Maybe it is Time to Redefine Success

We are often told to do things like “play a bigger game” OR “establish ourselves as the expert” OR “be the top of our field”. And when you combine those things with our natural tendency to compare ourselves to what others are doing with their lives and businesses, it doesn’t take much to feel like we are just never going to cut it.

When you run a business, the idea of success is often measured against
• How big your business is (we want to compete with the big brands, look established and professional)
• How much money you make (how many articles do you read with the promise of making 6 figures!)
• How much traffic you get (we all watch our facebook likes/website traffic/subscription numbers)
• How popular you are or how much klout you have (how many twitter followers do you have? how many people know you by name?)

And the thing about those indicators is that no matter where you are at, there is always someone else to compare yourself against. You might never feel like you measure up!

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely encourage you to grow your business, to show your expertise, to be a leader… IF those are YOUR goals, IF those are the things that will allow YOU to shine and achieve your goals.

So perhaps it is time to change the way we think about success. Success is not something that is attained by comparing yourself to someone else. Success is achieving what YOU set out to do.

Noun: 1. The accomplishment of an aim or purpose.

Is your goal to help people? Or maybe it is to spread a message or make a change in this world. Perhaps it is to make someone happy or feel great. I bet part of it is to earn money AND be there for your family.

YOU are the one who gets to define what success looks like for YOU.

I talk to so many women in biz who are doing brilliant things. They have actually taken the leap and made a go of it, for one thing. (Let’s not undermine how awesome that is!) And they are doing something that matters to people, to their customers. Yet so many of them say things like:
• I can’t compete against so-and-so, they have more fans, a better website, are more popular
• I want to have a biz & be there for my family but I suck at time management/balance
• I know I have to do xyz to grow my business but I can’t complete my to-do list

Do you notice how all of those things are based on what someone else is doing or what someone else has said is important? Those things may very well be true, but WHO SAYS you have to do all of that? WHO SAYS you have to do everything on the to-do list, or have more fans, or have so-called balance in your life?

The urge to compare yourself and your biz to others is strong but it is not going to get you closer to your goals, if you are focusing on how other people are reaching their goals.
Define success on your terms. Pick 3 things that you actually want for yourself and your biz. Set yourself goals for achieving each one. And celebrate each little success along the way. When you feel yourself getting distracted by what ‘everyone else’ is doing/achieving/succeeding at, give yourself a shake, put your blinders back on, and get back on YOUR path to success.

Success for you might be getting one new fan each day, making one new product this week, doing one thing this month to turn your dream into a reality. It doesn’t really matter that much what anyone else is doing with their biz, what matters is what you are doing with yours.

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