Success is liking yourself,
liking what you do, and liking how you do it.
MAYA ANGELOU
To feel successful in your endeavours, you must know what this really means to you.
What does success mean to you? You might have been asked this question before, and to be honest, it’s not always easy to answer. We’re constantly bombarded by ideas of what external success should look like, and it usually looks very glossy. But rarely does it tell the whole story, as external success doesn’t always mean internal fulfilment.
In his book Herding Tigers, Todd Henry writes: Many people lack a clear definition of success in their own mind, so they spend their entire career chasing vapor.
If you only define your success by what you want other people to see (like your social media stats), or by what you tell other people, or by the amount of money in your bank account, or how many clients you have, then you may never feel the sense of internal joy and satisfaction that can come through doing work that lights you up.
If you hold your self-worth at arm’s length, scrutinising it under the harsh light of external success, you give other people and external situations (that might be completely out of your control) too many opportunities to snatch it away from you.
Don’t let your measure of success be based on comparison. Let it come from within; let it be your own.
Hold your self-worth in the vessel of yourself. Keep it safe, nurture it, see it in the best light, let it hold and support you, let it tell you what success means to you.
The truth is that who you are is more important than where you are or what you’re doing. You could be the most ‘successful’ person and treat others poorly, or be incredibly unhappy, or never feel like you’ve done enough. Or you could define success on your own terms, stay in alignment with yourself and your values, and light the way for others because of it.
Does success mean you wake up and find joy in your work? Does it mean, as the inimitable late Maya Angelou said: Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it?
To like yourself, you must stay in integrity. You must show up in a way that best serves and supports you, in order to best serve and support others.
To like what you do, you must make space to create, back yourself and your work, and allow yourself to love what you create.
To like how you do it, you must create pockets of joy that fuel your work and fire up your dreams.
I find it’s easier to define and enjoy success if I know what I’m working towards in my own life and business; if I’ve set goals that feel deeply aligned to the greater vision I hold for my life (even if those goals feel big and far away).
Ask yourself these questions:
Your answers will guide and sculpt your definition of what success feels like to you, and help you stop drooling over glossy pictures on Instagram that tell you one side of one story of one person’s moment from one day. (It’s just a tiny snapshot of real life. You know that, yet sometimes you let it affect your day, your energy, your actions, and even your potential, right?)
I think it’s so important to celebrate your successes. How can we call in more of what we desire, if we can’t celebrate and be grateful for what we’ve already received? We need to stop and smell the roses we planted years ago, before thinking about the ones blooming ahead on our path.
Here are some ideas to help you celebrate your successes …
Share your success, shamelessly, without guilt, staying small, or playing it down. Don’t pretend it was luck that got you here. Luck might play a tiny part, but to underplay yourself is to undermine yourself; and that’s the opposite of being in alignment with your highest self, with being aligned to your dreams, and with being unstoppable in your deep drive and devotion to creating what calls to you.
Feel it and hold it within, so that you can continue to draw more of it towards you. Do this through intention, mindset, breath and gratitude. Do it by being present in the moment; this is where you are, this is what you’ve called in, this is what you’ve created. Ground into that.
Do this by simply saying ‘thank you’, and by envisioning and embracing the truth that ‘there’s more where that came from’. You’re allowed to be grateful and ask for more. You’re allowed to trust that good things will keep flowing to you.
I used to think that if something went well, something bad would have to happen to even the scales. It was an old belief—a very limiting one at that—that meant I’d quickly and quietly sabotage myself, by not believing in myself if something had recently gone well for me.
(A brilliant example of this is when I received an unexpected tax refund of $900. About to go on holiday, I did a happy dance! Just hours later, I reversed my car into a pole in a parking garage. Because I didn’t want to put it through my insurance and risk increasing my premium, I took it to a nearby garage to get fixed. The quote? Spot on $900.)
This type of sabotaging behaviour makes absolutely no sense. Imagine if horses thought like that while showjumping; they’d jump over the first jump effortlessly, then crash into the second; they’d collect themselves and then fly over the third, baulking at the fourth. They’d go around the ring, fluctuating from This is amazing; I have full faith in myself and my abilities! to Farrrrr out, I suck, what is happening? I have no idea who I am or what I’m working towards! back to I love what I do! I do what I love!
I want to laugh, but I also want to cry, because that’s what so many of us do. We spend our lives fluctuating from acceptance and belief to ambiguity and confusion. We do well, so we punish ourselves by thinking that it was a fluke, or luck, and we didn’t really deserve it, so we ensure it doesn’t happen again soon. But then, after a while we pull ourselves together and decide to get back in the game. Then we create and receive something wonderful, and the cycle starts again.
If that’s you, I invite you to write out all your fears and perceived negative consequences of asking the Universe for more of what you already have. You’ll know how to do this by simply thinking about receiving more, and noticing the thoughts, fears, beliefs or mental patterns around this.
For example, if you do speaking gigs and you think to yourself: I’d love to put myself out there and do more corporate speaking engagements, notice what you think of next.
That might lead you to think to yourself: But if that happens, I’ll become burnt out and exhausted. It will be such hard work to even find those opportunities and I’ll probably land gigs I don’t want to do, and then I won’t be able to say ‘no’. People will think I’m greedy for charging higher rates and getting lots of work. I’ll start to resent receiving more opportunities, because it’ll take me away from my other passions.
Of course, you might only notice a couple of negative thoughts, or you might write out pages of them. Whatever comes up and through for you is perfect, so honour it and don’t judge yourself for these thoughts. You’re bringing them to the surface, so your awareness and actions can help clear them away.
You might find some of the points you write down sound ridiculous to your conscious mind. That’s totally normal, and actually shows that you’ve tuned into a deeper layer of your fears. So don’t be ashamed of what comes through when you do this exercise; just write everything down (even if you cringe/cry/laugh at yourself for doing so).
Then forgive yourself for being so hard on yourself. Place your hands on your heart and say, ‘I’m so sorry you think that receiving more is going to be hard work. I’m so sorry that you think people will judge you for doing well. I’m so sorry you thought you didn’t deserve more of the good things you already have in your life. I forgive you, I love you.’
Then do some inner work to clear away those fears. Sit with the thoughts you’ve put on paper, and send love and gratitude to them for trying to keep you safe. I suggest doing some Emotional Freedom Technique tapping to clear the stress around it. (If you’re not familiar with tapping, keep reading for a suggested script.) Use this new awareness to help you shift the old thought patterns, with gentleness and compassion.
EFT is a simple and powerful tool that you can use to clear negative thought patterns and shift your energy, using the body’s energy meridian points and neuro-linguistic programming.
Essentially, you tap on specific acupressure points on the body, while saying a specific script, and adding in a stress, fear or block to clear. For example: Even though I [insert fear/limiting belief here], I deeply and completely love and accept myself.
While there are slight variations on the acupressure points to tap (while saying the script to follow) the general points to tap are:
This gives us nine points to tap, but we’ll say ten clearing statements, as we’ll use the opportunity to tap on the side of each hand. Lightly tap on these points using your pointer and middle finger, using either one hand or both, while saying the script and adding in whatever it is you want to clear.
Here’s a suggested script for an EFT balance (using common fears that often come up in sessions with my clients, when working towards big life, work and business goals):
Now take a deep breath in and out.
You can run yourself through the suggested fears/blocks I’ve just listed; then next time you do this, instead of saying the suggested fears/blocks I’ve included, add in your own.
You can use EFT whenever you want, to support your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health. You can do as many rounds as you like, whenever you need to.
I was first taught how to do EFT when seeing a holistic counsellor many years ago. It helped me to calm the anxiety I’d been feeling, start trusting myself more, and feel confident enough to leave a relationship that wasn’t making me happy.
At first, I used it for mental/emotional support only. Years later, on the day of my very first corporate speaking engagement, I found myself suffering from the worst period pain of my life. I’d taken every herb possible, as well as paracetamol and ibuprofen, used heat packs and the like, yet nothing was working. I was becoming increasingly stressed out (which was also not helping). I decided to do some EFT, using the script: Even though I have the worst period pain of my entire life and I don’t know how I’ll do my talk tonight, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.
I repeated the same words for every tapping point, and did three full rounds of the points. As soon as I finished that third round, my pain disappeared. Disappeared. I blinked, took a deep breath, got up from my fetal position lying on my office floor, got dressed and ran a successful event.
I now use EFT on an almost daily basis to clear stresses and thoughts that feel like they’re holding me back (even if it’s something as seemingly insignificant as receiving an email that makes me want to grind my teeth). I especially use it when setting goals or intentions, noticing what limiting beliefs come up, knowing I can clear them away.
Take a deep breath and drop it all; leave it in the past. Then come back to yourself and your centre.
Repeat as necessary.
I create my own version of success, being grateful for all I’ve already created, and all that’s still to come.