I often get asked to define what success means to me. Whether it’s in terms of the success of a business partnership, or a surgery outcome, it’s a loaded question asked of me daily, sometimes multiple times – if not by others, by myself.
It’s hard to define where my career started, so I’ve always just thought of it as a timeline fuelled by ambition. And that having ambition would be a driving factor on a path to success.
Maybe I had heard the mantra, “You can do anything you set your mind to”, too many times. I embodied this mentality and set off to achieve highly, as I believed I had the ability to.
However, on this path, I encountered obstacle after obstacle - unplanned hospital admissions, new symptoms, surgeries and prolonged periods of debilitating illness. Goals, timelines and visions for my future consistently took a hit. Every time my body would go ‘through hell’, it meant my identity would too – as it was closely tied with an achievement mentality and my vision for the future. I was terrified that I wouldn’t have the ability to achieve my potential.
Somehow, I felt there was a part of me that was free from the limitations I felt my disability created. I could see and feel the potential of that part of me, and every time I would get really sick, I would feel further away from who I truly saw myself as - an ambitious person who is capable of ‘traditional’ success.
Ambition, itself, is rooted in achievement. By definition, ambition is the ‘desire and determination to achieve success’. But I propose that it doesn’t have to be. I feel that the need for ‘achievement’ is what separates ‘success’ from happening every day, due to the fluctuating state of my health.
When I endeavoured to understand more about why achievement was so important to me and what form I wanted this to take, I uncovered what success meant to me. Success meant impact. And there are many ways to create impact.
I began to reframe and transform how I perceived goals and success so there were no barriers. I did this by replacing achievement-oriented goals with value-oriented goals. This allowed success to be possible every day, rather than constantly feeling out of reach.
A goal that makes an impact does not need to have a certain dollar value, affect a large number of people at the same time, or receive a high level of recognition - all factors that I felt depended on my health to make possible. When impact was founded in values, and I set goals to live out these values in my everyday life, that’s when things changed.
Being able to live out my values through everyday interactions – whether it be a smile to a stranger or a heartfelt message to someone – makes for a meaningful existence. The impact of the small actions we take should not be underestimated. They hold impact as individual actions, as well as even greater power in culmination.
