Episode 33: Write Your Own Definition of Success - The Success Series, Part 1 of 4
Ya’ll know I love a good theme, so for the month of October, we’re going to be talking about SUCCESS. What that looks like, what it means, and, how you can not only create success in your business, but, most importantly, write your own definition of what success looks like for YOU.
I knooooow you want to get to the HOW episodes - and trust me - those are coming! But today’s episode, Write Your Own Definition of Success, is the most important because it’s the building block to all of the rest.
And this is super timely as we are getting ready to launch into the Personal Stylist’s Biz Bootcamp 6 Week Intensive and the very first module is about this specific topic. Your mindset and how you frame and reframe every experience you have in your business, including how you think of success, is what makes a great entrepreneur.
Here’s are 3 reasons why I believe writing down your own definition of success is important:
YOU are your own barometer for determining whether you’re a success or failure.
YOU are your only competition.
YOU get to choose what success values you are measuring
When we measure our success against someone else, we will always fall short.
You are the only one who can tell someone else or prove to yourself that you are successful. Someone else can tell you they think you’re successful, but if you don’t believe yourself that you’re successful, it won’t matter.
So let’s talk a little about what success means. A lot of times when we say someone is successful - what we really mean is they’re rich, they’re famous, they’re on magazines, their Instagram stories show them always working with clients.
But what we don’t see is the other side of that coin. Many “successful” or even famous people don’t FEEL that way. Or they feel even more burdened by their success. They feel trapped, tied down.
What I want to suggest to you is that you recreate your definition of success to reflect your core values - another exercise we do in the Bootcamp because we’re not just creating businesses - we’re creating profitable and successful businesses.
I personally have grappled with this idea of what is successful - when will I know that I am successful? I’ve had people say they look at me and see success, but I’ve also, very recently, struggled with seeing that success in myself.
Last year when I was going through my divorce, I took 6 months off of my business. I was down on myself, calling myself fa failure because it wasn’t where I thought I should be, or having the clients I wanted.
I remember being in the middle of a trail run and thinking about this and catching myself - to say hold up Sydney. It’s the middle of the day, you’re out running on a trail. You don’t work at a 9-5 desk job. You are out in nature and have immense freedom and space - two of your core values.
So I rewrote my own definition of success:
Success is being able to impact people while creating a lifestyle that supports freedom and travel.
That definition of success holds true whether I’m making $1,000 a month, $5,000 a month or $500,000 a month. If I were making $500,000 a month, but had to sit at a desk 9-5 (even a desk of my own making) and couldn’t travel, or take walks, or be in nature, I’d be miserable. That would not be success to me.
While you are building your styling business, I want to challenge you to also write out your definition of success. Center it around your core values and create a business that SUPPORTS that, not sucks the life out of you. I don’t think you started your business to just have it feel like another job.
And it can QUICKLY get that way if you are guarding your own definition of success, creating an intentional business, or are constantly looking at what other people are doing to gauge how you are successful.
I want to share a few stories from stylists who are a part of our membership because this is something we all struggle with.
There is the stylist who thought that to be successful, she had to offer close clean outs, outfits and Shopping. When she was able to restructure what it meant for her to be a successful stylist within the context of her full time job that she loved, her family with two small children, she was able to take the pressure off and totally restructure her offering.
There is the stylist who referred to her business as a side hustle and felt that because it was so fun and easy for her, she wasn’t truly a business owner and therefore not successful. She had to rewire that so that her definition of success became being able to do a job she loves, one that comes easy to her for a handful of select clients.
There is the stylist who worked part-time because she was a mom and wanted to care for her kids. The notion that because she wasn’t “full-time” and therefore wasn’t successful came up repeatedly until she was able to own her own definition: that working as a stylist for 15-20 hours a week was successful for her because it gave her a creative outline AND let her be an awesome mom.
I want to reiterate. You are not competing with anyone. You are literally 1 in a billion people on this planet - your version of what success looks like will never look like anyone else’s. How many hours you work, or don’t work, where you work from, how many clients, you have, how much you charge - all of that is relative, and depends on what lights YOU up.
I want to close this episode by asking you to do 2 things:
Write out a list of your core values
Craft your own definition of success.
Write it on post it notes, keep it by your computer. This is your guiding light for all that you will do in your business!
In the upcoming podcast episodes, we are going to cover the 3 S’s that I believe you need to have in order to be successful - once you’ve created that definition.