Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 255 of the Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast! Success is a powerful word, isn’t it? Who doesn’t want to feel successful? What do success and passion have in common? How do you define success for yourself?
I think so many of us have a warped view of success these days because social media will have us feeling like a failure if we don’t have 1 million followers, a perfect body, a perfect relationship, a big happy family where everyone gets along, traveling to the right locations…. Ahhhhhh that will drive you crazy!
So how DO you define success for yourself?
Do you define your success by where you are today compared to where YOU were yesterday? Or by where you are today compared to where someone else is today? When you define your success by what someone else is doing, your brain will give you lists of things you should be doing that maybe you don’t even want to be doing. I’ll touch on that in a little bit.
I think this is something we all do. I know I’ve fallen prey to it too.
I follow this darling girl on Instagram, loverlygrey, she just passed 1 million followers, she puts together adorable outfits from really affordable places like gap, wal mart, target. It’s amazing what she has done and the business she has built. But she’s been working at it for 5 years and in the beginning she just did what she was passionate about. She has a very consistent approach to her posts though. I like clothes and I can put together cute outfits, but it’s not my passion like it is for her. That’s the difference. She is successful because it’s her passion AND she has put in the work to do what it takes to be successful.
I don’t think I’m a failure because I don’t have a successful fashion blog, because I know I wouldn’t do what it takes to be successful there, it just simply isn’t my true passion, it Isn’t what gets me excited for the day.
Part of being wildly successful means being honest with ourselves and being honest with what we want. Maybe what we want and what Society throws out as success standards are very different. Be honest with yourself, are you willing to put in the effort to have 1 million followers? To run a fortune 500 company? To be a size 2 model? You may, I don’t know the answer, only you do.
Being interested in something and making a living doing it are very different. BUT here’s the thing. I get to decide how successful I want to be at anything. I get to define what success looks like for me in any area.
I have an interest in cute clothes, but I’m not going to be a fashion blogger. You have to be willing to do what it takes to be successful. You have to love it so much that nothing will stop you. Brittany of Loverly Gray puts together a minimum of three posts per day of new, cute outfits, sometimes she will have 5 different outfits in one post, three times a day. That takes passion, not simply interested in looking good when you get dressed.
You may be like me and have lots of interests, but you aren’t going to make a living at it because it’s not your passion. This is not a problem. The only time it becomes a problem is when you beat yourself up because you think you should be doing something different because someone told you you should or you’re comparing yourself to someone else. But you may not be willing to do what it takes to get you there. This was a big thing for me to realize. At one point I thought Interior design was going to be my passion, but it has it’s limits for me. Even though I love it and love creating beautiful spaces….I have found it isn’t everything I want to do, I didn’t pursue certain goals with it because I wasn’t sure I wanted that. I am grateful for it though because it allows me the money to be able to pursue the passion that I never get tired of and that’s mindset, growth, self improvement, helping us all be their best version of ourselves whatever that means! I didn’t want to have a big firm, I even declined a job with a highly sought after architect firm locally because it didn’t feel 100% right.
So for me. I love fashion, but it’s an interest, not a passion. I love design, there is passion there, but there was still something missing…and since I’ve followed my dream of my podcast and my life coaching, it just feels so right. It takes a lot of time to do the podcast and at first no-one was listening but I wasn’t going to quit, that was never even an option. I feel passionate every time Im creating an episode. I get excited on the days where I know I am creating one and publishing it.
Defining your idea of success will help you see if your love of something is an interest that is fun or a passion that goes much further.
I’ll use myself as an example. And I’m being very transparent here, my idea of success when it comes to fashion is honestly looking and feeling my best every single day whether I go outside the house or not. So yes, I want my pajamas to be cute and I have the most adorable robe that my husband even told me I look like a damn princess in it, it’s lavender with leopards and greenery on it, it’s amazing. When I go out, I LOVE to get dressed up and wear heals and shop and stay up to date on fashion. That is the idea of success for me in that area. I do pretty good, I can use some work on my gym fashion but there’s always room for improvement.
My idea of success with design is to create spaces that my clients are obsessed with where I work a couple days a week on design and it doesn’t get in the way of travel and it provides the income so that I can pursue my true passion of spending my time coaching and podcasting. So yes, I am as successful at interior design as I want to be. With my mindset work and my podcast, the sky is the limit. I have gigantic goals for my podcast and my coaching. It is absolutely what gets me excited to get out of bed.
I love to travel but I am not going to be a travel blogger, that isn’t in the cards because I’m not passionate about that aspect of it, so I know I won’t do what it takes. And as far as my relationships go, my family is very important to me. My husband is the most important relationship I have, I want to be present with him and feel connected to him and us continue to grow together, I don’t look at other people and wish for what they have, I want what I have and I have what I want. That’s my idea of success.
When I define my own success standards, life gets so much more fun because I get to decide what success is and what it is not for me. It takes the pressure off because you’re not comparing yourself to everyone else, telling yourself you should be somewhere other then where you are.
Brooke Castillo likes to say for us not to “should” ourselves, if you get that. Setting your success standards by someone else’s will have you shoulding all over yourself. For me, it could look like, “I should have had kids, I should market my podcast differently, I should have more coaching clients by now, I should post more on instagram. You get the idea. Don’t do that to yourself.
I work really hard to only compare myself and my success to who I was yesterday and not to what someone else is today. Social media can make that difficult but it is your responsibility to recognizing when you’re doing that and stop doing it. That may sound harsh but in the car of life, personal responsibility has been put in the trunk. And personal responsibility is the most powerful thing you can give yourself. Because it gives you all the power.
My challenge to you for this week is to actually define your idea of success in the areas of life that are important to you. If you don’t know what your idea of success is, how are you gonna ever feel successful? You may even realize you are already successful in some of those areas. For me, It felt really good to define my idea of success in fashion as just how I show up for myself at home or when I go out, it completely takes the pressure off my thought that I should be doing more with it when really all I want is to look really cute when Im around the house or when I go out, so I know exactly how to be successful in that area. Define what success looks like for you and you’ll have a road map to fulfillment. Because that’s what we really want, is to feel fulfilled, to feel authentic and to feel like we are being true to who we are. You have the power to do that.
Do this for yourself. It matters. And if you would like a little help with it, I have a 6 week program where we will define what success looks like for you and actually work towards achieving it. You can email me at Heidi@heididawson.com. Don’t forget to give me a 5 star rating and share these episodes if you’re loving them!
I love you guys! I’ll talk to you in a few days!
