The Evolution of Success
Heyyy Friends!
Long time, no talk, I know! I told yall last time life had been life’ing right? Well, I’m still in that season. But, what I’ve been reminded of over and over recently is that “even when life is life’ing; God still gon be God!” Even in the midst of grief, chaos, confusion, and the potential for WWIII– God still sends reminders that He is in complete control! I hope that this post will serve as another reminder to you that God is with you and He hears you!
As promised, I want us to get into the gem from my last post that discussed– “the importance of adjusting our definition of success based on the season of life that we are currently in”.
Have you ever been in a space in life where it felt like things just weren’t going the way you had planned? Maybe you took time to write out goals for the year and at the halfway point you realized things were turning out very differently than you expected? Perhaps, like me, you’ve had moments where you allowed comparison to creep in and make you feel like you were behind the curve. You felt like you were not doing enough. So as a result you busy yourself praying, manifesting, and searching for ways to get your reality to line up with your expectations. I’ve definitely been in that space a time or two (or three, shoot just a few weeks ago to be honest, lol).
Recently in therapy, I processed these feelings with my therapist (yes, therapists go to therapy-stop judging lol) and you know what she asked me?! “How do you define success? What does that really look like to you, Jewelle?” This was my homework, I had to sit with it and figure out what success looks like to me. Like most of you, I thought something general like good health, family, money, and stability. As I began to process this further, God convicted me. He told me “your definition of success has to change based on the season you’re in”. It hit me like a ton of bricks!
I instantly recalled when I was wrapping up maternity leave and preparing to return to my business. My thought was “I’m going to ease back into it, but when 2022 hits, I’m coming in hot!” I had planned to open more slots in my practice, accept more clients, and get back to being the busy bee that I was used to being. When 2022 came and God kept telling me “not yet”, I grew restless and felt I wasn’t doing enough. I wasn’t “successful” because I wasn't “maxing myself out” as I was accustomed to doing.
Here’s the point: Your definition of success must evolve as you do and should be based on the season of life that you’re in.
Failure to adjust our perspective will cause us to miss the beauty in the blessing of our current season. If God is calling you into a season of rest or preparation, but you’re wanting to go forth and grind; you’re meeting the current season with resistance (saying that this should not be or judging it as wrong) and you will continue to struggle/ suffer. When navigating different seasons of our lives it is important to reassess our goals and the feasibility of achieving them at that time. Oftentimes we become so rigid in the timelines that we set to achieve our goals. This can be seen in our expectations around marriage, children, and our careers– anything that doesn’t match those ideals in our heads feels like a deficit or is viewed as unsuccessful because it doesn’t look the way we thought it would.
Major Key Alert: Seek God, sit in YOUR season, and assess what success looks like for YOU based on what He says and not what YOU see!
