Who are you letting define your success?

A lot of us have ideas about what it means to be successful. Maybe it’s having a certain subscriber count on YouTube, or maybe a specific number of followers on Instagram, or maybe it’s a monetary goal. But we all have an idea of what it means to be successful. My suggestion for you is to think about where did that idea of success came from. Did it come from you or did it come from an outside force?

I think a lot of times we let other people define what success means for us. For example, someone  somewhere decided that having 1 million subs on YouTube was “successful” and so now we’re all aiming for that. But why? If you have 2,000 subscribers who love and watch your videos and leave you comments....why are you discounting them? Why are you saying “sorry guys you don’t really count that much.” Imagine you went to give a talk and 100 people showed up to hear what you had to say wouldn’t you think that’s incredible? But we get 100 views or likes and we feel disappointed? That’s absurd!

Here’s what I want you to do: Think about your goal and then think about why you want it. So if you want 1 million YouTube subcribers ask yourself “why”. Maybe it’s because you want to make a living from your YouTube channel. Okay great, but then ask “is there any other way I could achieve that goal?” Of course there is! Having a huge subscriber count and making money from ads definitely isn’t the only way. You could try Patreon or maybe create a product to sell that your supporters could buy. If you need $2000 a month, you just need 400 people to give you $5 a month. That’s totally doable without a million subs!

So stop focusing on the milestones that society or your peers think you should hit and start focusing on how you want to feel, what your real goal is, and *all* the different ways you can make that possible.

Fatigue

I read this quote recently in The Four Pillar Plan (by @drchatterjee) and it really made me pause and think. Think about an entrepreneur. What comes to mind? Someone who is busy. Someone who is working all hours. Someone who hustles.

We talk about how tired we are all of the time — how much we are working, how long it's been since our last day off — and we talk about it almost with a sense of pride. Sure we know we shouldn’t be doing it, but we’re living that #bizlife and isn’t it great?

We get sick and run down but we don't listen to what our body is telling us. We get back up as soon as we've recovered and hit the grindstone just as hard.

Where is the focus on sustainable? Where is the focus on self-care? Where is the badge of honour for the woman who starts work at 9am and finishes at 3pm and then enjoys an afternoon of rest, not once in a while but every day?

TIRED. BUSY. STRESSED.

These are not words to aspire to. These do not deserve badges. These are not the words of a successful entrepreneur. These are the words of a person who has no systems, is overworked, is pushing too hard, is on the path to burnout.

WELL RESTED. FEELING GREAT. ENJOYING MY FREE TIME.

That's what we need to aspire to and not just for a day or two when we've been working too hard for too long. It's what we need to aspire to every single freaking day.

How to Get Items Off Your To-do List

If you're like me, you find it really easy to make lists but really hard to get things done and off that list. I used to joke that I made lists just to have something to rebel against. I know what to do, I know what my goals are, but I struggle with the execution. 

However, recently (after a lot of introspection and working with Tara Swiger through her Starship program),  I was able to develop some tricks to help me get things done and I want to share them with you! 

1. Know your "why". Know what your goal is and why you want to achieve it. If you're a rebel like I am, you really struggle to do anything that you don't want to do. So in order to get your to-do list done you must know why you want to do those things. What are they helping you achieve? (If you don't know why you want to do them, then cross them off your list. They'll just stress you out sitting there, staring at you, and you still won't do them.)

2. Stop thinking of it as a "to-do" list or a "must get done" list. These are things that you want to do and you know why you want to do them because I just told you to think about it in Step 1.  Everyday look at your list and ask "what do I want to do today?" and pick one thing and go from there. Keep reminding yourself that these are not tasks being handed to you by some mean boss, you want to do these things. 

3. Relax! Stop stressing about making every day super productive. Trust yourself that you can have lazy days and still get stuff done when it comes down to crunch time. It's all about the big picture and nothing really gets ruined or made in a day. It's about what you get done in a week, month, year. Not a single day.

I hope that helps! If you have any tips for getting stuff done, I'd love for you to share in the comments below.