Tag Archive for: Redefining Success

Redefining Success: After the Climb

Listen to the full podcast episode to learn about the science-backed practice that has not only changed my life but also the lives of countless people over the last two decades. This is something you can’t ignore if you want to achieve that great goal you identified for this year and write your new future.

Lately, I’ve been sitting at dinner tables, over coffee, and on coaching calls, with people of all walks of life who are wrestling with this one big question: 

What does success mean to you now? 

Not the definition you wrote in a vision statement two decades ago. Not the version you inherited from your family. Not what our culture flashes at you. I mean today, in this season, in your life as it is right now. 

And here’s what I’ve been noticing: many of us have climbed mountains, launched dreams, built families and meaningful careers, but still feel uncertain. Still feel a pressure within to chase more. So, let’s pause. Let’s reevaluate. And let’s talk about what success really looks and feels like after the climb. 

In this episode, I’ll walk you through redefining success based on your current season, explain why it matters, discuss how it can change your life, and show you how to start today.

Outdated Definitions

Many of us are still chasing a version of success we defined 20, 30, even 40 years ago before we got married, had children, experienced losses, growth, aging, and healing. Back then, success was measured by numbers, applause, promotions, visibility, and tangible “wins.” Those things aren’t bad. They got us here.

But somewhere along the way, we stopped updating the definition.

We see the perfectly curated images of other people’s lives, vacations, houses, and careers, and we subconsciously compare, even if we don’t realize it. What we’re often left with is this vague, sticky feeling that something’s off. 

It’s like talking with someone who you think is roughly your age, and then realizing that they’re a couple decades younger than you. You haven’t updated your perspective of who you’ve become…and there’s a good chance your definition of success hasn’t changed or been refined either. 

Most people don’t notice the mismatch until they’re deep in midlife, seasoned in their professions, and yet, find themselves strangely unfulfilled by the same things that once motivated them.   

Redefining Your Success

This isn’t just about career. It’s also about how we define success in our relationships, in our health, in our sense of peace.

I know that for me, success used to be seen as a specific accomplishment, something tangible and measurable.  

For one woman I spoke with, success used to be about proving her leadership in a family business. But as she reflected, she realized she hadn’t given herself credit for the years of preparation and impact she’s already made. It didn’t “count” because it hadn’t been tested or couldn’t be measured yet. She hadn’t redefined success beyond tangible accomplishments.

Another father shared with me that he had always envisioned success for his children in terms of academic and career milestones, until someone asked him what success would look like in his relationship with his daughter. That shook something loose in him. 

He realized it wasn’t about grades or trophies that mattered the most. It was about being close, being trusted, and being a safe place his daughter could turn to, not just a checklist of accomplishments.

Success is no longer just about “doing more.” For many of us, it now means doing less but with specific intention. 

It can also mean quieting down rather than ramping up. 

Simplifying instead of amplifying. 

What Success Feels Like, Not Just What It Looks Like

Before answering what success looks like, you would be better served to step back and first ask, What does success feel like? Is it calm? Connection? Aliveness? Confidence? Joy?

Before I moved to support my son in a new place for nine months, I didn’t just create a vision for what I wanted the experience to look like; I defined what I wanted it to feel like: being fully engaged, having meaningful moments, connecting with new people, and feeling calm and full. That’s how I knew I was living my success.

For me, success isn’t about applause or income brackets. 

It’s depth over display. 

It’s meaningful conversations. 

It’s rest without guilt. 

It’s saying “no” and not needing to explain. 

And the best part—if you’re like many— when you update your definition of success, you may realize…

You’ve already arrived.

Write Your Own Definition

In the unique energy of this season, carve out a moment for yourself. Grab a pen and your journal and answer:

  • What do I want to feel more of in my day-to-day?
  • If I let go of inherited expectations, what would success look like now?
  • Success to me used to mean ____. Today, success means  ____.

Success might be sitting around your dinner table. It might be the quiet moment after a good conversation with your child. It may be a case of choosing not to do something because you no longer need to prove anything.

Redefining or updating your definition of success doesn’t mean you stop achieving.

It means you stop building your life around a version of success that doesn’t inspire you or feel good anymore.

Let this be your invitation to pause, redefine, and live into the version of success that makes you feel good based not on who you used to be, but who you are right now.

In this episode, I share:

  • Why your old definition of success might be outdated, and how you can realign success with who you are today.
  • How to shift from accomplishment-driven success to feeling-driven success.
  • Why it’s essential to redefine success in the current season of your life.
  • Stories from others who are redefining success for themselves

Resources and related episodes:

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts for more tips, tools, and inspiration to lead the optimal vision of your life, love, and leadership. Remember, a half version of you is not enough. The world needs the fullest version of you at play.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

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About Rita Hyland

With over 20 years of experience as an executive and leadership coach, Rita helps leaders — emerging and established — excel in corporate and entrepreneurial environments.

Rita believes if leaders were more clear about how transformation really works and more intentional about creating what they want, their impact, success, and influence in the world would be unstoppable.

Through her coaching programs, private coaching, and masterminds, Rita shows leaders how to win consistently and create the impact and legacy they desire.

Central to Rita’s work is the understanding that you will never outperform your current programming, no matter how strong your willpower.

When you learn to use Rita’s proprietary Inside Out Method, a technology that uses the best of neuroscience and transformational psychology to hit the brain’s buttons for change, YOU become both the solution and the strategy.

Her mission is to end talented, hard-working, and self-aware leaders spending another day stuck in self-doubt or confusion and not contributing their brilliant work and talent the world so desperately needs.

Looking For What’s Next? Move the Needle by Defining Success After the Climb

 

For over a year, I’d been trying to out-row, out-run, and out-pace my workout partner at Orange Theory.

Same energy. Same stride. Same season of life… right?

Wrong.

One day, in casual conversation, she dropped a detail that stopped me cold: she was 20 years younger.

Like 2-0.

Turns out, I had been competing—unknowingly—with someone two decades younger than me.

I laughed out loud. But later, I couldn’t help thinking… how many other places in life am I still operating from an old point of reference?

When was the last time I updated my definition of success?

For many of us, the version of success we’re still chasing is the one we chose when we started the climb—20, 30, even 40 years ago.

But what if it doesn’t fit anymore?

What if that ambition that once fueled us… Now gets in the way of enjoying what we’ve already built?

What if “more” isn’t the answer?

I talk to so many leaders who reach a moment like this.

They’ve built incredible careers, businesses, and lives.

But they’re still quietly asking:

Why doesn’t this feel like I thought it would? Why do I feel a pressure to continuously ‘scale up’?

They’re pushing for growth, scale, accomplishment—but wondering when the striving will start to feel like success.

I was speaking recently with a woman in a family business. She’s worked for over a decade to evolve the company and her leadership.

When her sister acknowledged her impact, she responded, “But my work hasn’t been validated yet.”

What she was saying was that she didn’t have the metrics yet to consider it a success. She, therefore, wouldn’t allow herself to fully feel successful.

It was at that moment she realized her definition of success hadn’t caught up to who she’d become. She was measuring by metrics that no longer mattered.

Another conversation, this time with a father. He’d always believed success for his kids looked like this: Play sports. Get the grades. Go to the right college. Get the job. Accomplish.

But when asked what success might look like in his relationship with his daughter—not her achievements, but their actual relationship—he paused.

He realized he’d never considered success that way.

That maybe, now, it looks like being close.
Being trusted.
Being a safe place to land.

He said that moment flipped everything for him.

We all need those moments.

Moments when we stop and ask:

Is what I’m chasing still what I want? Or is it just what I inherited… or who I used to be?

Redefining or updating your definition of success doesn’t mean you stop achieving.

It means you stop building your life around a version of success that doesn’t inspire you or feel good anymore.

For me, success used to be about accomplishments. Measurable. Tangible.

But today?

Ambition looks like doing less, not more.
It’s quieting down, not ramping up.
It’s choosing peace over performance.
Presence over productivity.

And I’m starting to believe:

Maybe success isn’t something you chase.
Maybe it’s something you define—and then live into.

Try this. In the unique energy of summer, carve out some time to reflect on these:

  • What do I want to feel more of in my day-to-day—and what does that say about success for me now?
  • If I let go of the definitions I inherited—from culture, family, or my past self—what does success feel like now?
  • Where in my life or leadership do I feel most aligned today—and how might I build my definition of success around that?​

Here’s the truth I’ve come to:

You don’t need an article written about you, a title, or a viral post to be living a successful life.

You just need alignment with who you are today.

You need peace. You need to feel like you’re exactly where you’re meant to be.

And the best part—if you’re like many— when you update your definition of success, you may realize…

You’ve already arrived.

All my best,

~Rita

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