Why do we subscribe to traditional measures of success?

How discovering my own version of success set me free

Taking in the words and wisdom at the Books That Matter event with Emma Gannon in London this week

I’m back after a little break. I spent a long weekend on the Greek island of Kos. Days on the beach swimming in the beautiful Aegean Sea and evenings eating amazing food and drinking rose. But what was better than all that was spending time with friends from near and far. Picking up where we left off and sharing our new perspectives on life and success.

I spent my 20’s and 30’s living someone else’s version of success. Growing up I’d been sold a version of success by the media that I subscribed to but was always so at odds with what made me happy. When I moved from a small town in New Zealand to the exotic metropolis of Sydney Australia in my 20’s, my version of success was sitting in an office in one of the tall skyscrapers well into the evening watching the glittering lights of the city twinkle below.

The strange thing was, once I had achieved that I wanted to go back. I didn’t want to spend my life eating breakfast, lunch and dinner at a desk. I wanted time to enjoy living in a city and country where the sun always shone (well most of the time) and for the first time in my life I was living in a city where the opportunities for enjoyment were endless.

Then I moved to the UK hoping to escape the endless grind but found myself in the middle of a recession where I had to claw my way back up. My idea of success then was earning the same money I was on when I left Australia. I remember finally having a monthly salary that allowed me to buy an expensive handbag, that was success to me then.

Although I had everything I needed I still wanted more. Looking at others around me getting promotions, raises and living their own versions of success I thought that’s what I should want too. So I did whatever was asked of me, some things at an expensive cost to my own wellbeing just to get to the next ‘level’. Where more often than not the increased responsibility, people management and the work was not what I really wanted.

But I kept searching for the ever elusive moment of arrival at success. I went for the shiniest job title and the most money I’ve ever earned and it was the cruelest lesson of all, that those things do not equal success, at least not for me.

One burnout later I realigned with what really mattered to me, my wellbeing. Now every decision I make has to align to that one fundamental value. My success is now defined by how well I’m living my values. Having the time to do what I love and most importantly, having the physical and emotion energy to do it. Do I have time and energy to follow my longer term goal to have my own business? And most important do I have time and energy to write.

Success to me is the culmination of all of these things, not just one thing anymore, and it’s not in the things that are deemed successful by society. Emma perfectly unpicks these in her book The Success Myth, which I have also talked about previous posts. Having gone through a realigning of success myself, I loved the chat this week between Molly the founder of Books That Matter and Emma.

I love the questioning of everything we think we should want and if it’s really what we want, from careers to children.

My husband and I often reflect, looking for that sweet spot of time when we were most satisfied with life. Where we had enough of the things we truly wanted and less of those we didn’t. The one thing that time didn’t include shiny job titles, high salary or a mortgage. It was about time and headspace to enjoy life in our lovely little rented one bedroom flat in west London. Enough money to go for a drink at our local pub on the weekend, save a little, but most importantly, enjoy life.

Because that’s what success to me is, it’s enjoying life as it is. It’s doing work that I enjoy, it’s reading a book in the sun after the working day is finished and it’s writing this newsletter. Do I wish I had realised this sooner? I’m not sure if I could, but I’m here now and I feel free.

I’m curious, what does success mean for you? I’d love to chat in the comments.

As part of the event I went to on Thursday evening, there was a book signing and drinks at a beautiful bookshop called The Gilded Acorn. Tucked behind the London School of Economics near Lincolns Inn fields in Holborn it’s like something out of Victorian London but with the latest releases. I also loved meeting other Substackers

The Shoulds by Francesca Specter

and Lauren

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