How to Redefine Success
It starts with the most important person
That person is you.
“I never do any work on a Sunday, unless there is a crisis. Saturday and Sunday are days for restocking my brain, and if I find I don’t do that. . . I get tired. I like having Saturday and Sunday as a punctuation mark at the end of the week.”
-Joanna Coles
It’s really incredible that for the most evolved species on the planet, we human beings also tend to fritter away time and energy as if we had an inexhaustible supply of the same.
More importantly, we gauge our ‘success’ by the most obvious markers known to man: Money, Fame, Popularity, Followers(in the case of social media) or page views (if you’re a blogger).
But if we all do exactly the same thing, how can we ever hope to stand out from the crowd?
When I launched my business as a blog coach back in March, 2018, I was entering an already-saturated marketplace of coaches. Even though I’d been blogging for close to 11 years at the time, my foray into the coaching space meant I was green around the gills.
So I did the next best thing: Learn from the experts.
I signed up for newsletters from popular bloggers, the ones who were visible and vibrant on Facebook groups and the ones who were making a ‘mark’ with their work and their content. For the longest time (over two years) I struggled with this feeling of never being good enough as a coach.
My bank balance didn’t show me the numbers I wanted, my client roster was sporadic and my motivation to continue down the coaching path was taking a bigger beating than I’d anticipated.
Redefining Moment
Then, in July 2020, one of the best things ever happened. A good friend pointed me in the direction of George Kao.
His videos, his content on the blog, his books and his calming social media presence spoke directly to me, cutting through all the noise.
I rarely call things transformational, but I’m going to make an exception for Kao’s body of work.
In a period of less than 3 weeks (that’s how long it took me to read his four books on Amazon), I began to view my business and by extension, my success, through new lenses.
Letting go of fear
The reason we don’t progress is because we’re afraid.
We are afraid of failure, stumbling, falling flat on our face and people laughing at us.
But when has a child ever learnt to walk without falling down multiple times? So what if your business idea fails? Does that mean it’s useless?
No, it just means you’re still afraid. Let go of that fear. Make big, glorious mistakes and learn from them.
Success is learning to pick yourself up every time you fall.
Connecting with people
A recent personality quiz that I took gave me these qualities and I was delighted to hear from my loyal readers that they agreed with every single description there!
Success, then, is more than fame and money.
Success is knowing how to connect with the people that matter.
Focusing on Authentic Growth over Mere Numbers
It’s so easy to join the rat race of more money, more clients and more stress.
What if, instead, we took a major step back and let the others run the race, while we jogged along at a comfortable pace?
What if we chose to re-engage our older clients and serve new clients with depth, passion and sincerity?
Success is knowing where to focus your energies.
Taking well-deserved breaks
Before Kao, I would spend more than 10 hours a day, 7 days a week hunched over my laptop, pounding away at the content machine, reaching out to prospective leads and feverishly refreshing mail to see if anyone had reached out to me.
Net result? Burnout.
It came to a head in late June when I dis-engaged from all my work and my social media channels, unable to take the overwhelm.
After Kao, I take weekends away from work, show up to create content every other day in some form or the other and stopped checking mail more than twice a day.
The best part is I now do it with a sense of joy and calm. I take much-needed breaks, switch off my phone by 8 PM every night and relax/spend time with family.
Success is how you choose to make time for yourself every single day.
