Work
Success
Work & Finance
Health & Wellness

Redefine Success

Discover self-acceptance and self-worth beyond your accomplishments.

Ambitious people care deeply about their work. Work consumes most of our adult lives. It brings purpose, meaning, prestige, impact, and social connection. But it also comes with hidden costs. Sacrificing your health, friendships, happiness, and presence - often for the promise of a bigger paycheck. But you are not your work. Learn how to build a healthy portfolio of habits, identities, and desires.

1. Define success on your terms. Create your "Success Statement" with five ways to measure your success. Incorporate who you spend time with, how you spend your days, how you feel, and what you genuinely care about.

Our culture has simplified the definition of success to “stuff”. Money, houses, and all that we own. Then there's status and power. But that's a lazy approach to success. It's accepting someone else's (flawed) definition.

2. Recognize conditional self-love. Write about a time you gave yourself conditional self-love; how did you recognize it, and what did you do to refocus that?

You'd never tell your child, "I'll only love you if you become successful." Yet our inner dialogue often uses career milestones as markers of self-worth. We go further by withholding love for ourselves unless we do things that are hard or perceived as extraordinary. Maybe you use this to motivate you to run a marathon. Or to push you to work hard for that promotion. Those aren't bad outcomes, but using your self-love as the catalyst leads to burnout and anxiety. Recognize when you do this.

3. Optimize for aliveness. When was the last time you felt alive? When time melted away and you were deeply immersed in an activity or conversation.

We can get too focused on "wins" that we end up dead inside. In our cubicles. In front of our screens. It's time for you to rediscover that aliveness. You're surrounded by it. Pay attention to it, and be present. Aliveness is what makes life worth living.

Open Guide in Reflection.app

Khe Hy

Founder and CEO RadReads
We help ambitious professionals lead more productive, examined, and joyful lives.

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