I’m reading a book titled “Make it Happen” by Laura Casey (buy it here):. In it, she talks about ways to overcome your fear and need for perfection to achieve your purpose.  Sounds promising, doesn’t it? Who doesn’t want to achieve their purpose. Sign me up! On a side note, I totally see another girl crush coming on… move over Dr Brene Brown! Don’t worry, she’s not taking your place. You’ll always be my number 1!  But I digress…..

In her book, Laura poses an interesting question.  What is your definition of success?

Hmmmm….  this question really stopped me in my tracks. Success has a definition?  I thought it was something you either achieved with tons of accolades or you had.

When I first started in my current role, I really struggled with knowing how I was doing. In my old role, you knew where you stood. We had very specific KPIs with tangible targets.  We could measure EVERYTHING. And I was all about chasing and exceeding the targets. That’s how success was defined for me at that time.  In order to exceed, you had to hit this number, drive this result, hit this bar.  Not so much in my current role.  Things are far more… squishy.

One day this internal conflict came to a head.  I had a rare face-to-face meeting with my manager (she was based in Chicago, I’m based in Nashville). I started rambling about the fact that I have no idea what I’m doing and I feel like I’m floundering. I didn’t know what to do or where to start.  I felt like a failure. I went from running a team of 50 in my previous role to leading a team of 3 then 4 then 12 in my new role. I was overwhelmed and uncertain in unchartered waters. I was in a world I didn’t really know and not sure if I liked.

Once I took a breath, my sage manager looked at me and said, “You need to redefine what success is, Chris.”

I stared at her for a minute.  A good LONG minute. You know, one of those where you blink with your mouth slightly open, head tilted to one side? Yeah that kind of stare. Then it dawned on me…. she was right.

I am not sure if she’ll even know how much of an affect she’s had on me with that one simple statement. When I get stuck in a situation and start to panic, I hear her words in my head. It causes me to slow down and think.  That and my new boss’s mantra of “Progress, not Perfection.” That’s another story entirely….back to success.

If you think that means after that epiphany I figured this whole success thing out… WRONG! In fact, I still flounder with the squishy stuff. I fall back to wanting numbers to drive. The squishy stuff is hard. It’s gray, it’s messy and it changes constantly. How can you figure out success in that mess? To add to the confusion, I’m trying to understand what success is to me professionally AND personally. Sheesh….

So what DO I know then?

First, business success and personal success are not mutually exclusive.  Why do I even think they are separate?  Why do I have to be a successful business woman OR a successful wife?  I am not a digital being where everything is either true or false, black or white, 0 or 1 (for all my fellow nerds…). I can be successful at both, if I know what that looks like.

Second, success isn’t measured by money or climbing the ladder.  Yes, money is great to have and it helps to make life more comfortable. It’s not everything though. Being a vice president or CEO of a company may look great, it’s not everything either. I can achieve both of those, and it’s possible I still might not be successful, especially if I lose all of my friends and family in the process.

Third, and this is a hard one, my success isn’t defined by someone else. Sure, if I get the Nobel Prize for some amazing thing I did, some would say that’s being a success. Or if I get elected President of something, some would say that’s a success. In some way that thinking is  allowing others to determine your path AND your worth. Should my success be dependent on what other’s think? It’s great to get that recognition. How can I feel valued as an individual if I rely on external people to tell me when I’m successful or not?  I’m not sure that I can.

It’s easier for me to rely on someone else to tell me if I’m successful or not.  In some ways that takes the responsibility off of me to do the work to make the changes that help lead to my success. Ironically, I get irritated when people are not accountable for what they do or do not do. In some ways, when I let other’s define my success, I am shifting the accountability to them. Hmmm, not sure that I like that and perhaps it’s a blind spot for me. If someone else tells me I’m successful, I can say thank you.  If they don’t I can say they don’t see my worth.  Either way, it erodes my self-confidence and destroys my self-worth.

Owning my successful is a scary thought.  What if I DO succeed?  Then what? Is that it? Is this going to be expected of me forever then? What if I fail and fail publicly? Soooo much fear. And fear can stop you in your tracks.

So I continue to work on this definition… who knew a simple question to define success would be this difficult? This time, I am not going to wait for the perfect answer before I start working towards my success and I’m not going to let anyone else define it for me. Really who knows me better than I do? Besides, I have to remember it’s progress not perfection! Progress helps us realize our success, while perfection hinders our progress.

It’s time to live large and stop being so small.