“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

This is the #1 question we as kids got asked. And if you answered something like astronaut or actress or ballerina, people would cheer you on and say, “That’s amazing, follow your dreams!” 

As you moved through life, you noticed that the layers of creativity and curiosity of being a child started to shed. 

School taught you that you had to memorize facts and mathematic formulas to succeed in life. Your parents tell you to be a doctor, lawyer, or engineer so that you’ll make a lot of money. People said to you that you had two choices: do what makes you happy or do what makes you money.

There was no way the two could exist at the same time. Because that’s childish and irresponsible. 

The dreams of being an astronaut, actress, and ballerina became unrealistic. No one actually becomes those things, right? 

You internalized everything you heard from your parents, caregivers, teachers, and current events and decided that “following dreams” was just for other people but not you, right?

Wrong. 

If everyone thought this way, astronauts, actresses, and ballerinas wouldn’t exist.

If you believe that success means:

- going to college,

- getting a degree in something that you think will bring you a lot of money, and 

- finding a job that will make you wealthy

...then that’s what you’ll have to do to be successful.

How you define success will determine how successful you’ll be. In other words, you’re going to live up to your own expectations of what you think success means. 

What is success?

Okay, so what comes to mind when you think of success? 

Maybe business attire, money, yachts, private jets, champagne, or designer handbags? 

Society has made us believe that success = wealth. And that this is the definition of success that we should claim. 

It’s like an automatic response. 

“What does success mean?” - “Money and glamour.” 

This isn’t anything new. We’ve grown up equating success with money because we were taught from our parents, and our parents were taught that from their parents, and so on. 

But success is subjective. And your definition of success will determine how successful you’ll be.

To most people, success means you’ve made it. Made it where, though? To the invisible, nonexistent top that’s apparently only reachable to a limited number of people?

Everything is a perspective, and when you live life according to someone else’s perspective, that’s when things get super messy. 

We tend to place success into this box where it has one general meaning. Only people who meet specific standards can be successful. 

Success doesn’t have to be wealth or money or fancy clothes. It can be healing or chasing passions or stepping out of comfort zones. 

Success can be whatever you want it to be. And it doesn’t have to fit the societal narrative. 

You can define success however you want, which means that you’ll be living up to your own standards. Not your parents’. Not your friends’. Not society’s. 

Yours. 

If you think money and wealth mean success, then that’s what you’ll need to have to feel successful. 

If you think happiness and joy mean success, then that’s what you’ll need to have to feel successful. 

It all depends on how you define success. 

No one can tell you you’re unsuccessful if you’re living up to your own expectation of success. It’s so liberating to know this. 

You are the standard of success. 

You set the bar for your own life. And being successful is whatever you want it to be. 

People will make you feel like being successful only means making it to the “top” and being wealthy. 

If success means wealth to you, that’s okay. And if it doesn’t, that’s okay too. 

You’re successful for just being you. 

You get one life as you, so do what brings you joy! 

Love, 

Sangeetha