How do you measure success? 🏆

As much as I live, breathe and embody my work, I am absolutely still bumping up against old patriarchal conditioning in need of an update.

I was on a call with my coach earlier this week as I was grappling with places I felt stuck in my life and she asked me:

If there is no success and no failure, what is there?

My achiever brain short-circuited (Enneagram 3 here 👋🏻anyone else?) and through some muffled sobs I managed to say “Yeah, what else is there?”

I heard myself say that and then I cried for the part of me that truly didn’t know what else there was to life other than awards and achievements.

A slave to success and terrifed of failure. What a shitty way to live.

What if we took both options off the table?

There’s no way to mess this up and there’s no way to do it perfectly (no one is going to give you an A+ at the end of your life!)

I realized I had been feeling uneasy about ending this year because I was grading myself on an out-dated rubric that didn’t feel true anymore. It goes something like this:

Traditional rubric of success

1.   How much money did I make?


2.   How many awards or how much recognition did I get?


3.   Did I get a promotion or move ahead?


4.   Am I hitting the right milestones for my age?


5.   Did I have new life experiences and travel (that I can brag about to others)?
6.   Did the people in my life also hit new achievements and milestones that I can brag about?

How is it to read that list? Is there a part of you that absolutely believes these are THE indicators of success? How does it feel to consciously evaluate yourself on this rubric? What’s missing from the list?

I realized I was evaluating my performance on this rubric that no longer felt true to me. But what happens if we take it all away?

How do you measure a life well-lived if you take away achievements and awards and the traditional milestones of success?

Here’s what I came up with:

New rubric of success

1.   Am I doing work that matters?


2.   Am I positively impacting the world?


3.   Am I spending time with friends, having dinners, being present with them, having fun, and taking care of them?


4.   Am I in alignment with myself and what I most want and what feels true and valuable to me?


5.   Am I donating resources to people and causes I care about?


6.   Am I spending quality time with people I love and care about (including myself)?
7. 

  Am I living a life filled with adventure?


8.   Am I eating new things, reading new books, and enjoying the simple pleasures in life?

How does this list feel? It’s pretty different from the one above.

When I worked in tech and was too burned out to enjoy the things in life that mattered, I think it would have felt confronting and difficult to evaluate myself on this rubric.

Because a part of me knew that I was missing out on big parts of life. But remember, there’s no perfect. We took that off the table ;)

So, look these rubrics over and perhaps give yourself a 1-10 rating for the year on each of the categories and see where you can give yourself credit for a life well lived, despite what the traditional indicators of success might say, and perhaps see where you’d like to put more focus in 2022.

If you’re in need of a place to prioritize the things that matter, feel into Radiance Collective and whether it might be just the space you’re looking for. I’d love to support you in creating your own rubric for a life well-lived.

I’ve also got 1 x 1:1 coaching spot left to fill before my prices go up in the new year. If you’d like to speak with me about either of these options, send me a message and we can set it up.

Happy Holidays!