Define Success on Your Own Terms

These past few weeks I’ve been working on my new book, Flourish, and a theme I see coming through the pages again and again, is how, when we want to live a creative life, it is so helpful to spend time listening to ourselves and getting clear on our own values – what is really, truly important to us and not just what the world says is valuable.

When we don’t take the time to really listen to our heart, it’s so easy to be swept along with whatever our culture says is worthy of our time, focus, attention, money and efforts. But if those priorities don’t line up with our deeper personal values, we can arrive at the world’s definition of success, and discover it really isn’t as fulfilling or nourishing as we’d hoped.

I’ve seen that play out in my own family, where my parents worked hard to achieve a picture of success we often see painted by our culture, with the massive house, fancy cars, boats, motorbike, motor home, material possessions and world travel. Yet, soon after our family fell apart.

It ended up being one of the biggest blessings I see in my life, as I look back now, because from a young age I decided chasing money and prestige wasn’t how I was going to live my life or spend my time.

I love money and am happy to receive it into my life, but it is a slight shift of focus from chasing it because I believe it will define me, make me feel successful, safe or secure, or believing it will give my life meaning and a sense of fulfilment, to knowing it is a tool to express my self and my creativity, an exchange of energy which provides the possibility of being of greater service in the world, and focusing on living in line with my values now instead of when money will suddenly solve all my problems (I know it doesn’t and can’t).

• We can put off our creativity until we have more money, but we don’t need to.

• We can put off spending time with family until we have more of a buffer, but it isn’t a prerequisite.

• We can put off allowing ourselves to feel successful until we have more equity or assets, but we can also choose an alternative.

Maybe success means creating a location independent business, or making money doing something you enjoy, or making an impact and working with people who light you up, or simply allowing yourself permission to follow your heart and focus on creative projects that are meaningful for you.

We can define success on our own terms and feel successful now, by acting in line with our values. 

In fact, the more you allow yourself to feel successful, the more inspired you will be to take actions in your business and life which allow money and wealth to flow back to you.

Defining success for yourself is one of the keys to living a heart-centred, creative life and creating a business you love. Because when you are clear on what is truly important to you, you often find you can feel successful right now, in this moment, instead of delaying your ‘success’ until a distant future when you have achieved x,y, z.

For me, for example, I notice I feel successful when I can go to sleep knowing I have prioritised the things that are most important to me; I’ve worked on my creative projects, connected with my family and friends, been supportive and of service where I choose to be, and taken care of my physical, emotional and spiritual needs.

Know your unique values (they are your personal compass pointing you towards a life that’s true to you). 

My values include creativity, intimacy and integrity and I feel content when I’m actively making choices that are in alignment with them. I also know I need to make space for my values in my days (it’s not much good having values but not prioritising or acting on them, that’s a sure way to feel disconnected and lack lustre about life).

For me, I like to check in with myself and ask “Am I proud of the work I am doing and is it meaningful for me? Am I making enough money to support my creative projects and our lifestyle, while putting money away for the future too? Am I showing up as my whole self in my relationships and am I operating from a place of integrity?”

The lovely thing about that is, I don’t have to be making millions of dollars, buying the next best gadget, or getting distracted by the clamour of noise that tries to attract our attention. Instead, I am defining success on my own terms.

You may long to create a lifestyle business, and by that I mean a business where you aren’t setting out to build a massive empire, but instead are excited about living your version of success right now with a level of income that supports that. You have full permission to do what is in your heart and not define success by our culture or even what we see modelled to us in the online world.

It can be so easy to be swept along by comparisionitis and feel like your dreams are not big enough, or worry whether you are holding yourself back by keeping your business at a manageable size, doing work that lights you up and choosing to leave time for connection with family, friends and things that are important to you.

But we get to call the shots in our business and creative lives.

We can discern where we put our focus and spend our energy, attention and resources. And we can choose to define success on our own terms.

I encourage you to spend a little time listening to yourself and getting clear on what is most important to you during this season of your life and work.

Our values can shift over time and spending time to reconnect with what is calling to you right now might help you navigate through the myriad of decisions we face each day, and provide you with the confidence and clarity to go full steam ahead for what is most meaningful to you.

I’m so grateful for you. Wishing you a wonderful, creative week.

Be kind to yourself.

~ Nicola xx

PS. We are getting sooooo close to releasing my new book Flourish. Recently it’s felt like a long process but I’ve got my hubby’s and mastermind buddies’ support as beta readers now, so the finish line and the release date are fast approaching!!!

I can’t WAIT to share it with you. xx 

If you enjoyed this Post then click here to read : Freedom, is it something you crave too?