The other day I read an article by
titled “Why are some people so successful?”.It got me reflecting on how the concept of success has drastically evolved for me through the years, especially since becoming a mum, and how it varies depending on circumstance (creating a sort of paradoxical success).
When thinking of the term success, most people spontaneously associate it with monetary success, which is often coupled with higher status.
Someone whom we consider successful is someone that we can see have any of the metrics of what we imagine a successful person to have.
That can be:
A big house
An expensive car
Branded clothes
A good job
And in today’s social media age: A lot of followers.
What’s interesting is that many influencers don’t make a lot of money. But because they fall into one of the modern categories of what being successful means; they still “pass the line” in the eye of the public.
It’s legitimate to consider the achievement to grow an audience a success because it’s something that the majority don’t do.
But the fallacy occur when assuming that there’s an accompanying monetary success with the heightened social status.
It becomes a paradox where one doesn’t have to mean the other (and vice versa).
That may be why many feel as though they’ve got a knife pointing towards their throat to be able to keep up with an image (which to some extent has been self-inflicted if we talk about social media).
What about being a successful writer?
Depending on what niche you’re in, the metrics for success become more specific.
For example, in the writers, space the goal is usually to get published.
As someone who have experience with both indie and traditional publishing it’s interesting how the traditional publishing route still holds a generally higher status despite being 1) less lucrative (unless you’re in the top 1%) 2) slower and 3) less personal.
If you’re able to build your own audience and market your self published book to that audience in whatever form that you find best, you’ll have a much greater chance of making big bucks compared to being published the old school way.
Furthermore you’ll get to build a direct contact with your readers, which is one of the things that drew me to publish here on Substack.
I can’t neglect that traditional publishers take care of putting you in the big book stores. But unless you’re a hyper celebrity you’ll still have to pull the wagon of marketing that book. And for what? Maybe 10-15% royalties (after they’ve cut expenses!).
This, ones again, indicates that status isn’t always parallel to monetary compensation. You can have success in achieving a dream, assume it to be published by a recognised publisher, while still being “unsuccessful” in making a living solely as a writer.
Unsuccessfully being successful
What if you end up in the top 1%? Then you must be immune to a lack of confidence and feeling of failure, right?
I was fascinated to discover
‘ (best-selling author of five books including The starving artist and more) last blog post on his website goinswriter.com where he describes how he got trapped in a never ending loop of entertaining the success.As a result he felt miserable. The accumulating external success, including a raise x2 year by year for 5 consecutive years, became less and less meaningful.
The question then becomes, is it still being successful if you don’t find meaning or joy in your success?
Success is relative just like happiness
I think that success and happiness have become very blown up words in our modern societies. They put incredible stress and pressure on people, which causes everyone to feel like they are in a constant lack because they aren’t successful enough or happy enough.
That doesn’t mean that one should stop striving for those things. But it wouldn’t be a bad thing to also accept the other side of the coin. There will be highs as there will be lows.
The only constant in life is that it’s never constant.
You can love to be a mum, while simultaneously find it incredibly difficult and challenging.
You can be unsuccessful in putting down baby for a nap while simultaneously be successful being present with your children that day.
Success and lack thereof aren’t mutually exclusive events. Instead I believe them to be living harmoniously in a sort of “success paradox”.
Furthermore, your perception of success is only relative to your own experience. This means that what’s success in someone’s eyes can be lack thereof in another’s.
For example, following the success theme
wrote a piece about her dream to become a full-time journalist at a magazine.At first I was very confused. After what seems like a great lot of external independent success (published author, thousands of readers here on Substack and so on), how could come that she dreams to go to an office and work for someone else?
But then it hit me; This is another aspect of success and how it evolves and VARIES for each individual depending on where they’ve been, where they’re at and where they wish to go.
Not only does it vary between individuals but also between societies and cultures.
A sad example is how in at least the western cultures, women aren’t receiving nearly the success status they deserve for being mothers. It simply isn’t recognised as a great feat. Instead women are being pushed to be everything at once, which contributes to the feeling of never ending inadequacy. No wonder there are so many who hits the wall… Mums have super-powers but we also have limits.
I root for you mama.
How to instantly feel more successful
Whenever I end up in a negative spiral of feeling inadequate both with work and family life I try to take a paus and think: Am I feeling inadequate because I focus on what I don’t have/or didn’t do or for some other reason?
In 99.9% of the cases, feelings of failure as opposed to success are due to focusing on the wrong thing.
As soon as I recognise the pattern I try to shift back by naming concrete things that I have. This allows me to practise both presence and gratitude while simultaneously feeling more successful.
You should give it a try!
I’d love to hear your thoughts on success and how you make yourself feel more successful in your everyday life, please leave a comment below!
Elin x
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Love this. Especially the bit about self-publishing verses traditional. I have also done both, and have enjoyed both experiences for the reasons you describe. But I especially loved self-publishing for the pace and creative freedom. Also your piece about mothers deserving more recognition: YES. I have a note on this (the matriarch) in a piece about ‘selfishness’ that will go out next week x