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How do you define success and how do you measure it? If success is based on your achievements, then it will always have you striving to do more. If it is based on feeling happy, then it will have you trying to control everyone and everything. In today’s episode I share why it’s important to define success FOR YOU and determine a simple metric to ensure you stay on track.
Topics in this episode:
Do’s and don’ts when it comes to defining success
What happens if you don’t define success for you?
Success is here and now, not something to experience in the future
Why success is not tied to happiness
A simple definition of success that leaves you feeling empowered and free
Show Notes & References:
If you want to redefine success so that it doesn’t lead to burnout, schedule a free breakthrough call where we will discuss what success means to you and determine what it will take to achieve it. Click here to book your call: www.rebeccaolsoncoaching.com/book
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Transcript
Intro
How do you define success and how do you measure it?
If success is based on your achievements, then it will always have you striving to do more. If it's based on feeling happy, then it will always have you trying to control everyone and every little thing.
Ultimately, you just simply get to define success however you want. And in today's episode, I share my philosophy on defining success so that it feels like something you can both control and live out every single day. You ready? Let's get to it.
Welcome to the Ambitious and Balanced Working Moms Podcast, the place for women who want to balance their ambitious career goals with their life as a mom. If you're looking to feel more confident, decisive, and productive at both work and home, then this is the place for you. I'm your host, Rebecca Olson. Let's get to it.
Working Moms, hello. I am coming off of a two week vacation. The first week over the 4th July where I had my niece in town, and then I had a really good friend of mine come into town. And then we took the next week off and we went to the beach. We rented a beach house with my family, extended family.
It has been a whirlwind of a couple of weeks, and today is my first day back into the office. And as I was rereading her final evaluation, it to be honest, just flooded me with all of these emotions.
Skylar learned so much from her coaching experience with me, and her takeaways were so inspirational. Every time I have read this evaluation, I literally have burst out into tears.
And one of the things she said in her evaluation was how her metrics of success in life have changed.
She is a very ambitious person, and she is someone that is always praised not just for the amazing things that she achieves, but how she achieves at such excellence and also her ability to do so many things at the same time.
And because of all of this praise that she has gotten most of her life, one of the things that she learned that she said here in this evaluation was how her metrics of success in life have always been external, and they've always been based on what other people think.
And how in coaching, she not only became aware of how she was measuring success and how it was really doing her a disservice, but she learned how to change it.
And this topic, defining your own metrics of success, is a vital conversation that we have in coaching. Because if your metrics of success remain subconscious, meaning you don't actually take the time to intentionally think about them or challenge your current ways of thinking about success, then you will likely just simply adopt a cultural view of success, meaning you will define success based on how everyone else around you defines success.
And if you're in America the American dream tends to be our cultural view of success, which means success is measured in how much money you make, your status, how quickly you achieve that status, if you own a house, and then, of course, certain types of luxuries like cars, vacations, and things like that.
Success was measured by the external.
And so, just like for my client Skylar, success was measured by the external, and it was measured by this cultural view of success.
And yet living a joy filled, balanced life where you are successful at your job. Yes, but you also have a successful life outside of your job. Meaning you have a family and friends, and you spend time with yourself, and you have hobbies and things that bring you joy in life where there is pleasure and leisure and ability to be present. I mean, if you want that kind of life, then you're going to likely have to define the metrics of success in a completely different way.
Now, let's talk for a minute by what I mean when I talk about metrics of success, because there's really two parts of this, right? There are the metrics and then there is the success. And both need to be clearly defined.
What are metrics to success?
Metrics are the things by which you use to measure something. So in this case, it is the metrics by which you measure success, how successful you are, and success is what constitutes winning in your life.
Success is you having that deep down feeling like you are living life to its fullest, like you are going all in and you are succeeding both what success means to you in your life and the metrics by which you are going to determine if you are living that life. Both of those things need to be defined.
So let's start with what it means to define success. What is success as a working mom?
Now, if you hear that question and you draw a blank, that's totally normal. It's likely one of the reasons why you're here listening to this podcast. Because you know that you want to be a successful working mom, and you may not even exactly know what that means or how to get there. But you do know it's not life the way it is right now.
And what I want to offer to you is that one of the reasons why life for you as a working mom might not be working for you right now. Meaning you're not happy. You're over prioritizing work. You're not adhering to your own boundaries. Maybe you're on the edge of burnout, you're not sleeping at night.
You need to define what success is to you.
The reason why, for whatever reason, it's not working is because you haven't even defined what working means yet. You haven't put words to define what success looks like.
And likely, success looks very different today than it did before you had kids, and it looks very different today than it did even when you were in college, right?
Success looks different in different seasons of life.
Now, I have a question for you and I want you to actually stop the podcast for a few minutes, maybe two minutes and answer it, okay? If I or someone else was looking in on your life like we were a fly on the wall looking at your life, what would we say success is for you?
If you have just two minutes to pause and really consider this question, I want you to do that right now. This is like some real talk. Okay, you back.
Now, I'm not actually a fly on the wall with my clients. I actually get to talk to them. I get to hear their thoughts about their life and their priorities. And one of the things I get to be is a mirror. I get to mirror back to my clients what I hear them say and what they're doing and show them sort of what they're doing and if those things are in alignment.
And for many of my clients, what I hear them say, like the words that come out of their mouth is for them, success looks like a fulfilling career where they're happy and they make good money.
And it looks like also being very present and connected to their kids and their family. Where their family maybe doesn't get all of the time that they wish they had, but they know their family is a top priority.
And yet even though those are the words that come out of their mouth and yet when we first start working together, if I were a fly on the wall, what I would see is that success actually looks like leaving the office with a short to do list.
It looks like making sure everyone is happy with you at work and no one is disappointed. Which means success looks like saying yes to almost everything.
Success at home looks like a clean house. It looks like the kids being in bed at a certain time and following rhythms and routines. It looks like an exchange of logistics with the spouse but not necessarily connection or romance.
It looks like trying to create systems and structures for the family to operate more efficiently in the future. And I would assume in so doing they would experience more joy and more ease.
Which means success is about something you might achieve in the future instead of something you are experiencing today.
Wow, I actually had to pause for a second here because that really hit me as I said it because I'm not sure if I've ever thought about it in exactly that way.
What I see from a lot of ambitious working moms that are in my sphere that are struggling to find balance is that success for them is something to be achieved in the future instead of something to be lived today.
And not only is success not in the future, it's also not an emotional state because not everyone is going to be happy with you, some things and people will have to be deprioritized at times, and that likely is not going to feel very good going after a have it all kind of life with big goals and big dreams.
That often comes with failure and it comes with risk and it comes with people being disappointed. That never feels good.
And so I want to offer to you one of the most common ways that I hear my clients redefine success for them after usually a few months of us working together. Here it is:
Success is intentionally living my life aligned with my values and my personal priorities.
Now, you might say, Rebecca, but I want the title, I want the money, I want the prestige of writing a book or being a Ted Talk speaker. And I want you to know that I hear you and I see you. Because all of my clients still want big things at the end of us coaching together.
In fact, they come to coaching because it felt like they had to choose between their big goals in their career and their family, and they didn't want to do that.
You are an ambitious person, and I love your ambitious goals, and I want you to achieve all of them, and I want to help you achieve all of them. I just don't want you to define success in your life by achieving those goals. And here's why: three reasons.
You're not completely in control of achieving your goals.
Number one, you're not completely in control of achieving your goals. Your boss has to be the one that promotes you. The board needs to approve a budget where you get that pay raise. You have to be selected by a publisher to write a book. Success in life cannot hinge on someone else doing something. It's a slippery slope if you define it that way.
Your goals and success in life cannot be intertwined.
Number two, your goals and success in life cannot be intertwined because once you achieve those goals, there's kind of this, like, now what moment.
I talk a lot about that here in the podcast. How so many women plan their life or define success as going to a good school, getting a good job, making a good money, getting married, having kids. And then they come to me and they're like, I've done all that, now what?
If success and your goals continue to be intertwined the target is just going to keep moving and when are you ever going to arrive?
Success is always in the future rather than now.
And the third reason I've talked about it here already on the podcast, that your goals and success cannot continue to be intertwined is because success is always then in the future instead of today.
It happens when you achieve something, instead of when you live something.
And I want you to feel successful every single day of your life. I want you waking up feeling like you are living exactly the way you want to with all of the joy and the good feelings that come with feeling successful.
Okay, so we've talked about defining success and the reason why it's important and how if you don't take time to define success for you, then you're likely just going to adopt the cultural view of success, which is oftentimes money and status, or you're going to adopt everyone else around you.
You're going to adopt your mom's view of your success, your best friend's view of success, which will likely always result in you trying to please someone else over prioritizing work and to-do’s and waiting around until you've achieved a certain goal.
Instead of feeling like you are living out your successful life today, you get to define success however you want to. You can come up with your own definition or just work off the one I gave you here today however you want to do it.
How do you measure success?
So now let's move on to start talking about metrics. How do you measure success, particularly when success is defined as being in alignment with your values and your priorities. How do you know if you're in alignment?
As I said before, it's sort of a slippery slope to gauge success or measure success based on emotion, because oftentimes it doesn't feel good to trade off one thing for another.
If your priority is to get home to spend quality time with your family every single night, which means you really need to be leaving the office at 05:00, it probably is not going to feel good to leave your to do list really long or to not respond to emails or to not get back to that client that you said you'd get back to.
Living an ambitious and balanced life, it takes restraint.
It's you saying, I'm going all into these few things instead of trying to do everything. And at least in the beginning, restraint just doesn't feel good. So your measurement of success cannot be based on emotion, just like it couldn't be the definition of success for you either.
So I want to offer to you a couple of questions that might help you be able to define these metrics so you can gauge if you're living the successful life that you want to be leading.
What will be required in order for you to live into this definition of success?
The first question is what will be required in order for you to live into this definition of success?
Now, your answer might be something like, I need to leave work at 05:00 every day. I will have to not log back on after my kids go to sleep. I'll have to shut down my work brain when I'm home. I'll have to choose romance instead of Netflix. I'll have to not schedule in so many meetings.
Notice how you could measure a lot of these things, right? You can measure what time you're leaving work. You can measure how many meetings you have to say no to. You could measure if there's time in your calendar for you and your spouse. You can measure if you're going on date nights. You can measure quality time spent with your partner instead of just logistical conversation time. So a lot of these things are measurable when you frame it in this way.
What would be different about your life if you were living this definition of success?
A second question to help you find some metrics or measurements of success could be what would be different about your life if you were living into this definition of success?
Now to be honest, your answers might be very similar to the last question, but included in your list might also be things like, what would be different is there'd be time for friends. I would be more spontaneous instead of so rigid with my kids schedule, I'd actually have time and vacations and weekends where I didn't work.
You see how this list could be measurable? You could actually measure these things in your calendar. You can measure if you're going on adventures and being more spontaneous. You can measure if you're not on your phone on the weekends or on vacations.
Defining your own metrics is empowering.
Recently, I spoke with a business coach who challenged me to think about measuring my success each month in my business. Not based on how much money comes in or how many clients I get, which would be a more traditional way of measuring business and business growth, but instead to come up with metrics that really honored my values as a business owner.
And in thinking about it in this way, it had me measuring success in my business based on things like how much time I spent thinking about my clients and solving their problems.
It had me defining success in my business based on if I was honoring my time off so that I was actually living in alignment with being a work life balance coach. It had me measuring success based on how present I am with my clients, ensuring that they get everything that they need from me during our sessions.
And those measurements of success feel completely different, don't they? It's not about money. It's not about clients. It's about the time I'm spending. It's about living in integrity. It's about how focused I am. It's freeing. It's empowering to think about it this way.
I wanted to close out this episode by reading to you part of what Skyler wrote in her final evaluation. She said:
Skylar’s coaching experience.
‘Through my coaching experience, I achieved growth, self discovery, and a true self care. I gained a deeper sense of peace and self awareness. I learned to establish personal boundaries with myself and others and make decisions aligned with my values and my purpose.
Instead of seeking external validation, I learned to embrace my own definition of success, which is far more sustainable than adapting to how each person I interact with sees me. That is quite literally exhausting, and I had no idea how hefty a burden it was. It is incredibly freeing to have a steadfast commitment to my own metrics and to be unmoved by others emotional states.
I learned the importance of balancing being with my innate drive towards doing and going. I learned that I have to sacrifice certain things in order to achieve the peace I want and that while it isn't inherently easy, it gets easier with practice.
My mind, my body and my being all need to be nourished for me to get there. It's possible.’
“I want you to have a life where you are living intentionally.”
Friends, working moms, this is what I want for you. I want you to have a life where you are living intentionally, based upon your own values and your own purpose, where you are creating your own metrics of success and living by them. No matter what anyone else thinks, no matter how anyone else is doing it, it's your life and it's 100% possible for you to get there.
Working Moms, if you need help, if you are like Skyler and you want to be all in and you want to end all of the people pleasing and the exhaustion and the burnout, I would love to be able to talk to you and support you.
Free breakthrough call
I offer a free breakthrough call to anyone that is interested in getting to know me and what it looks like in coaching and to talk in depth about where they're at in life and the dreams and the goals that they have for themselves.
You could simply go to www.rebeccaolsoncoaching.com/book to find a time to connect with me over that. I would love to make that happen for you.
Join the movement of other working moms that are learning to have a both and life.
Working Moms define success for you. Define your own metrics of success. This is your life. You only get one. Join the movement of other working moms that are learning to have a both and life. A life where they are successful at both work and home. Talk to you next week and until then, let's get to it.
