Dear society, I’m fine, really. Redefining Success.
Day 3- Morning musings
If I were to base my success on the metrics I was taught as a kid, I wouldn’t be considered very successful at all. In fact, I might be considered a bit of a failure, and at times, I have felt like one. It is hard to hold your centre when your conditioning has told you otherwise and at times I still find myself using these same metrics to compare where I am with where I ‘should’ be. It’s hard not to.
As a millennial, I was brought up between worlds. I was born into a world without the internet, where you had to tape your favourite shows or films from the TV using a VCR. I have vivid memories of sitting next to the VCR player, eagerly waiting for the ads to start so that I could press stop on the recording. The pressure to hit stop at the exact moment was immense, and I remember not wanting to let my siblings down by allowing even one second of an ad on to our treasured films.
Life was slower and less complicated. My weekends were spent riding my bike to multiple friends' houses until I found someone who was home to play with, and a big treat was going to Blockbuster to rent a DVD when they were released.
Whilst life was slower and, dare I say it, much kinder on our nervous systems, we were handed down a set of guidelines for success that never quite sat well with me. We were taught from an early age that to be successful, you had to:
Have a university degree. (If you don’t, your life will be doomed, and you’ll work at McDonald’s forever. I didn’t get one, and seven businesses later, I am doing just fine.)
Get married and stay married. The measure of any happy relationship is how long you can stay in something you aren’t happy in. (I got divorced at 28, so didn’t quite hit this.)
Buy a house. Home ownership equals your worth. (I still don’t own a home.)
Have a baby, but not too late. (I am 36 and currently pregnant with my first child – geriatric AF.)
Work hard. Struggle is rewarded. (Work hard at things you love, but struggle doesn’t give you a badge of honour.)
Don’t take risks. (All I have ever done is take risks.)
These were the measures of success I remember being told as a kid. Not only from my parents but from teachers, TV series, and films. They all blasted the same message, and we were expected to follow. Then came the internet, and suddenly our very narrow perception of the world began to expand. Those measures of success began to widen, and as a result, many of us left these behind.
I knew from a very early age that most of these ‘success’ metrics did not align with me. I wanted to see the world. I wanted to travel, meet people, learn about different cultures, and have a positive impact on the places I went and the people I met. I wasn’t interested in cars or houses or material things, and I certainly had no desire to work in a career that didn’t align with me – I still don’t.
I am sure that throughout my life, at times I have been considered a bit of a disappointment by others, but by standing in my truth and staying in my lane, the one person I have never disappointed is myself.
When my friends were buying homes and settling down, despite the comparison or the feeling of lack, I stayed in my lane. When people were having children out of fear of ageing, I trusted that one day, when the time and person were right, it will happen for me. I have lived a very full life, and at 36, I am happy I did not subscribe to the ideas of ‘success’ that did not align with me.
Has it been hard? Hell yes.
Have I caved in at times and tried to be ‘successful’ based on the above? Yes, yes I have but I have always come back to my knowing that I get to define my version of success and that I won’t be happy living by somebody else’s definition.
The greatest gift I could ever give to my unborn child is to encourage them to create their own measures of what it means to live a successful life.
For me, a successful life is:
Doing what I love and finding a way for it to support me.
Living within my means – I don’t need to consume to be happy.
Filling my body with nourishing, delicious food and thoughts.
Having the ability to travel when I want – I don’t need permission.
Setting myself up so that I get to choose how I live each day.
Having time for the people and the things I love.
I might not own a home or a fancy car but what I do have aligns with what I deem to be successful. I know it’s hard not to compare, I really do. It’s so much easier to see what we lack instead of what we have. But what a gift we can give ourselves by asking, ‘What does success look like for me?’ You might be surprised to find that you’re comparing yourself to people or things that don’t actually align with you. When I’ve compared myself to people with fancy cars or big houses in the past, I quickly realised I don’t even want those things – so why am I wasting time belittling myself over something I don’t want?
What does success look like for you?
loved it! Bellissima newsletter Millee, so much pressure on our shoulders (as millennials, as women, as.. millennial women :P BOOOOOM )