Today as I write this, I’m in a beautiful part of the country spending time doing things I love. I’m feeling successful that I’ve managed to create the space in my diary to do things I love doing. It’s mid-week and ordinarily I’d be at work.

My diary is pretty full and my task list for the next few days is fuller. Yet I’ve taken the time to do things I love. Today that’s what what does success mean to maya angelou liking yourself, liking what you do and liking how you do itsuccess means to me.

It’s not about work life balance for me. I guess it’s knowing what success looks like for me and ensuring it happens. If I don’t do things I love I become unhappy, grumpy with my family and my work suffers. I can feel it happening.

Yet, when I focus on all the things I love, that bring me joy, and focus on doing them, they happen. I create my own success in all parts of my life.

You might be wondering why I’m writing this when I could be out walking. That’s easy – I love writing too and I felt inspired to write my thoughts down as they came to me while having a coffee and piece of cake!

Last week, success for me was getting a website live! I focused on that and I achieved it.

What does success mean to you?

Some of my clients think I only want to hear about the business success goals when we have our coaching sessions. That’s only one part of the story though. I’ve always been concerned about the whole person who has lots of interests and ideas about what they love to do.

You may love your work, but I’m sure you love your hobby just as much! If I was to gift you 24 hours, how would you divide it up? With work? Doing your hobby? Spending it with people you love?

Just spend 5 minutes, (put a timer on) and let your mind wander. Dream if you prefer that description. What would YOU do with that 24 hours gift I’ve given you? Even if you think it’s impossible, write it down. Leave me a comment below what you’d love to do with that gift of time. I wonder what will come of that dream?

Success comes in many shapes and sizes

My family have for the last few years set out an intention for our main holiday of the year in the Christmas holidays. At the time it always felt impossible and each year we’ve made it happen. We’ve created our success by focusing on the dream we had.

Sportsmen and women achieve success and have their success measures. Scientists have their success measures. School children have theirs too with the grades and/or next step they’d love to achieve in life.

I’ve often found with business owners though that they’re not clear about their success measure. It’s not clear in their mind what they’re working to achieve. Which is why I guess, they’re finding it hard to achieve it!

When I’m told by a client, “I just want to treat more people as this is what I love doing”, it’s definitely not a SMART objective (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time bound), but to me the one who is listening to them it’s not clear. If they said, “I want to treat 10 people a week in my therapy room because I love working in that space helping others to heal”, that’s clear. They can see and feel the success when they achieve it.

Another client recently said, “I want to touch the lives of 1000 people this year”. I hear her enthusiasm. She’s got a clear success measure in her vision and is working to achieve it. I haven’t asked her yet how she’s going to measure that, as the work we all do will often have a ripple effect which it’s difficult to measure from where we currently sit.

If your success measure is “I want to earn £100,000 this year”, that’s clear. But I’d still be wanting you to qualify that – is that turnover, income after expenses and tax, money in your bank? I’ve had clients in the past who had a money success measure, but they’ve forgotten that by increasing their production and sale that their expenses would go up too! Being clear about what success means to you helps you focus on the things which will get you there.

Success in all parts of your life

When I’m coaching I sometimes use the life-wheel to help clients think about all aspects of their life. It helps to bring it to life that each part of our life makes the whole of our existence. If one part isn’t going so well it will have an effect on other parts of our life. For example if your relationships are going through a difficult patch, it’s unlikely that however much money you earn will feel like you’re being successful. If your physical health isn’t great right now, you may not being enjoying your work or hobbies as it’s a real effort to get there, or do the work.

So as I head back out to the rest of my day doing things I love doing – for me today it’s walking in the rain (it doesn’t have to be raining for me to enjoy walking!), I’d like you to think about all your measures of success in all parts of your life. Are you clear what they are? Do you need some help thinking things through? It often helps to talk your thoughts out loud to get real clarity. I’ve found that myself recently when I did a 5 day intention challenge – I was writing things in my journal exploring new ideas, but it was only when I spoke the thoughts out loud that I learnt there was more to it than the words I’d written.

Having a listener in your life, or someone to help you listen to yourself can be really helpful in getting your success measures and dreams really clear.

I look forward to hearing what your dreams are for your 24 hour gift of time in the comments below ? I’d love for you to make them happen too! Set your intention to create your success and you’re a step closer to getting there.

If you’d like to learn how to discover what success means for you as you listen to yourself, and how to create powerful intentions to achieve your success join the Intuitive Steps to Success course.