Success

I’ve been pondering the idea of ‘success’.

1. What is it?
2. What does it mean when we do or don’t achieve it?
3. How does our perception of it change, as we change?

Beginning with that last question, ‘How does our perception of success change, as we change?’ My personal reflection is: ‘a lot’.

Not an erudite response but gut-felt.

When I consider what I used to consider being successful meant, and how I look at what I consider to be success today… there are marked distinctions. Though, I expect that if I’d drilled in when I was younger, the things I feel are most important now would still have been there, at the centre of things:

• Connection with others.
• Self-worth.
• Good communication.
• A willingness to deal with difficult things face on.
• Compassion for myself… and others.

These are all things that it would be hard for anyone to deny are important success factors in any life.

And yet, we often devalue them in favour of other stuff.

Often in favour of the trappings of material things or other kinds of external achievements — in the hope that these physical or hierarchical rewards will in some way demonstrate to others, and to ourselves, that we have made it.

We are enough.

There's a?handbag I have.

It’s a Mulberry bag.

A gift from Anton (my husband) a few years ago, when I was still wanting to carry things like that on my commute into the city.

It’s such a beautiful thing. Perfectly made. Soft stitched leather — an odd thing for a vegetarian of 30-years to own, perhaps.

At the time, I really wanted that bag. Or rather, I wanted the idea of that bag. It seemed to represent something to me, or perhaps a few things:

• I deserved it for all the hours I worked
• It was a marker of my personal success
• It showed others I was one of them

Just a few short months later I came down with pneumonia (again), had a health crash and, well, lots of things changed.

And with those changes, came the realisation that I don’t really like the bag.

Or rather, that the bag doesn’t represent any of the things I’m looking for in my life today.

It’s still a beautiful thing. And I’m holding onto it for three reasons

1. Because Anton gave it to me as an act of love — and it was immensely special at that time
2. Because for now it still serves as a useful reminder that stuff we own doesn’t change anything — it’s the stories we imbue in it, and how we feel about it that makes the difference
3. And three, because it will become a classic and one day I’ll hand it on to one of the wonderful young women in my life. I’m hoping they’ll love it because it came from their aunt — rather than all the things it represented initially for me.

As you look back across the years, are there things that you now recognise you had considered to be a marker of success that now hold less or little meaning for you?

I think it’s a curious thing to ask ourselves. Maybe a useful journaling prompt?

So, onto question 2 (working backwards!)

• What does it mean when we do or don’t achieve success?

I think this ties into where our ideas of what constitutes success come from.

All the usual suspects turn up — society, family, culture, media etc etc. Sometimes they’re overt, but I suspect that more often it’s covert… hidden messaging wrapped inside the stories we absorb when we’re young. In a desire to be considered ‘good’ children, good students, good workers, good people, we place a range of success measures around ourselves — and then feel shame or unworthiness if we fail.

One online UK stress survey found that 60% of young people aged 18–24 have felt so stressed by pressure to succeed they have felt unable to cope.

Because, of course, when we do achieve success we can become so bound up within it that we can’t cope if we don’t keep achieving and succeeding to those same high levels.

And if we don’t feel we have succeeded it can lead to anxiety, depression, fear of not being good enough, eating disorders, insomnia and worse.

So how do we create a healthy?balance?

I’m curious about this because I sometimes find my old success factors come creeping in — making me question choices I have made in my own life. I see these moments as immensely helpful (eventually!) as they give me a chance to re-establish those choices — and it’s often useful to have a self-review, to remind us of what we’re doing and why we’re doing it. But it doesn’t feel so helpful when that review comes from a place of self-doubt.

Social media of course is a key lever in this.

It’s not just adolescents who feel the impact of all that comparison with others.

And I doubt there are many — if any — who’ve ever used a social media channel (like this one), without unfavourably comparing themselves with someone else. Whether that's someone they know well or a complete stranger.

And the story within that is ‘they’re more successful at x, than me’. Though, maybe, if we really examine it, that story boils down to ‘they’re more successful at life than me’.

So partly the answer to all this comes from greater self-awareness, oh, and a healthy dose of self-compassion too.

Honestly — these seem to be the answer to most things!

When we are aware of the success criteria we’re laying onto our own lives, then we can begin to determine:

• Are they unrealistic?
• Have they been / are they being imposed by others — consciously or sub-consciously?
• What do I feel TRUE success looks like?

And that brings us to question 1 — What is success?

There are so many definitions when you google it that I lost the will to trawl through them all and find the one I liked the most.

Essentially I think it’s something we each define for ourselves.

Apparently Einstein once said:

‘Failure is success in progress’

I love that. I think it can help cut through imposter complex, which brings procrastination and perfectionism with it. Two factors that can play an enormous role in whether or not we consider ourselves or our actions a success.

I also love Mark Twain’s take on it:

‘To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence’.

This sense that really success is something that comes from a gut belief in what we’re doing, that deep inner knowing that it feels right. And it’s really this that drives our best outcomes.

So, my sense is that being aware of where our drivers for success are coming from is the vital aspect of all?this.

Is it coming from an over-active head?

From stories we’re inherited, adopted or been conditioned to believe about what success looks like — perhaps comparing ourselves against a standard we fear we can never quite meet.

Is it coming from a wounded heart?

From being overwhelmed with a feeling that if we don’t get this right (whatever ‘this’ is), we are a failure in some way — we may be rejected by others, and no longer be seen to belong.

Is it coming from a wise inner voice — deep in the belly, the ‘hara*’?

From listening deeply to what we know is the truest truth, where we’re willing to risk the comparison and the rejection to achieve what feels like our own definition of success.

Of course there are caveats to this.

When we make changes in our lives it can be wise to go gently… feeling our way as we heal our wounded heart and calm the overactive mind, so we can learn to listen clearly to that wise inner guidance we all possess.

And, my own observation is that, so often, when we act from that place of deep inner connection and wisdom, others respond in ways that we might not expect.

Our assumptions that we’ll be rejected by those we love or be ridiculed in comparison with others fail to happen, and actually we’re acknowledged for being simply more our Selves.

Perhaps that’s what success truly is?

Being your Self.

*The hara encompasses, in yogic terms, the root, and the sacral chakra — the ancient and most primitive core of our psyche. At a deeper level the word hara means one’s true nature; who one truly is as a human being.