I’ve been thinking a lot about success lately – what it means, how I define it, and how that definition has changed over the years. As many of you know, I’ve been on a journey over the last couple of years of pulling back – sort of hitting the reset button of my life and figuring out what makes me happy. I’ve spent the majority of that time lying on the couch while my body heals from severe adrenal fatigue, and so I’ve had a ton of time to sift and sort what feels good and what doesn’t.

When my entrepreneurial adventure began in 2005, I didn’t have lofty dreams or a clear vision of success. I didn’t really have a plan at all, to be completely honest. I had been in a car accident a couple of years prior and could no longer work at my job as a technical editor, so I took some time to heal and figure out what I wanted to do with my life. What I knew for sure is that I loved my sweetie, Dan. And I knew that it broke both of our hearts when he would leave each day to go to work, so my only plan in starting our business was that we would get to be together all of the time. That was all.

We took the leap and made our brand-new business our sole source of income. I started designing products and we sold them at craft shows and to wholesale accounts. The first few years were really, really, really hard. We lost money. We worked around the clock. We had no business plan or goals and no experience in how to run a business; we were just winging it and praying that it would take off. We are both very hard-working and driven people, and we were also passionate about never having to leave each other again to go work for someone else. So we didn’t have a Plan B. We kept trying out different things and testing out different products and working harder and harder until something worked. We were successful in being home together, but we weren’t able to enjoy it because we were so tired and worn out and in over our heads.

In 2011, we decided to take things a bit more seriously. We knew that we needed support, and so we signed up for a year-long marketing program. During this time, we learned what “success” looks like for self-help authors, which is what we had evolved into by then. We created our Soulful Journals series, which was starting to sell really well… so we ran with it. We were so happy to be writing and selling our books, and we learned in this program that to be successful, we would need to put ourselves into the spotlight more and more.

This scared me because I’ve always been shy and had a strong aversion to being so visible, but I decided to give it a go, push past my natural inclination, and see what happened. I became a sponge and soaked up all of the marketing strategies that I could and tried many of them on for size. I started a blog and wrote post upon post and newsletter upon newsletter. I became a soulful life/business coach and welcomed hundreds of clients into my community. I collaborated with others for joint ventures and partnerships. I became a featured columnist on a popular spiritual website. I grew my list of subscribers and expanded my social-media community. I said yes to many telesummit and radio interviews. In fact, I said yes to just about every opportunity that came my way. I thought that I had to – that in order to be successful, I had to show up in this public of a way and push myself this hard in order to get to the “top.”

In a lot of ways, I was on the rise of reaching this definition of success that I was striving for. If I looked at just the numbers, I could see that all of the strategies were working. I went from complete obscurity to having a top blog in my field, a growing community of people that I seemed to be helping in some way, and a good income. But when I slowed down for long enough, I quickly realized that I just wasn’t happy. I was exhausted, depleted, and living in a way that just wasn’t who I truly was. And that didn’t feel good at all.

So two years ago, I pulled back and went into a year of silence to get myself back to center again and to figure out what success looked like to me – even if it went against the way I was “supposed to do things.”

I felt on a deep level that true success wouldn’t make me feel like I had gone missing. It wouldn’t bring exhaustion or resentment. True success would feel good and would bring me joy. That’s the kind of success I wanted to bring into my life.

To do this, I began resetting my priorities and eliminated as many outside influences in order to find balance again. I stopped doing coaching calls, group sessions, interviews, and joint ventures. I stopped writing my column and drastically scaled back my blog posts and newsletters. I began pulling back from everything that wasn’t absolutely essential in order to find myself again – somewhere in the midst of all of the pushing and “shoulding” and “doing.” And for the first time in a long time, I had the time and space needed to get in touch with my soul and determine what would feel good moving forward.

Now that I’ve been basically silent for two years and am feeling like myself again, I wanted to share that I have found my own definition of success. I’ve been able to step away from everyone else’s version that I was trying on for size and get to the heart of what lights me up and brings me joy.

For me, success is about: 

• whether or not I feel good and am happy and relaxed

• whether I feel free and am showing up authentically for myself and also in the world

• checking in with myself before I say yes

• being okay with saying no

• learning that not everyone is going to love me (or even like me) and that this is okay

• setting boundaries and limits with myself and also with others

• being much kinder to myself and no longer being okay with driving myself to the limit and beyond

• having hours each day to connect with Dan – to spend time together in the sunroom each morning and sip on our hot lemon drinks while we chat about our dreams from the night before; to go to the beach each nice day, set up our chairs, and lie back and breathe in the ocean air and then walk barefoot on the shore while searching for seashells; to lie down for a nap together each afternoon and reconnect about how our day is going so far, while petting the cats who have also come up onto the bed; to eat dinner together and go into our backyard to throw a few horseshoes and listen to the ocean’s waves; to sit by our campfire and simply be in the moment

• spacing out and not scheduling in every second

• making my own life a higher priority than my work life

• making time to explore this beautiful coastal area that we’ve moved to

• creating when I feel inspired to create and resting when my body asks me to rest

• allowing, surrendering, and breathing

• having lots and lots of time to be silent and still

• being offline after dinner and on weekends

• looking around at this life that we’ve created and feeling so, so blessed and appreciative

• laughing and feeling joy and being silly and sliding down sand dunes and dancing and enjoying making new recipes and doing all of the things that I never made the time to do before because I was always working and pushing so hard

• enjoying meaningful relationships where I feel unconditionally loved and supported and where we give each other a safe space to land

• living spack dab in the middle of my love bubble where everyone inside of it brings me joy

• writing from my heart and sharing from my soul

• showing up for myself and for my life

• giving from my overflow

• enjoying this moment rather than asking what’s next

This is my version of success.

When I die, I want to look back at a lifetime of wonderful memories – not a lifetime of numbers and awards that let me know that I was successful. I don’t want anyone or anything outside of myself to determine whether I was successful or not. I want to decide that for myself.

I want to smile because I feel fulfilled, at peace, and whole. And I’m so happy that I’m figuring this out now while I’m still young enough to embrace this life.

Does this mean that I no longer have goals and dreams to fulfill? Of course not! It just means that the way that I’m going about fulfilling them has changed. Instead of paddling upstream and fighting my way against the current and doing what I think I’m supposed to do in order to achieve the success that I thought I was supposed to achieve, I’m simply allowing my life to flow – to do what feels good when it feels good and to stop doing what doesn’t. And while this is still a process for me and I’m still stepping into this life more fully, I love knowing that I’m moving toward it more and more each day. That is truly exciting.

When I was pushing and striving, I didn’t think that I had a choice. I lived with such fear and tightness and just wanted to keep up and do well and succeed.

What I’ve found, though, is that by slowing down and taking care of myself, everything else just seems to fall into place naturally. Everything and everyone that is meant to be on the journey with me has stayed (thank you!), and everything and everyone whose energy no longer aligns with me is moving on (which is okay, too). Creative projects now have room to be developed and nurtured because there is space for them to do so. My body is now able to heal because I am giving it the time it needs to do so. My vibration has been raised because I’m much happier, which allows so much goodness to flow into my life and out of my heart.

If you’re currently on the treadmill that I was on and think you can’t get off or even slow down, I know how scary that can feel. Really, I do. If you’re open to it, I would ask for you to give yourself permission to question that assumption – even just a little bit. My life didn’t change overnight, and most likely yours won’t either. But if we change our direction and beliefs even just a tiny degree or stop doing one thing that doesn’t feel right or start taking care of ourselves in a small way, we will begin to attract more things that are in alignment with these new choices…and things will continue to flow in positive ways from there.

We all get to create our own definition of success. Let’s be proactive about it and not settle for someone else’s version. In discovering what success means to me, I’m happier than I’ve been in many, many years. And that’s what I wish for all of us.

If you would like to share your own definition of success, please feel free to leave a comment below. 🙂

Hugs,

P.S. – I have 2 exciting announcements about our 365 Book Series:

1. We’ll be opening up registration in a few weeks for contributing authors in our 3rd book in the bestselling 365 Book Series! This book is called 365 Life Shifts: Pivotal Moments that Changed Everything. Click here to learn more about the book & sign up for the waiting list: http://www.365lifeshifts.com/ (Everyone on the waiting list will receive an early registration discount!)

 

2. Be sure to mark your calendars for June 21st, which is when our 365 Moments of Grace book will be released into the world! For now, you can sign up here to be notified about its release (and you’ll also receive a free guided meditation): http://www.365momentsofgrace.com/