What Happens When You Redefine Success and Actually Mean It?
If you’re a business owner who’s ever felt like success is a moving target—or worse, someone else’s checklist—you’re not imagining it. In our work, in our systems, even in our inboxes, we’re handed silent rules about what a "real business" looks like. But what if you wrote your own definition of success—and made every decision from there?
That’s a question I wrestled with all season long, and it’s reshaped how I build, rest, and show up.
Redefining Success: More Than a Vision Board Exercise
One of the clearest shifts I’ve made is stopping to ask, weekly, does this feel like success to me? Not to the algorithm. Not to my industry. To me.
That led to archiving a service that looked fine on paper but drained me behind the scenes. It led to slowing down a client process that felt rushed. And it gave me language to honor creative time as business time—not an indulgence, but a necessity.
Real success? It’s about alignment, capacity, and energy.
Try this: Block 15 minutes this week to write your own success statement. Use prompts like:
What do I want my days to feel like?
What am I no longer willing to trade for revenue?
What rhythms feel nourishing right now?
Then—here’s the key—use that lens to adjust something real: your schedule, your client intake process, your offer list.
Boundaries Are Systems in Disguise
The second piece that kept surfacing was boundaries—not as a buzzword, but as an operational strategy. When Melody Johnson and Tainina Brown shared how they adapted their businesses to parenting and health realities, I realized I needed to do the same. Not just for sustainability, but for integrity.
So I adjusted client communication methods, baked more buffer into my calendar, and stopped apologizing for being unavailable on Mondays. That small shift protected my energy in big ways.
Try this: Think of one boundary you’ve been soft on—maybe around call times or client response windows. Update your onboarding, scheduler, or email templates to reflect that change. Boundaries don’t work if they’re invisible.
These aren’t quick fixes. They’re long-game recalibrations. But they’re worth it—because the more your business reflects your actual life, the more sustainable (and impactful) it becomes.
Want to hear more about how these themes showed up in real conversations? Season 8 of Here’s What I Learned is packed with stories from founders walking this same path. Head to the podcast for more.
