Redefining Success

Is The Success You're Chasing Actually Yours?

Everyone is chasing success and most people could tell you what it looks like, but very few could tell you why. Dig a little deeper and ask the harder questions: what do you actually value, what makes you feel alive, what does an average Tuesday look like? More often than not, the substance isn’t there. The definition they’re chasing isn’t really theirs and it belongs to someone else.

The more I reflect on this, the more I realise we were never given the chance to decide what success and a good life looked like for ourselves. It was handed to us, by parents, governments, schools, media and culture, and before we were even able to question it we were already living a life built around chasing it.

Many who eventually reach that version of success find it leaves them empty. Andre Agassi was by every measure successful, world number one in men’s singles, one of the most recognised athletes on the planet. And yet, in his autobiography Open, he admitted he hated tennis and had been miserable for much of his career. Successful by every external standard but left hollow on the inside.

The question worth asking isn’t whether you’re successful, or even whether you’re on the right path. It’s whether the definition you’re chasing was ever truly yours to begin with.

Who Decided?

Success was defined for us long before we had the ability to question and think deeply about such an important question. Parents may push their ambition or unachieved dreams onto their children, the father who didn’t become a doctor may push for their child to do so, a parent who grew up under hardship may push stability, framing that as success.

Good grades, compliance and qualifications sold as success by the education system. Governments told us success was home ownership or having a pension pot, although I doubt my generation will be able to retire, whilst corporations told us to work hard, climb the ladder, earn this title and more money equals success.

Media, through films, shows and adverts, tried to frame what success looks like whilst providing the ideal product to help us achieve that definition of success. Social media came along and success become something to perform and be seen to have, defined by followers, likes, shares and screenshots of income whilst standing next to a Lamborghini.

Although parents may push their version of success onto us unintentionally or out of love, the rest do it because it helps them scale and achieve their success. The systems that are in place are not designed to help you flourish, instead they keep you stuck in the rat race because government and corporation success such as increased GPD, low unemployment rates and increased profit, are considered far more important than your success.

What’s The Cost?

The result of all this is that most people spend their lives optimising for a definition of success that was never theirs to begin with. They chase what has been portrayed as the right salary, the right title, the right lifestyle and wonder why it doesn’t feel the way they thought it would.

When what you’re chasing doesn’t align with your actual values, there is a quiet sense of dissatisfaction and persistent emptiness, even when everything looks fine from the outside. That feeling doesn’t go away by achieving more of the same thing, that is chasing definitions of success that aren’t yours, instead it gets louder.

And then there’s burnout. We talk about burnout as though it’s simply the result of working too hard, but there’s a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from working hard towards something you didn’t actually want. This is more than a simple case of tiredness, it’s misalignment, which shows that the problem might not be the pace but the direction.

Admitting that you achieved something and still feel empty is a difficult thing to say out loud. More often than not it’s met with a reminder of how lucky you are and how many people would want what you have. There may be some truth in this, on paper you’re successful and others would want it, but those people would arrive and likely feel that same emptiness.

Success on paper and success in reality are not the same thing, just like profit looks great on a spreadsheet until you look at the cashflow.

Finding Your Own Definition

Here’s a thought worth sitting with: maybe success isn’t a single destination but rather a journey, with wins showing up in different areas of your life at different times. Your health might be in a great place right now and that’s a success, however financially things might not be looking great, but that may be achieved further down the road. It’s never going to look perfect, and that’s fine, because it’s about the small wins along the way that compound. Over time enough of the right things fall into place, and that’s what a good life actually looks like in practice.

With that in mind, here are some principles for figuring out what success means for you.

Remove the audience. Take whatever it is you’re chasing and imagine no one can see it and no one will ever know. Does it still feel worth having, does it still feel like success? A lot of what we call ambition is really just the desire for approval in disguise.

Define enough. Most definitions of success have no finish line, there’s always a bigger number, a better title, or a next level to reach. Ask yourself a simple but surprisingly difficult question, how much is actually enough? Deciding that in advance changes everything.

Look at your Tuesdays. How you spend your ordinary days is a more honest measure of success than any highlight. What does an average day actually feel like? If it helps, map out what your ideal day or week would look like, taking note of how far or close your current reality sits from that.

Question the why. Don’t just reflect on what success looks like, challenge yourself on why you actually want it. Journalling or sitting in silence without reaching for your phone can be incredibly helpful, as the honest answers tend to surface when you stop filling the space.

Reverse-engineer regret. Imagine yourself much older and looking back. What would you be gutted to have missed? What would feel like a waste? That perspective has a way of cutting through the noise and pointing you toward what actually matters.

Summary

Stop chasing a definition of success that isn’t yours and start defining success for yourself, success that is aligned with you and your values.

Remember that success isn’t a destination but a journey, and along that journey you will taste success in different areas of life, just remember to pause and celebrate.

The system is rigged against you, everywhere you look there is a definition of success being provided for you and it will be tempting. Finding someone or a group to hold you accountable, challenge you and keep you going in the right direction are essential, such as friends, family or a life coach.

Living intentionally isn’t always easy in the short term, it requires us to think, reflect and know ourselves deeply, but it will pay off in long run. Because life is too short to waste chasing success that you didn’t want.