I can’t run that fast anymore?

Does that make me less worthy or less lovable? What happens if I can’t run it all? , is that diminish my worth? And just realizing that, that’s kind of a crazy thought. No, you know that we are human beings. That we are here to be and experience. And, as you know, other people have said, we’re not necessarily human doings.

We’re thinking that doing is what gets us there when we need to learn how to be with who we really are and who heavenly father and our savior can help us to develop into. [00:13:00]

Karen Papin: I think it’s interesting that like you have people who are, and sometimes it’s just you. Like you have different sides of you too.

Um, but there’s parts of you who’s like, go, go, go, go, go. I gotta achieve. I gotta achieve, I gotta achieve. And then there’s other parts of you or who are just like, no, I just can’t, you know? And so, and whether you’re going and you’re achieving, achieving or you’re like doing the opposite, it’s. You can experience joy in both and you can ex and not experience joy in both.

Yeah.

Michelle Keil: Yeah. And it’s so interesting, right? To notice those different parts of ourselves, and to be okay with both of those parts is the challenging thing. I think, of course, you know, we’re like what I’m doing and going and. Serving and loving and all of these results, that’s okay. But when I’m just burnt out and when I’m done and I [00:14:00] just need to sit or like somehow that part is not okay to be.

 And learning how to become okay with that part, allowing it to be there and being grateful for the part that it plays in our life, and learning. That part is just as important, if not more so than the going and doing.

Karen Papin: There’s a book called, let’s see if I can remember it. It’s the Relentless Pursuit,, of Hurry. Is that it?

Michelle Keil: Yeah, the,

Karen Papin: the,

Michelle Keil: , it’s

Karen Papin: elimination or, yeah.

Michelle Keil: I know, I know which book you’re talking about. I can see it on my bookshelf upstairs. Yeah. Yeah. I’m like, I wanna Google it now.

Karen Papin: I’ll,

Michelle Keil: I’ll put it in the show

Karen Papin: notes.

But, but it’s, written by a pastor in another church and he references multiple times where Christ just rested or he was not in a hurry. The [00:15:00] ruthless elimination of Hurry. Is that what it is? The ruthless elimination of hurry. That

Michelle Keil: is what it’s,

Karen Papin: yeah. Okay. Thanks. So anyways, but that’s what I thought was really interesting about the book was he actually uses examples of Christ life where he went off at.

There’s several times in the scriptures where he, it says he went off into a solitary place, to be alone and to recharge and recover. And then there was another one that really stood out to me where he is on the way to heal the daughter of Jarris. Mm-hmm. And he stops because the woman touches Yeah.

The hem of his garments and. And here it’s like my daughter’s dying. I mean, I just, I can only imagine what was going through Jar’s mind. Yeah. And yet Christ is like, no, I’m taking time and doing this. And, and so, anyways, it sounds like you’ve read that book, too.

Michelle Keil: Yes. I loved it. Yeah.

And I, I [00:16:00] think it’s great, you know, to see that multiple of his miracles were on the way to somewhere else. It is like, I wasn’t planning on doing this, but I can, and I will, even though I’m on my way here and you know, of course if you’re, if you’re Jairus and you’re like, but my daughter was dying. You know, and at the same time, if you’re the woman with the issue of blood, then how important do you feel that he, number one, knows that you’ve done what you’ve done and has no idea who you are, but is willing to take the time?

I think, you know, in our culture, in our society, [00:17:00] we are in such a hurry to do the things that we miss the journey. Sometimes we miss the little miracles that happen on the way.

Karen Papin: I love that. Yeah. Sometimes we’re so much in a hurry that we missed the journey of that. So now that we’ve been talking about that how do you think that really applies with this idea that we have to be enough or we have to do enough?

Michelle Keil: I think that starts very early in life. For whatever reason, but I honestly do believe that it is the adversary trying to keep us from, our heavenly parents and from our savior.

You know, the first thing that he says to Adam and Eve is, oh, you’re not enough. You’re naked. You better hide. And they’re like, oh, we didn’t even know we should be. Upset about that that’s a thing. I guess we better hide. [00:18:00] And Satan wants us to remain hidden from ourselves, because he can never have what we have and he can never become what we have the opportunity to be, to become.

And so he will do everything he can to have us question who we are and. If we question who we are, then we’ll question what we’re able to do or that we even should try to do those things.

Karen Papin: You mentioned earlier I. How another one of Satan’s tools is to use this, I need to achieve mindset to distance ourselves from God too.

Mm-hmm.

Karen Papin: So I, I like how you’re like pointing out these are tools. This is Satan trying to get you from, understanding yourself and connecting with yourself, connecting with God.

 How, yeah, how do [00:19:00] we pull ourselves out of that?

Michelle Keil: I think again, it every, I think everything works with curiosity, right? it is like we can go for the same things. We can go towards the same goals. It’s just interesting to stop and see what is the fuel behind it. Like, why am I doing this? Am I doing this because I

need to earn this worth, or I need to prove something to someone outside of myself or even to prove something to myself. is it from an area of lack that I am working towards these things or is it from an area of growth? Like no, I, I can be okay where I’m at and. I want to continue to grow. And in coaching we talk about the motivational triad, right?

And the three things that our [00:20:00] brain wants to do most is to seek pleasure, avoid pain, and do both of those with the least amount of effort possible. And I compare that to like the natural man, like the natural man wants those things. And at the same time, we have an eternal spirit that is divine. And that eternal spirit wants to do the exact opposite of those things.

It wants to learn how to embrace pain, physical and emotional because we’re taught in the scriptures that there’s opposition in all things. it wants to learn how to delay, pleasure to decide that we want something more important in the future than what we want right now. And to learn how to generate and utilize energy, like when we’re in our truest self, our divine self, and doing the things that God has gifted us and talented us with, that’s energizing.

 And we can feel [00:21:00] that and we can use that energy to develop and become more of who we are. And so those two things I think are always in competition with each other. Sometimes, you know, the natural man and our eternal self. But again, when we use scripture out of context, right, the natural man is an enemy to God.

We’re like, Ooh, that’s bad. I should get rid of that. But if we actually read the rest of the verse, the natural man is an enemy to God, unless. He yields to the enticing of the spirit. So we’re here to gain a body. Yes. And we’re here to learn how to use that body in a way that can move us towards our eternal goals, that can progress us forward.

Because for whatever reason, we couldn’t progress without this body and [00:22:00] learning how to develop and. Control is not, that’s a harsh word, but learning how to work with our body instead of against it or let it take over. That is our greatest area of growth and potential. So yeah, I think it’s just the fuel behind the achievement is it from an area of lack or from an area of excitement and desire, and.

Curiosity, like, oh, I wonder what would happen if I did this.

Karen Papin: I love that and thank you so much for pointing out the other half of that scripture because so much we focus in on that natural man and it’s like, okay, but natural man being an enemy to God. But it’s like, yeah, if you read the whole scripture, it’s like, I.

Anyways, I a awesome, I’m so glad that you brought that up., But uh, anyways, that’s a little off from what I did wanna focus. I know. [00:23:00] Is that it, I I love that distinction that you give, that it’s, are you coming from a place of lack or is. Or a place of that growth and that excitement that comes from setting goals.

Because yes, we’re talking about, the, I have to achieve mindset, but really it’s like, okay, stop thinking of it as something you have to do and pull yourself back. Is this a lack or is this that growth and excitement? It,

Michelle Keil: yeah. I think the thing that comes to mind when they changed the children and youth program, back in 2019 is when they were first rolling it out. And there was a fireside with Elder Gong, and I’ve gone back and I swear that he said words, but I haven’t found the exact words, so it could just be the spirit talking to me. But, he talked about how with this new program, it’s, it’s more. Challenging than having a written list, a checklist of things, that this is what you do [00:24:00] and then you’re, you know, you move to the next level.

But, how he viewed this as an opportunity for glorious failure, because he’s like, I’m gonna set a goal and this is what I think is the right goal, and I’m gonna do some things and it may not work out the way that I thought. So I’m going to adjust my goal, which could be seen as a failure, but it’s going to be a glorious failure.

As long as I keep incorporating our heavenly parents and what I should be doing and where I should be moving, then I can fail. But I’m not in the same place that I was. It’s a different place that heavenly Father can be like, okay, now you’re here. You can see this path that wasn’t available to you before you got to this point.

And so, I was the young woman’s president at the time, and I jokingly would refer to it, our presidency’s motto to the parents. I’m like, we hope that our [00:25:00] presidency is a glorious failure because we want the girls to know that we don’t know what this looks like. We’re trusting that Heavenly Father and the Savior will help us figure it out, and we’re gonna fail along the way, and that’s okay too.

I love that. That’s a great motto. Welcome to my glorious

Karen Papin: failure. That that is awesome. We were just having a conversation with our kids about. Pretty much about this yesterday. and it’s like, because it’s like my kids are still pretty young. My oldest is 11, my youngest is three. And it’s actually my two middle kids that were struggling with this yesterday were, they were trying to draw something and it just wasn’t turning out the way that they wanted to and getting really frustrated about it.

And, and so we had like a family discussion about failure and it’s like, you are going [00:26:00] to make mistakes. That is when you are learning something, you are gonna make mistakes. That is the learning process to make a mistake and then figure out how to fix it like that. That’s the learning process and to continue to try and, and otherwise it’s like, well, you’ve already learned it.

It’s not actually learning. It’s something you already know. So, yeah thank you. more things that I can add to are continue ’cause it is, it’s a continual discussion. Like kind of what you were talking about at the beginning with Elder Bednar sunrise and elder Dushku’s rays of light. It’s like we, this is something we learned line upon line.

Mm-hmm.

So now that you’re further along in, in your journey of this love and acceptance of yourself, how has embracing your divine worth allowed you to be a light to others?

Michelle Keil: I think that, for a lot of women in particular [00:27:00] that we. See we do comparing, right? Like, well, she’s further along than I am, or she’s in a better place than I am.

Or, or on the flip side, we can be like, woo, I’m better off than she is. And you know, whereas Heavenly Father, and we’ve been told this multiple times in recent conference addresses, you know that Heavenly Father and the Savior are happy to meet you where you are. But at the same time, they don’t want to leave you where you are.

And I think that as we learn that for ourselves and we can start to accept others in that same way, that they can start to see that for themselves. If other people are willing to accept me right where I am. If I don’t need to be somewhere different before this person will talk to me at church or you know, that person will acknowledge me in this other way.

if I’m okay with where I’m at, even if it’s not where I want to be, [00:28:00] I can help allow other people to be okay where they’re at. Even if they can’t do that for themselves right now, you are like you. You don’t need to change anything for me to love you. To accept you, to support you, to be your cheerleader, whatever.

I can hold belief for you until you can learn and grow and develop that belief in yourself.

Karen Papin: Love that. It’s like a ripple effect. Yeah. You love and accept yourself, which in turn helps you to better love and accept others and then they start to love and aside themselves, which then, you know. Yeah. That’s great.

Yeah. And, all right, so now for the questions I always ask,

 What is your favorite Divine worth scripture? I.

Michelle Keil: So this doesn’t, it may not seem like it’s a divine worth scripture, but it’s one that, has always felt that way for me, especially after the [00:29:00] loss of our son. And it’s John 1427 and it says, peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you, not as the world gives.

Do I give unto you. Do not let your hearts be troubled. Afraid. And, when I accept the savior’s peace that he is offering, it is not like the world’s peace. It doesn’t mean everything is great. It doesn’t mean that all the pieces are lined up and we have everything organized and categorized, and everything on our to-do list is checked off.

That’s the world’s piece. The Savior’s piece is very different where he can have you feel that piece in the mess in the middle. And when I don’t recognize his peace, that’s when I’m afraid. That’s when I’m troubled [00:30:00] because my brain is telling me I’m not measuring up. but he’s like, no, I can give you peace and you don’t have to be troubled.

You don’t have to be afraid. I’ve taken care of this for you and I can help you move through this. I will be there with you and. It’s because of who you are and because of who I am, that this is possible.

Karen Papin: That’s beautiful. I can totally see how it relates. So thank you for sharing that scripture. And what is one small and simple action that those listening can take to embrace their divine worth and potential?

Michelle Keil: I think we’ve touched on it a couple of times. My favorite thing is just being curious, you know, like. Just be curious and ask yourself, you know what, why do I not think that I have divine worth? Where? Where did that start? [00:31:00] Ask heavenly Father in prayer, what is my potential? What do you see possible for me?

And sometimes we’re afraid to ask because he will tell us. Then our brain will be like, well, I’m clearly not measuring up to that. But, the analogy that I heard just in sacrament meeting this week, like if you’re a baker and you’re making cookies, you put the cookies in the oven. You don’t pull them out after 30 seconds and go, well, clearly these are failures of cookies.

Like, no, heavenly Father is like, this is what your potential is. If you will allow me to bake you the proper amount of time at the proper temperature with the correct ingredients, this is what’s available for you. I have given you all of the ingredients and we are in the middle of this process. And so just being [00:32:00] curious about that potential and about that plan that he has for us.

And he does love agency. He values us and he wants to know what we want to create. He’s a creator. He can work with all kinds of things. On a different podcast, I heard someone said, heavenly father is the master of damage control. Like when we think that we’ve ruined everything, he’s like, no, I can. I can work with that.

It’s not too far gone. We can definitely make that happen still. And just being curious about why he would make that possible and how the savior’s atonement not only makes it possible, but probable that we can recover from anything that we think we’ve. It just messed up too much or gone too far.

Karen Papin: Well, I love the [00:33:00] analogy you shared.

I love what you’re sharing right now. And just how it’s like we just look at the resources that we have. We have Heavenly Father, we have the Savior, we have the Holy Ghost. Like we have them on our side, right? We have them on our side. And then also we have those divine traits within us. We just need to work on developing them, and so just apply it to ourselves. ’cause we can get curious, how can you do it, right?

Michelle Keil: Yeah. Right. And it, again, it’s that energy, right? There’s such a difference between, I wonder how this is possible. Then the question of why am I still screwing this up? Or why if I still not fix this?

You know, like, heaven father says it’s possible. I, I’m not seeing it right now, but I wonder how, I wonder how it’s possible. I’ll keep trying. You know, when I, when I look at it from that lens. Yeah.

Karen Papin: Thank you. How can those listening connect with you?

Michelle Keil: [00:34:00] You can go to my website, Michelle Keil Coaching.

Keil is KEIL so it’s a little different than it sounds, or more easily just on Instagram and Facebook just at Michelle Keil coaching. and yeah, I would love to continue discussing this is a great topic and I love you. Thank you so much for having me. Beautiful.

Karen Papin: Well, I’m glad you can make it.

This has been an awesome conversation, so thank you for being here. Yeah,

Michelle Keil: I have loved it. Thank you.

To learn more about your divine worth and potential, you can download some free scripture cards focused on your worth at https://karenpapin.com/scripturecards. You are of worth. You have a purpose. The Lord loves you and he believes in you and only you can make the impact on this world that you are meant to make.

Join me next time as we talk more about divine worth and potential.