Season 2: Ep.04 - On Success
(00:28)
Hello, and welcome back to Graceful Rulebreakers. I'm your host Kirsten Lee Hill. Today, I want to talk about success, more specifically, waiting to feel successful, thinking that there is going to be this moment in your life where suddenly you're like, 'Yes, it's happening for me. This is the moment. I'm successful. Now is a good time for me to publish that book, launch that podcast, play bigger,' right? Like you've reached this level of achievement required to be successful, whether you're thinking in terms of followers or revenue, whatever it is, waiting for that moment where it's going to click and it's like, "Okay, now I'm successful."
(01:15)
I want to share why we cannot… well, we could, but why we ought not to wait until we've achieved the superficial markers to share our story. And I share this as someone who repeatedly waits to feel enough, important enough, worthy enough, successful enough.
(01:39)
I was thinking the other day, this has kind of come up for me a few times in conversation lately so I know it's important, but I was thinking about things I have always wanted to do, but I haven't. I have always wanted to write a book. Now, not a fiction book, that's not in my wheelhouse, you know, I'm more of a memoir or perhaps a 'how to guide' kind of gal, but I've always wanted to publish a book. It's been on my vision board for years. In high school, I actually won this award and allegedly everyone who has ever won the award has become a bestselling author. Strangely enough, to add another layer into this little anecdote, I had to nominate myself for the award - talk about a lesson and not waiting for someone else to give you permission to be successful, I think I could learn from my younger self, but anyhow, the point is this - I've always told myself as soon as I really have made it in business or life or ideally business and life, I can do that. Then, I can publish a book.
(02:48)
In my head I think, nobody publishes a book and is like, 'Hey, I'm not successful yet.' And honestly, I've thought a lot about this. I was thinking about it recently on a walk with Calix, just wondering if I could write a book about my life and what I think, and to share my story, and like to have a little asterisk that says proceed with caution because I haven't had a big yet. I haven't achieved the level of success or fame or fortune I'm destined for, but here's my story anyways. There's this belief I have that in order to deserve to have a voice, in order to have something important to say, I need some external measure of success. And to me, this could come in a few ways. Like things I find acceptable, I'm like if I was really making a ton of money, success. I could publish my book.
(03:37)
If I suddenly had thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions would be cool followers on social media, that's success, I could publish a book. If I won, like, a huge award or a celebrity or really important business person said I was good enough, then I could publish a book. It's like all these external things that if they gave me the green light, it would be okay, I would deserve to have a voice, but somehow I'm not enough to just give myself the green light to share my story. Does that resonate with anyone? Like, it's wild. And I think about it all the time, like I never think I'm enough, but if someone else told me I was enough and I perceived them to be successful, things would be okay, maybe for a minute, self-doubt would creep in, you know how that goes. But I've just been thinking about how ridiculous this is.
(04:33)
And I say that as someone who thinks it, like, I too am in the ridiculous boat, because we all deserve to share our stories. And if you don't want to share your story because it's painful or you're a private person, that is a totally valid choice. But if you want to share your story, you have a calling to share your story and you're holding back because you don't think you deserve to yet, I want to tell you that we all, and I say we because I need to take this advice too, need to start before we're ready and just go for it because we can all learn from other people's stories.
(05:09)
The belief that we have to reach some certain level of success based on some external measures in order to deserve to share our stories, holds us back. And it keeps us from helping people that we could really make a difference for. I know personally, I feel seen and understood when I'm on Instagram or TikTok and someone expresses something and I'm like, "Wow, I feel that way too." And it's just this feeling of I'm not alone for thinking that, and it feels good. And if that person didn't feel that they had the right to show up and share their story or their struggles and their journey, I would feel alone in this experience. But because they showed up, I feel a connection, that's powerful. And that's a power that we all have, the power to share what we're experiencing and how we're feeling, and how we're dealing with it and how we're moving forward. We have the power to share that now. The only thing holding us back, standing in our way is ourselves.
(06:20)
I wonder what would happen if we started to think about success differently? Like, if success was living an authentic life, then I am wildly successful. I live a life where I am authentic to myself, I act in alignment with my values, I do what I want to do, I surround myself with people I like, I feel good about the choices I make. And if I thought about all of that as success, holy moly, I'm super freaking successful, right? Like, if success equals authentic life, I am successful. But now if we think about success in terms of revenue, which as a business owner, I often do. I tell you what, some months I am successful and some months I am negative successful, it's a bit of a ride, you know, but that's an external measure. Why do I have the belief that success equals money or the belief that followers or likes on Instagram equals success? Why did those things make me feel successful? But this internal, knowing that I'm showing up every day and I'm doing the best I can, and I'm being myself and I'm speaking my truth, why doesn't that feel like a success? Why can't that be what success is? It can, if we decide success equals being authentic, then it is. We can choose to define success and feel successful in a way that reflects our values.
(08:04)
If I tune into that, that feeling of… and I did it for the first time today, really thinking about it in this, like, tune into that success is living authentically. That makes me feel good. And what if instead of my success being defined by external things or things that I think should make me successful, instead I judged my success based on an internal measure. Might I be happier? Might I feel stronger and better and happier, and just more able to keep on showing up and doing the work and just trusting that other things will work out. And by other things, I mean more traditional measures of success because I don't want to diminish money or fame, let's just call likes and followers on social media, fame. I don't want to diminish money or fame because I actually think those are incredibly powerful tools to create change, and I have goals around that, right? So, it's not discounting that, but it's thinking, how can I feel good now and define my success solely in terms of money and fame, is not a way for me to feel successful now. Defining my success in terms of living an authentic life is a way for me to feel good now, is a way for me to raise my vibration and be like, ‘Yes, I'm doing awesome.’ And what happens when you raise your vibration and feel like you're doing awesome, more good things come, right? You evolve and you attract good people and opportunities, and then you can start getting some of those more traditional measures of success and access to resources that you can use to change the world.
(09:54)
An important research concept that this makes me think of, my researcher brain is like always percolating in the background, is early indicators. I specialized in school turnaround for my PhD, and when you're looking at school reforms, you have early indicators. And the idea is that oftentimes, before you see shifts in academic performance, which people argue stereotypically, the traditional way of saying is like, that's the key outcome at schools, I don't believe that, but let's just go with it for a moment, if you care about changing academics, that can take a longer time. So oftentimes instead of judging success, just by looking at academics, you'll look at things like school culture and climate, the relationships people have with each other, because those things will change and become more positive and that happens first, and eventually translates into something like positive changes in academics, right? Like the culture, the relationships, that's a leading indicator of success. And I think this is a cool framework for us to use in our lives.
(11:13)
Like what is our leading indicator of success? Is you being happy and content right now, in this moment, and feeling good with where you are, isn't that a leading indicator of success? Because success in business is a long game. You want to be able to sustain, you want to be able to feel good, you want to be open to opportunities. And in order to do all those things and to persist in the different seasons of life and business, you need to feel good, you need to feel powerful, you need to feel like you can do this. Let's say leading indicators of capital S success can also be considered successes. I think if you had a school and all the relationships in the score are really strong and people love being there, and they're happy, and they feel safe and respected. That is a success, right?
(12:13)
That might not be like capital S success with all the policymakers are looking for, but it's still a success, and I think it's the same in our lives as Graceful Rulebreakers, as entrepreneurs, as change-makers, there are things now that are successes like living authentically and showing up as our true selves, and doing the best we can, I think all of those things are successes. Some days I'm like got out of bed, success, and those are successes, and they're also leading indicators of capital S success, like more traditional forms of success, because if I'm authentic and I do my best and I'm committed to my work and I show up as myself, I truly believe I am more likely to be successful on more traditional measures. I think that that will help me to build a successful business that is financially sustainable, and that does have an impact in the world.
(13:22)
All of this is to say, my message today is that you are worthy and deserving of whatever you want, just as you are. People are searching for meaning and understanding of their own lives, and if you can share any of that, shed any light on their journey by sharing your journey, and you're holding yourself back because you feel like you're not at the right level yet, or like you need to be, do or have more in order to do that. I'm saying stop. You don't need to be, do, have more in order to be worthy of sharing your story, you can have success and struggle at the same time, and whether you are experiencing success or struggle or some combination, it doesn't matter. You are equally worthy of sharing your story. I really want to normalize the struggle and normalize that even though there are moments, maybe a long block of time, a series of moments where we don't feel successful on traditional measures.
(14:37)
There are things that we can tap into that we are doing really well and that we deserve to be proud of. This has been really helpful to me recently because the past eight, nine months have been really grueling for my business financially. I am really grateful for the work that I have, and I love the people I'm working with, but it's also less work than I've had in a really long time, and that's scary. And it shakes my confidence a little bit, and it makes me think, 'Gosh, like what if this is it, like, this is the end of the line, you failed Kirsten, you know, give up.' But when I reframe things and think about this as like, this has been a season where financial success has been low, but in terms of authenticity and clarity of my vision and how I want to show up in this world, I'm at an all time high. And I can't discount that because that is such an important piece of my business and of who I am. And I like to think that this could be the difference between businesses that succeed and businesses that fail, or that people turn away from, the idea that even when you are struggling on some dimensions, you are able to recognize what it is that you are doing really well and feel proud of that and keep showing up. And even if it hasn't translated into other aspects of success… No, it's a yet, it hasn't translated into other success, yet.
(16:20)
I just want to normalize that people feel this way. I really doubt, I am the only business owner who ever thinks that they are failing miserably and should just give up. This happens, and I've just been trying to unpack why this happens, and to me, it really is, it's when I get swallowed up by these traditional measures of success. Again, not that I even, like, disagree with them or don't want them, but when I let that overshadow all of the other ways in which I am being successful, I can feel really disheartened. It makes me doubt myself, It makes me feel like I should play small and that I shouldn't share my story. And for me, the antidote to this feeling of not deserving sharing my story or not being good enough for traditional success is to tune into what success really means to me personally, and to look at how much progress I have made in those areas.
(17:36)
This is about focusing on things that you are doing great at instead of focusing on your struggle, right? Because what you put attention on grows, which you focus on, you attract more of, so focus on where you feel great and strong and powerful and proud. And I promise you, there are places, and especially if you start to think about what you really value in life, the things you really value, you're going to show up and act in alignment with, and that's going to feel like a win, that's something you can build on and tune into when you think about what you have to offer the world and this incredible story that you have to tell, right? You can share and be real about the struggles, and you can also tap into that piece of where you're really showing up and doing great and living out your definition of success. And yeah, maybe it's not capital S traditional success yet, but that's okay. And you don't have to wait for traditional approval to share your story or to feel good about yourself. You can give yourself permission to feel success now and each and every one of you is doing amazing at something right now, you might have to drill down, it might be really small, but there is something you are doing amazing at right now. And in my book that makes you successful.
