You cannot define success.
Since my early 20s I have always wanted to work for myself in some capacity. I want to create a business centred around helping people with their mindset. This is something that I'm passionate about and actually have a lot of knowledge on. I'm always talking about what I want to do and why I want to do it, but up until recently I never had the guts to start.
Somebody close to me recently said to me, “you clearly don't want it bad enough” as a reason to why I hadn't already started. This hurt me because there was a lack of understanding behind it.
There's a lot more to it than that because my brain works a lot differently. I've had days where I would numb out and not do anything, whilst yelling at myself internally to get off my arse and do something. To no avail.
I want to do things, I do, but my brain is often working against me in these situations. Scrap that, my brain is actually protecting me. Protecting me from failure, confusion, working things out, from actually doing something different. My brain is using comfort as a way to stop me from getting hurt. I'm not actually going to get hurt, but my brain doesn't know that. My brain is on survival mode and this is how I've coped for so long now.
This has caused frustration for myself more than anything. I know that I've got what it takes to do whatever I want with my life. It's the pressure that stops me. It's my brain trying to protect me from failure. It's not that I don't want it bad enough. I just want it so badly that my body goes into freeze mode at the thought of even going through with it.
This is something that I'm actively working on. I am hoping to share more of this on my journey, but it got me thinking about how society has labeled goals. Why do you always have to be working towards something? At what point does it become toxic productivity? What's wrong with living and seeing where life takes you? Why is it seen as such a badge of honour that you're mister no days off?
Some people are wired to grind and enjoy it. I am not. There's definitely a pressure to be that type of person, but in reality, you don't have to do it if you don't want to. Society isn’t living your life, you are. You know what works for you and what doesn’t, and if you don't know, then you can try out different things and see. It means you have to actually try things.
I'll admit, I wasn't trying anything. I was stuck in the survival mode of what was comfortable for me because that was what I was used to. That is not enough to take away the validity of my dreams though. We've all got our own hopes, dreams and aspirations. How we go about achieving those is nobody's business but our own.
You can be successful and grind, you can be successful and flowy, and you can be successful and survive the day. We're all going through our own individual battles. You cannot put a definition on success - it means something different to each and every one of us.