THE MEASURE OF SUCCESS

In this post I want to talk about success and feelings.

Ultimately, the idea of success is so subjective. How one measures success is not going to be the same as the next person.

Most of us are so disconnected to our own desires and needs that we end up defaulting to ascribing to the measures of success that seem easy and palpable:

-        Hitting a certain number of followers

-        How many people buy from you or sign up to your thing

-        How much money you bring in

-        How busy or in demand you are

By all means, these can contribute to the idea of being successful and in some ways – it feels really good to know that people are desiring our products, or connecting with our work or interested in what we have to say or share. But this can’t be it. This can’t be all we have been given as a measurement tool.  What if we are absolutely missing a critical metric here: How we are feeling about what we are doing?

So often, when we are bringing ideas into the world, creating a business or something we feel excited about, the focus is on these metrics as guideposts for how we are doing. We tend to bypass the ‘feelings’ stuff and cross our fingers that if the metrics add up, the feelings will follow. Unfortunately, that’s usually the opposite of how it works.

I have several clients who, on paper are hitting all of those measures of success that I talked about a minute ago. They are booking clients, taking in a lot of orders, super in demand for their products and services and yet when we get into the coaching space and really reflect on how all of that is feeling, successful isn’t a word that comes up. Tired is. Frazzled is. Unclear is.

Often what I hear is that their work feels out of control, that it has taken on a life of its own. It’s like they work for their business instead of their business working for them amongst the other usually very complex and busy demands of their whole life.

There is little to no connection between the standard measurement of success and the feeling of success.

In the work that I do, I feel like my job is often about pulling my clients back to themselves. Dusting off the road that has been littered with expectations, arbitrary rules and measurements and shining a light back to the centre of who they are and asking

“what of this isn’t working for your energy right now?” “What do you want less of?” What do you want more of? What feels misaligned?

These aren’t the questions that come up in a downloadable business plan; but they hold the most power. Because when we are asking and answering these questions; when we make space to get quiet about our real desires, about how the work we once loved is making us feel, about what we really want this work to look like within the context of the rest of our lives, then we can gently course correct and strategize to make them a reality and rebuild a path towards it.

Maybe, if you’re feeling stuck in the zone of setting metrics for yourself based on numbers and figures to identify success, or you’re feeling detached from how you want your work to feel and just cruising along in autopilot it would be helpful for you to sit down with some of these questions today

These are the questions and the metrics that help me to unpack if what I’m doing is really fulfilling. If you want to write these down and check in with yourself, feel free.

-        What kind of impact is my work having with the people it’s for? Are they really feeling the intended shifts that they’re here for? Are they trusting themselves more, feeling supported?

-        How is my energy towards my work? Am I excited for it or dreading it? What am I dreading and why?

-        How is my business allowing me to live your life outside of it? Do I feel like I can’t switch off, have I given myself so much to do that I’m taking it into family time, have I made up arbitrary rules for myself that are limiting my ability to experience joy or pleasure?

-        What is the quality of my relationships? How connected do I feel to the people that matter in my life?

-        Do I feel like my reputation is holding up? Am I in integrity with how I’m communicating my work, how I’m selling my services, how I’m showing up for my clients?

-        How do I feel about selling this service? Am I delighted to let people know about it? Am I grounded in the value of it or am I feeling some scarcity and fear?

-        Do I feel momentum in my work, like I am finding space to grow deeper in my knowledge of how to help my clients?

-        Am I feeling supported? Do I need to check in with my business support system (for me that’s other coaches or my supervisor)?

I want you to be careful not to listen to these questions, contemplate your answers and dip into shame. Shame will keep you stuck in the mire. If you’re contemplating these things and lots of them feel hard to answer, that’s OK. You’re not doing things wrong, you’re doing your best. Try to welcome this as an opportunity to reset, without shame lingering, but as a way to take some power back and inject the priority of how you are feeling as an integral part of your work.

Without these as thresholds to reflect on, I am likely to overwork, load stuff onto my plate, numb out or disconnect. I am likely to overthink, to fixate, to be easily hurt or offended and take things really personally. I’m likely to be emotionally up and down because my validation has been built on the wrong metrics. 

These are the metrics that matter to me because I know that when these things are prioritised, my work becomes a joy. It becomes regenerative, a pleasure. Most of us start with the opposite metrics and hope that the rest will fall into place, or we believe that the outward “success’ will somehow morph into feeling like we are thriving. When the opposite is actually true. When we realign our work or business to take into account our whole self and put structures in place to honour that, that’s when the magic happens.

I hope this gives you permission today to start to measure what you’re doing from a different angle. I hope you feel courageous enough to be honest about the impact of what you are doing on how you are feeling and are willing to take whatever steps you need to shift things around.

WOMEN, LET'S TALK ABOUT EARNING MONEY

I have NOT always felt excited to talk about this, let me just say that. I know that this topic is not something that is overly comfortable for so many of us to talk about for lots of reasons and I want to preface this episode by saying this has been my experience too.

When I first started running my business, the money stuff was absolutely the thing I buried my head in the sand about the most. Coming from decades of working in the non profit sector, to go from having a set salary and applying for funding for different causes that I worked in to creating products and offers where I was asking people to pay me was a big leap. A really big, uncomfortable, hard leap.

I had to learn pretty quickly because the truth is, if your business isn’t making money, it’s not a business.

More than that, if your business is not making money in strategic ongoing ways, it is not sustainable and that’s a really hard place to operate from – when you feel like things are so unstable. That’s when we feel like we need to scramble, to undersell, to contort what we do to suit what we think people want.

So I want you to know that me feeling comfortable talking about making money in my business is something that has been about 4 years in the making. I took on a coach to help me with this stuff, I started opening the conversation in my community about money and I’ve learned a huge amount about the massive importance of being money literate and assured in my business so I want to share some of that with you in case you’re in that position too – where making money or talking about your work or selling or pricing feels hard. You’re not the only one, trust me.

 Why do we struggle to talk about money as women?

I think a large amount of our hesitation or fear of money conversations comes from women having been kept out of money conversations for many many years. It really is a new phenomenon in western society that women are able to earn good money on their own terms and have economic autonomy. It’s only in the last 40 years that we have been able to have our own bank accounts or mortgages in our names without male signatories. I imagine if you look down your family tree, there are only a few women who have been able to access the opportunities women now have to run their own businesses or work their way up in terms of earning.

So even though we have more access to earning money and having a financial say in our own lives, it makes sense that it still feels really taboo or new for women to be talking about this stuff because it IS still so new in terms of our access.

And when you’ve been kept out of the conversation for as long as we have, we naturally will feel timid about entering into it or feeling like we have any authority to do so.

And many of us have complicated relationships with money; with poverty, with debt, with guilt about our upbringings or privileges. Many of us women likely carry all of those experiences and feelings into our businesses and can recognise that they have an impact in how we show up, how we price, how we ask people to buy from us etc.  In order for us to get more comfortable with all of those things, we have to face them, acknowledge and own them as part of our story and also believe that it’s important for us to be paid for our work and to earn money with autonomy.

And our culture sends women messages about our relationships with money too, right? It plays us off as the spenders, the shoppers, demonising women’s relationship to money in really patronising ways. We also know that women who are financially successful are also scrutinised more, and the conflation rests in our mind that being a woman who makes money means you are going to be perceived as being less likeable. We know how much likeability can be a safety lever for us so we can see how women are likely to shrink when it comes to money because the risk of not being liked feels too much.

We also are managing the reality of seeing how money and power works in the world, and it doesn’t take long to observe that the accumulation and distribution of wealth is so screwed up and toxic. It has resulted in an individualised, patriarchal, capitalist society.

It’s likely that because of what we see now that our associations with money are that it can be detrimental and corruptive rather than being something that allow us freedom and greater opportunities to be generous, to change systems or create new and better ways of working.

And so with all that, it is natural that we fear money, or we fear what having money or asking for money will bring. Will it lump us into the same patriarchal, capitalistic society that we know isn’t good for the world? Will it show US to be unlikeable if we ask for things or desire more?

Women and money

What is crucial to know is that actually women operate really differently from men when it comes to wealth. Research shows women are naturally more generous, better at handling money than men and more attuned to using our money wisely and for good.

We are more likely to give to charity, give to more charities, and give more often.

Households headed by single females give 57% more to charity than those headed by single males.

Men tend to favour charitable contributions for their tax advantages. Women tend to give largely out of empathy and connection to certain causes.

Women in the top 25% of permanent income status give 156% more than men in the same category. 

One quarter of high net worth women support causes or organizations aimed at benefiting women and girls. They say that their number one motivation for this giving is their belief that it is the most efficient way to solve societal problems.

Women tend to view wealth as a means by which to articulate their value set.

DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS?! WE ARE TO BE TRUSTED. WOMEN ARE TO BE TRUSTED WITH MONEY!

And the only way we can turn things around in terms of how money is shared in the world is if we harness our courage and are brave enough to ask for what we want. To put our hands up and say, I’ll have that. I can trust myself to earn this.

We have an opportunity to reimagine how the world could look it we had more women earning money, creating new solutions to the worlds problems and getting paid for it. But to do that have to be willing to step into our own space and ask for what we want.

And even better, by doing this, we can begin to show younger women coming up in the world how women can earn money, have autonomy, shift inequality and use their earning power for good.

If we continue to shrink around money, neglect to offer our work out and keep our heads buried in the sand about this stuff It’s going to be harder for us to create a new collective narrative of the importance of women having equal earning power.

Why do we need to talk about money?

Here are some other REASONS WHY IT’S IMPORTANT for us to care about money and getting paid:

+ So we can offer the best and maintain your integrity.

When we get paid for what we do it allows us to bring ourselves to our work in a different way or energy. We show up differently when we feel like our work is valued well. Always doing stuff for free or discounted is going to lead to resenting your work and losing steam.

It’s also important because women need to be more integrated into economic spheres.

We need more women in boardrooms, making decisions for fairer worlds, investing in good, sustainable ways, having a seat at the table. We need more women using their money to create change, to even things out in our unbalanced world and enconomy!

+ So we have sustainable businesses to offer

Another reason it’s important for you to care about money and get paid for what you do is this reality: if you don’t, you will not have a business or offering to enjoy and serve. Plain and simple. If you continue to undercharge, not ask for what you want, not be clear about your money situation, you wont be able to continue doing the work that you love because you wont be able to afford to!

We also need to remember that when we offer our work out to people, we are giving others the opportunity to invest in things that might solve their problems or help them. Someone out there really needs and is ready to invest in you and whatever product or service you have to offer. Shrinking from money conversations is actually denying people the opportunity to get the thing they might really need from you! Don’t patronise people by playing small with your gifts and skills, assuming they won’t pay for them. You may have just what someone needs.

 + Because women can be trusted with money

And finally, this conversation is important because you are absolutely to be trusted to earn good money. You can trust yourself to remain the amazing, generous, creative person that you are if you ask for what you want. Selling what you do, offering your products out to people, pitching for business, calling in clients, earning money in ways that you never imagined does not change your goodness. You can be trusted to do that. In fact, we need you to do that.

I wonder if any of this is stirring something in you right now, or if you’re feeling a shift with how you’ve been feeling about earning money or asking for what you want in your business? I hope it injects a little courage into your soul today and I’d love it if you’d pass it on to a friend who needs that too.

FINDING THE TRUE SELF CARE THAT FEEDS YOUR CORE

Self care is really having a moment right now, isn’t it?

There are more anxieties and pressures in the world now more than ever and with the uncertainty of the last year to add into the mix, understandably we need to make time for ourselves now more than ever.

We all have so many responsibilities, people, causes and things vying for our attention, so it’s only good and right that we take a moment and think about how we might intentionally care for ourselves.

However what worries me about this is that often, particularly for women, self care becomes a ‘nice to have’ rather than a ‘necessity to take care of ourselves’, as for women it often becomes just an extra line on our list of things to do:

- Reply to that email – TICK

- Get groceries – TICK

- Check in on that friend that seemed off – TICK

- Set a reminder to register kids for xyz – TICK

- Book a call with the accountant – TICK

- TAKE CARE OF SELF – ummmmm….Ok?

And that last item just keeps getting pushed to the bottom of the list, to tomorrow, to next week, to half term and on and on. It’s never a priority we allow ourselves.

But I really think we’ve got it wrong when we view self care in this same task-driven way that we see other compartments of our lives. What this ends up doing is making self care another thing to feel pressured to do, to accomplish, to attain and yet we don’t put it at the top of the list because often as women, we don’t allow ourselves to put ourselves first.

It also then means, because we are human and are already stretched, we end up trying to look for shortcuts, hacks or tips to try and quickly dip our toes in, partially attempt it or even more worryingly – we commodify it as something that can be purchased. 

This is one of my concerns about self care and the way that it’s perceived. It’s become another sneaky capitalist-skewed way of operating that we have to buy into and consequently we think that’s the only way to take care of ourselves. This only depletes us more and actually heaps even more shame on us if we ‘don’t get around to the self care thing this week’. 

And we all know what happens when shame enters the room, right? We shrink. We feel immobilised.

Rather than the self care we think we have to buy into, I’m interested in a more nuanced conversation about what it really means to care for ourselves. And even beyond that, what does it really mean for us to care for ourselves and each other in meaningful, restorative ways?

Because caring for ourselves as a concept might not be as helpful as it sounds or as helpful as we’re all led to believe it is. It really puts so much pressure on us to be able to do that and to do it right, when the reality is that we need each other in order to feel nourished just as much as we need ourselves. This is a human instinct and to deny that moves us away from our biological, innate essence.

In Emily and Amelia Nagoski’s brilliant book - ‘Burnout: The Secret To Unlocking The Stress Cycle’ – they say this:

“No one is “complete” without other people—and we mean this literally. To be complete without social connection is to be nourished without food. It doesn’t happen. We get hungry. We get lonely. We must feed ourselves or die. We don’t mean you “need a man” or any kind of romantic partner. We mean you need connection in any or all of its varied forms. And it is also true that the lifelong development of autonomy is as innate to human nature as the drive to connect. We need both connection and autonomy. That’s not a contradiction. Humans are built to oscillate from connection to autonomy and back again.”

 So what we need is this more generous, supportive and rich way to understand self care and this comes in two parts:

1) Community care. This community aspect is realising that we need each other. We need to intentionally connect with our community and allow ourselves to be helped and cared for as well as doing that for others. We do this through deep honest friendships, surrounding ourselves with those who nourish us and whom we can nourish in return.

The second part comes in:

2) The Self aspect. And we think we already know this one, but I think we need to look deeper than just candles and Netflix (although I have no doubt that these are often an indulgence and escape that we need sometimes too!) But what if instead of looking for ways to escape our life so we can feel cared for, we look deeper at the ways in which we really find fulfilment to nurture ourselves? 

What if we choose to reflect on the experiences and moments in our life where we have felt in flow, in our element or when we have felt like we are living our purpose, then we dilute and dissect what elements of those experiences brought us to life and use this as our starting point. 

When we really pinpoint those moments that make us feel full up and alive, often things come up like: ‘when I’m able to create without pressure,’ or ‘When I’m bringing people together for a purpose,’ or ‘when I get to experience novelty or be spontaneous’. These things are our core experiences and they are telling us something about ourselves and what our bodies, minds and souls need to feel cared for and nourished.

Once you’ve identified these core experiences that nourish us then self care becomes less about fitting those things in that we feel we ‘have to do’ but more about seeing how we might be able to integrate these core parts of what we need into an aspect of it in our already full lives. It becomes less about a to-do list and more about a deep connection to our core nutrients, an awareness of what we need to look after our souls and really fee in our flow and like our true selves.

It’s only when we see these two aspects, community care and your core nutrients weaving together that we see self care become intentional. Once we have this understanding, the self-care conversation can become much more whole – so we look at not just where we need that community connection but also what our full self needs in order to feel fulfilled and in flow.

Here are a couple of things to consider as you incorporate self care into your lives:

- Where are you accessing community right now? Where are the spaces where you feel connected and cared for in community? Where do you have the opportunity to do this for others as well?

- What are the experiences in your past where you have felt most alive or fulfilled? What were the elements of that experience that really nourished you? 

- Make a list, and then have a look at where you can integrate those things into your life now. Not as another thing to do but as a way to allow yourself to be creative at caring for yourself in a deeper more meaningful and sustainable way.

3 SIGNS YOU MIGHT NEED TO SET SOME BOUNDARIES

Last year I made a promise to myself that I would not show up on social media unless I had something valuable to offer and was willing to give my time to responding and engaging with people about whatever it was I was sharing. (Those that witnessed my incredibly valuable utensil hack from last week on Instagram stories can attest to that. I jest).

Truthfully, I had begun to sense a real urgency cropping up within myself to always be present, to make sure I replied to everyone, to make sure my work, ideas or offers were visible and it was making me weary and resentful. There was an uneasy ‘hustle’ mentality creeping in and slowing contending for my peace.

There are plenty of business gurus out there that will give you information about how to build your audience, grow your business and be seen and heard. The information that is often lacking from these programmes, tips and hacks is how to do that and protect ourselves from burn out or blurry boundaries and it feels a bit irresponsible not to address it.

Boundaries are not sexy business talk. It is not the hot-topic-content that gets all the clicks and shares. Maybe that’s because all around us we are being sold quick fix solutions to what is actually really deep inner work. There is no cheat-sheet-freebie-offer for creating healthy boundaries, yet this is the foundation of a great, fulfilling, sustainable business and life.

When we are hopping around from thing to thing, saying yes to everyone, sharing all the details of our lives and being available for everyone, it is so easy to be distracted, drawn into things that don’t serve us and build a business or life on what we think we should be doing rather than what we know intuitively we really want to create and do.  

Since drawing that line for myself last year, I have noticed some significant changes: my follower count on Instagram is neither growing, nor is it important to me anymore. I am way less distracted by what other people are doing and way more sure of what I really want to say. I am attracting the kind of people to my work that I *really* love to work and collaborate with. I am much more at ease with the ebb and flow of my work. I am fixated on offering value and authenticity rather than what I think will get the most attention. And I know this is because I began to draw a line.

I know this isn’t something that just I struggle with (please know this is not something that is fixed for me; I need to check in with myself all of the time), because I work with women every day and I see and hear that this is common. Our boundaries are down the priority list and it shows in so many ways; in our mental health, in our bodies, in our relationships.

I want to offer three signs that might indicate your boundaries need to be updated to help you feel more at ease in your work and life; not to make you feel guilty or ashamed, but to offer you the opportunity to update these boundaries so that you can operate in a way that actually sustains the things that you really want to do in a way that feels true to you.

SIGN NUMBER 1: OVERSHARING

In this access-all-areas society, where we can glimpse into each others lives and peek behind the scenes at any given time, there is a real temptation to overshare.

What I mean by this is that sometimes our desire for connection can cause us to slip into sharing what is raw, rather than what is real. This culture of baring all because we know it will bring a reaction or a response is often rooted in a dependency of reaction and response from others. This is false intimacy, guised as vulnerability and confuses the importance of boundaries.

Sometimes, sharing what is raw can further compound what is going on for us; loneliness, jealousy, anger, resentment – and there’s never any certainty that we are going to get the response that we desire from what we share. Our rawness with people that don’t know us and the different nuances in our life can further our pain when their response (or lack of) doesn’t live up to our expectations.

Sharing what is real is different; it is sharing from a place of healing or a desire to connect because we know our own truth is likely to be helpful for others. We know we can share what is real when we have come to a place where other peoples responses to what we share aren’t critical to how we feel about it. We don’t owe anyone our vulnerability or an inside scoop. That is an honour that should be earned in relationships.

If we are oversharing or are revealing things about ourselves because of a dependency on praise or to rally the reactions of others, an update to boundaries might be needed.

SIGN NUMBER 2: ALWAYS BEING AVAILABLE

I don’t think there has ever been a point in history where humans have been more accessible to each other. At any given moment, there are no less than 10 ways that people can contact or invite interaction with us (comments, whatsapps, DM’s, email, phone, text, slack etc). Of course, this is an incredible gift! We can Facetime our friends in any country and we can attract and do business with people all over the world.

What is tricky about this is that our ability to be available is overwhelming us - quickly. If people are able to contact you any time of the day or night for your help, advice or service, they will. If we have not set clear parameters for when we are available and when we are not, we cannot expect other people to respect us. If we have not made it clear when we are off-duty or unavailable, this is not on other people to navigate, it’s on us. A sure sign of needing to update our boundaries is being overwhelmed with DM’s, facebook messages, emails, What’sApp groups and voicemails. Nobody can keep up with the speed of the communication train at this rate and it is burning us right out.

Being able to draw lines around when you will and will not be able to connect or engage is something only you can do and doing so is an invitation for respecting and preserving yourself and the attention you want to give to the most important things in your life.

SIGN NUMBER 3: SCARCITY + SAYING YES

I relate to this one really hard. I am a doer. I find it hard to not want to throw myself into all the things that look good, sound good and are shiny and new. I like people to like me and to be involved in #allthethings.  And I know I’m not the only one.

One of the things that has always been a big indicator to me that my boundaries have slipped into people pleasing is when I have said yes to doing something and then that thing comes around and everything within me wants to back out. And then I tell myself that I’m flaky for wanting to back out. Relate?

What’s behind this behaviour pattern is a sense of scarcity; both relational (if I don’t take them up on this, they may see me as cold/unlikeable) and maybe financial or positional scarcity (if I don’t say yes to this, I might miss out on the money, the exposure (!) or the opportunity may not come around again). Scarcity mentality is simply not trusting ourselves.

When we say yes to things that are outside of our lane, our own path and put other peoples’ requests of us ahead of the plans we have made for ourselves, we are saying that these things might be better than our own ideas and plans for ourselves. Saying yes when we mean no indicates that we don’t trust that what we really want to do is best.

We can break this pattern by cultivating more trust in our own ideas, our own plans; believing that they will hold up and bring us to the right things when the time is right.

If you are connecting with any of these signs, you are not defective - you are in good company! I’ve had dozens of conversations recently with brilliant women who know they need to update their boundaries for the sake of their sanity and you can too.