Success: A New Definition
I am currently participating in a Power Circle of women where we meet monthly to help each other with our businesses. Although it’s professional, we end up taking some deep dives into our own childhoods and limiting beliefs to understand what is holding us back from playing big and achieving our dreams.
At our last session we had to define what it means to play big.
Read our article “Unconscious Beliefs: Playing Small”
What is our definition of success?
For many women meant achieving a certain income, launching a business, or getting a promotion. For several of us it meant creating more space for ourselves. Related to this, I said that for me it was about feeling worthy. I wanted to feel my value by just “being” me and being here.
Previously in my life, I achieved a lot of business success in the traditional sense. I made big salaries and bonuses. I lived and worked in many countries, and yet something was always missing. When they say money doesn’t buy happiness, I can say that this has always been true for me. I realized that playing big and achieving success was merely filling a void.
As I was reflecting on all of this at the Power Circle, I remembered that what I truly want to achieve in this lifetime is not fame and fortune, rather feeling good on the inside. And when we feel good on the inside, our outer life often reflects this back to us. Feeling worthy of just “being”, without needing to prove anything, feels like a good definition of success for me. I won’t take any of the material stuff with me anyway when the game is up! This seemed like a real AHA! moment, and was an incredible reminder that we each have the power to define our own success.
Read our blog about being vs. doing: “Meeting the Feminine”
This morning I happened to come across something I had received at Plum Village last Spring, which is Thich Nhat Hanhs’s spiritual village in France. It is a quote I had asked the nuns at Plum Village to write for me, and it says,
“The greatest success is to life with love in the present moment”
What does success mean to you?
Photo credit: Lois Shannon
