For most of my life, I had a narrow definition of what success meant. It involved people knowing your name, and having enough money — ie. lots of money — to buy an endless stream of designer handbags and big cars.
It wasn’t a definition I had opted-in to, but it was the definition that had been fed to me from childhood through films, magazines about celebrities, and our education system. And I swallowed it whole.
I understood success as defined from an outside-in perspective (what other people consider success) versus an inside-out perspective (what I really care about).
I might have continued measuring myself against this concept of success for a long time, had a health issue not encouraged me to hop off the corporate career ladder in 2018. Once I began working for myself, I realised that I needed to totally redefine my definition of success. If I was to set meaningful personal and financial goals, then I first needed to know what I actually wanted in life.
What I wanted. It was a surprisingly difficult question to answer.
What does success look like for you?
As a former corporate marketing manager, I used this question a lot when planning big projects and campaigns with colleagues. But I had never asked it of myself…
