What does success mean to you? I was surprised by my answer. Is there a way to live life from the heart and still find success?
Last week, I sat at the table with my friend, talking about success. My final conclusion, albeit a “shameful” one (the spiritual part of me wishes it was nobler): I measure success by the amount of money one has—or I have. In short, as long as I don’t have a certain amount of income, I don’t feel successful.
If I had abundant money in my bank account and could travel to whatever part of the world, buy the products and quality food I wanted, and participate actively in life and the world, I would feel successful. It’s interesting because I always thought I measured success by how many people know me (aka the Instagram or TikTok mindset) or how many people read my blog. But it’s not. It’s financial freedom—someone free of financial worries.
That’s success for me. And it’s one of my goals.
I don’t like this feeling I have now, where I feel uncomfortable getting a massage because it costs 70 pounds even though I’m in a lot of pain. I want Anja and her body, both of whom I love, to have a better life. I want them to have pleasures, enjoy themselves, and treat themselves to little moments of “luxury”.
I’m, for example, super excited to go to Berlin with my friends next week. We’re going to a festival. I haven’t done something like this in 9 years. The last holiday I remember with friends was in 2015 when Sandra and I went to a Christmas Market in Budapest. At least, I think that was the last time. Or else I’d be a couple of months before, in August 2015, when I went to Cannes with friends. At that time, I didn’t think about money. I liked that.
We all had office jobs and cars. I’d travel a lot at that time. It made me feel free. And I liked that too.
Of course, I wasn’t 100% happy, or I’d still be there, enjoying that life. No, something inside me was pulling my sleeves, nagging me that this life I came here to live was about more than just that: weekends away and holidays with friends.
That something wanted me to go out into the wild world and find myself.
By finding myself, I mean challenging myself.
In the eight years I lived and worked in London as a freelance hair & makeup artist, I was brought to my core more times than I can count. And as I quickly learned, it’s here that you get to know yourself. Here, you get to shake hands with your most inner and authentic self.
BDW in this context “core” moments, mean situations that connect you to your core. They hurt, ache and are uncomfortable. It’s not scratching the surface stuff; it’s the things that go deeeeep.
So here I am, sitting on my sofa in a pretty decent flat in London that has swallowed my savings, contemplating success and what it means to me.
And I have it again, this nagging feeling. This thing pulling my sleeves and telling me there is more to life than this right here.
I have an idea in my gut—of course, I do—but let me not overshare until I book the thing. This is mainly because I’ve learned that I can have an idea, and then life comes and says, ‘Nope, this is where you go’—and I make a 180.
So yes, the pulling is back, and what else can I do but allow it to guide me? Like a child pulling its parent on the sleeves to go play.
Because that’s what this feels like to me. My soul wants to go play.
Life and the lessons we continue to face fascinate me. Even though I write all of this down, I’m aware my relationship with money and success won’t change from one day to the next.
But I know myself, and I know I can sit with something until it’s fully developed. This time, I actually know what the end result could feel like—I want to see abundance for what it is: a frequency.
Something untouchable and yet within and all around us. Something soft and fluid.
The more I learn not to grip and instead relax into it, the better I’ll feel.
Of course, there’s a reason I sat down today to write about the meaning of success. This morning, I had a “momentary” fall back into a habit I’m trying to shake off (with great difficulty, clearly): scrolling through Instagram and comparing my life with others.
I got onto this girl’s profile who I’ve worked with in the past, and here’s the thought that spun me around like a tornado:
‘She’s a hairstylist like I am, and she already bought a flat by the time she was 30! With her own money. She’s more successful than I am.’
Anja, real quick, 2 things:
One: Stop. Stop. Stop comparing yourself to others. For the love of God, stop comparing yourself. We all have different life stories, and you know this. Everyone’s evolution in life is different. We all have a different timeline.
Two: You don’t know the whole story. Your source of information is Instagram. Let it go.
Final thoughts:
Stop chasing after someone else’s life.
Start living your own.
Stop comparing yourself to others.
Start comparing yourself to who you once were.
Stop chasing after money (aka your version of success).
Start living from the heart. It knows what real success looks like. (Even if, right now, you don’t know it yet.)
Also, let your inner child pull your sleeve and bring you to magical places. She probably knows better, anyway.
Lots of love,
Anja
✨How does success look like to you?✨
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