After 10 Years of Redefining What Success Means to Me...
... I no longer feel compelled to pursue a version of success I never consented to.
Hi friend,
I’ve been starting so many different communications to you that my draft folder is overflowing with half-written articles… my next article in my “what’s going on in the world?” series, an article about how I’m struggling with growing through joy, and, and and…
Since I can’t seem to finish any of them right now, I’ve enlisted the support of my past self (who wrote a few articles I’m now sharing with you). With the help of these articles (and you!), I’d love to start a conversation about success.
What, to you, is success? How has your understanding of success shifted over time?I get the impression that we are in a period where we are redefining success (individually and, increasingly, also collectively). This process is in full swing and all of us are part of upgrading/creating the new definition of success.
In general, I believe that that process is gradually shifting us from an ego definition of success to a soul definition of success.
Ego success vs. soul success
The ego tends to measure success externally, especially through numbers or things. This, by the way, is true no matter how developed our ego is. Perhaps our ego isn’t interested in expensive cars, but it wants to have a big audience. That’s still measuring things in numbers (in this case, audience members).
(Just to be clear, the ego isn’t bad and we need it to function in the world. We don’t want to get rid of the ego, we just don’t want it to make the most important decisions for us.)
In contrast, the soul’s definition of success is more feeling-based. It’s the sense of being in harmony and on the right path. And, more than anything, the soul wants to grow (in wisdom, experience, compassion, etc.).
To give an example from my own life: In 2014, I (or rather, my ego) thought being successful means having an impressive job. Back then, I was a high-paid attorney who worked on multi-million and -billion dollar cases. My ego was happy. My soul, not so much.
<Cue existential crisis.>
Today, I would define success very, very differently. Currently, my main pain point in life is that I don’t feel like I’m fully expressing my soul’s calling. I’m not sure what that would feel like but I know I will recognize it when I get there (feeling-based definition of success).
How about you? How would your ego define success? How about your soul? Moving from an ego-based definition of success to a soul-based definition of success has taken a long time. To illustrate my own process around (re)defining success, I will first share excerpts from an article I wrote in 2016. This is followed by an article where I share lessons I learned from engaging in an (almost) year-long success magic ritual in 2020/2021.
What I find fascinating about this type of review of articles on the same topic from different years is that it shows a clear trajectory.
If you are a writer, I’d be curious what you find if you dig through your list of old articles.
What Almost All Success and Money Gurus Get Wrong (2016)
Throughout our lifetime, success has often been defined through numbers of zeroes or luxury goods. Six-figure, seven-figure, eight-figure incomes; private jets, yachts, and mansions.
These ways of defining success feel shallow and disconnected to me.
Apparently, many Americans (and presumably people in many other countries) share that sentiment.
In a 2014 survey conducted by IPSOS on behalf of Strayer University, 90 percent of the American participants believed that success is more about happiness than money, power and fame.
In this survey, success was mostly defined as “attaining personal goals” (67 percent), “good relationships” (66 percent) and “loving what you do for a living” (60 percent). The results of this study led the university to advocate for a change in Merriam-Webster’s definition of success.
Don’t measure abundance in zeros
Pablo Escobar, one of the world’s most infamous drug lords who once made the Forbes list of international billionaires for seven years in a row, allegedly said: “I’m not a rich man; I’m a poor man with a lot of money.”
While Escobar was likely just referring to his humble beginnings in this quote, I think it can also be read in another way: there’s a difference between someone who is truly rich, abundant, and successful… and someone whose wealth is based on zeros.
Personally, I think it's better to define success as a state or a feeling. Here's my proposed definition:
Success is the good feeling that you are on the right path in your life and moving forward at what is the right pace for you at this time.
Why do I think this is a better definition? Well, because it goes to the heart of why we want to be successful. We want to be successful to feel good. If you are not feeling happy about your achievements, what's the point?
I think one reason people often focus on numbers or things is because these are easily measured (like vanity metrics in marketing). You know if you own a yacht. It's a little harder to know if you feel like you're on the right path.
These things require introspection. Self-knowledge. Being honest with ourselves. In other words, the definition of success that I propose requires us to grow... and that's not always easy.
However, if you use the feeling of success as your yardstick, you're that much more likely to stay on track (as opposed to waking up one day and realizing that you hate your life).
The trend towards true success and abundance
What we are currently seeing in the world is a trend movement towards more authentic definitions of success and abundance.
True success comes from identifying what makes us happy... and then pursuing it with.
True abundance comes from realizing that we don't need to own everything to have what we want. Owning things we really care about or need is great. Everything else can become a burden, because we either have to take care of it ourselves or pay someone to take care of it.
The recent trends toward decluttering, tiny houses and minimalism is a testimony to that. Similarly, there are many exciting movements toward conscious business, a gift economy and shared resources.
If we have a definition of success and abundance that does not entail freedom and relationships, we will lose out on happiness.
Most of us who live in rich countries don’t need more stuff. We need more sustainable abundance.
Most of us who live in rich countries don’t need more luxury. We need more soulful luxury—a fair-trade hammock, a stroll on the beach, our loved ones and wholesome food.
We need more win-win-win situations: Win for us, win for those around us and win for the planet.
That, my friend, is what I believe success and abundance really looks like.
I further embraced and developed these initial ideas (from 2016) in subsequent years, most notably during the pandemic years. Here’s what I learned from this (I’m adding my current thoughts in brackets and italics):
True Success Whispers to Your Soul, It Doesn’t Shout to Your Ego (2021)
Over 10 months ago, I started a year-long magical ritual to find more true success.
One thing that is fascinating about longer-term rituals is that they allow for really deep change. If you meditate once, it will make your day better. But meditate each day for a year and it will make your life better.
You will become a different person. Your relationships will change. Your experience at work will change.
That’s what drew me to this ritual. I was curious what shifts could take place if I committed myself to something for a year.
[It’s also fascinating to see how this continues to reverberate. I probably wouldn’t be the person I am now if I hadn’t done this back then. This, by the way, is true for all experiences.]
With less than six weeks left before completing the full ritual, I spent some time recapitulating what I had learned and gotten from it so far.
Here are 3 crucial lessons I took away from it:
1. Success is not what we think it is
This is, perhaps, the most important point. Our culture is teaching us a very perverted image of success… we’re taught to think that success is about dating a hot person, or having a huge net worth, or having a gazillion social media followers.
In reality, none of that matters unless other factors are in place. Dating a hot person is great only if they’re also pretty on the inside and a good fit for who you are.
Having a huge net worth is great only if you have found a way to be a responsible steward of it and use it to make your life and the life of others better.
And, well, having a gazillion of social media followers generally only makes sense if you spend time on social media (or pay someone to do it for you which makes the thing even more meaningless) which, according to research, will make you more miserable.
So, it’s probably fair to say that our culture’s definition of success is… not very helpful. That’s probably why my definition of success gradually shifted while I went through the ritual.
Before, I knew (theoretically) that there was a difference between something that looked like success and real, felt success.
I knew (theoretically) that success could look really humble.
I knew (theoretically) that how something feels internally is more important than how it looks like externally.
But I didn’t fully believe it. The cultural conditioning was too strong. Spending almost a year on a ritual helped me overcome most (not all) of it.
[It’s fascinating to see how I already believed in 2016 that we needed to measure success differently. However, I couldn’t fully embrace it back then.
And if I look back to 2020/2021 from today’s perspective, I can see how much I have continued to grow since then. This is the most relaxed I have ever been about matters of success. Fascinating, how much time it can take to unravel conditioning.]
As a result, I’m now free from the lies society tells us about success and can instead choose my own definition. And defining what success means to you is arguably the most important part of living a successful life.
[I like this: “defining what success means to you is arguably the most important part of living a successful life.”']
2. It’s easy to overlook true success
Related to the first point, I also realized how easy it is to overlook true success.
After reviewing the experiences I have had over the year of doing this ritual, I realized how much had shifted for the better. My relationship is more balanced, I am more independent and stronger in myself, I am once again doing things that I loved to do as a child, and and and.
My entire list of positive things included about a dozen points, each more meaningful to me than the next. Each made my life a lot better. Each contributed to my sense of flourishing.
But you know what? Before compiling that list, I was doubting that something had even happened. I had made the mistake of thinking that success entailed something external and flashy, such as, I don’t know, a Lamborghini? (I don’t even like Lamborghinis.)
Success had to be impressive.
And according to the twisted values and beliefs of our culture, finding balance, inner strength, or a sense of childhood joy isn’t impressive… unless you discover it while talking to Oprah.
We also think that success has to be obvious.
But feeling more aligned and fulfilled isn’t necessarily very obvious. Perhaps that’s because true success feels very natural to us… and we’re not great at registering things that feel natural.
To live a life of success, we need to be able to recognize true success… even if it’s not flashy, impressive, or obvious.
3. Make success about your efforts, not your outcomes
Throughout the last year, I realized that the easiest way to make myself feel like a failure was to tie my self-worth to outcome instead of process goals.
Outcome goals are about things you can’t fully control, such as “I’m going to get X amount of views.” In contrast, process goals are: “I’m going to write 10 articles each month.”
As a coach, I should have known that tying self-worth to outcome goals was a bad idea… and I did know that. I just wasn’t applying that knowledge to myself.
When I finally decided to give myself more appreciation for my efforts (regardless of their outcome), it immediately made me feel better about myself. Suddenly, my sense of success was only dependent on my actions, not on random chance.
Ironically, by feeling better about my efforts regardless of their outcome, I was free to try harder… which led to more positive outcomes.
What I learned from my long ritual is that due to cultural conditioning, my concept of success needed a lot of un-learning.
Unless you’ve either lived in a cave for almost all your life and/or are Buddha, this is probably also the case for you. Most of what we have been (directly or indirectly) taught about success is wrong.
Or, at the very least, it’s superficial. It’s a sign pointing in a direction that won’t bring you happiness.
If something doesn’t feel good to you on some level, it’s not success. It’s your idea of success. And those are two very different things.
By letting go of false ideas of success, I freed myself from that. I no longer felt compelled to pursue a version of success I had never consented to.
[Can I just say that I love that sentence: “I no longer feel compelled to pursue a version of success I have never consented to.” I don’t even recall writing it but man, I want to get that as a bumper sticker!]
True success whispers to our soul, it doesn’t shout to our ego.
[Oh, back then I already saw that there was a difference between ego success and soul success.]
Alright, we’ve made it to the end of my 10-year review! Thanks for sticking around. One last question (okay, two):
How have your thoughts about success changed in the last decade? How would you like them to change in the next decade? Warmly,
Louise
I liked this read Louise. And I'm with you, definitely on the soul-based definition of succes.
What I do believe is that everybody first has to go through the ego defining succes phase before striving and reaching the soul defining succes - especially in the Western countries. Hit the low first (aka having the money and the status job but realising you feel like absolute shit) to get to the high and start the transformation journey.
Louise, I really can't identify with "rich" people at all anyway. I don't want a yacht. I don't want a mansion. I don't want a Rolex or a Mercedes-Benz. I might be self-sabotaging myself a little bit because I see being rich as this inherently questionable thing that I don't want. After what I've seen living in developing countries, I don't want any parts of being rich.