You Update the Business Plan Every Year. Your Definition of Success Is 20 Years Old.
Written by Coach JoyGenea, Clude code, and image by ChatGPT
You revise the forecast. You redo the org chart. You sat down and set targets for the company with actual numbers attached, and you will do it again next year, because that is what a serious operator does. And that is you.
Now tell me the last time you did that for yourself.
Watch the full video:
I talked with two brand new clients this week. Both landed in the same place. The joy was gone. Not the revenue. Not the title. The joy. So I asked each of them to describe what success looks like for them right now, today, in this life. I got silence. Then I got a definition they wrote decades ago and have not touched since.
The target was set by someone who does not exist anymore.
One client recently told me they defined success forty years ago. Forty. They have been executing against it ever since, and executing well, and quietly wondering why the wins land flat.
Here is what I watch happen with unconventional leaders. You are used to building the business plan. You are excellent at it. You don’t stay consistent on doing that work for yourself. When was the last time you asked yourself, “What is my life supposed to look and feel like when this works?”
That definition moves as you grow. Things come into your life and things leave it, and the target shifts whether or not you look at it. I say revisit it every three to five years, period. Yours is decades overdue. If you want the difference between a goal and something you merely want, I broke that down here.
You cannot borrow this from anybody
Success is a feeling. That is why it is different for every single person, and why living out someone else’s version of it will make you miserable while you are technically winning.
Your brain does not hand out the good chemistry for a target you never set any parameters around. Once in a while you get a freebie. Not often. So you end up flat and stagnant, using the word I heard this week: discontent. “Life is just so dull.” When I asked that person to describe success, they could not do it. There was nothing there to aim at. I keep coming back to this question, and most people have never answered it once.
Related: What Success Really Means For Different Thinkers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IKz1GnAcJ8
What happened at a graduation party
I was at a graduation party last week, standing by the food, and I asked someone what scares them a little in their life. “I don’t do anything that scares me.” So I asked if they were happy. “Well, I mean…” I had put them on the spot, so I said we could talk later, and we moved on to sports and the weather. Safety zones.
An hour later they walked back up to me. “I hadn’t thought about that in a long time. Nobody’s asked. And you know what, I’m not happy.”
So we did it right there. I had them pull out their phone and email themselves the answers. I watched their shoulders come down. I watched their face lighten up. They went from linear, stuck in the muck, day to day thinking straight over into creativity and adventure and thinking bigger. It took ten minutes.
That conversation is why I recorded this.
The questions, and do not make them hard
Grab paper, or send yourself an email. This is not a project.
What does success look like to you right now, physically, mentally, and emotionally?
What do you want to achieve, intrinsically and extrinsically?
How do you want to FEEL as you go toward it, not only when you arrive?
What do you want the relationships you build on the way there to feel like?
What does growth look like for you?
And who do you want to become as a person by the time you get there?
That last one matters more than most people think. You are not only building toward a result. You are building the character of the person who arrives, and that gets built the whole way there.
Related: How my annual goal setting changed over 30 years
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lj5E836ZqKM
If you cannot answer these, you are not aiming at your success. You are aiming at whatever each day hands you. You have probably been doing it for a while, and nobody has said anything, because friends do not feel comfortable saying “you seem a little stuck.” So I will say it. And if what stops you is an old belief about what you are allowed to want, that is an anchor.
You deserve to get up excited about your day. You deserve to feel successful while you are still climbing, not only once you arrive. I want you to dream big and make it fun, because most things can be turned into an adventure once you frame them that way.
Answer those questions tonight. Then put them next to how you actually spent last week. What is the ONE gap that jumps out at you, and what is the smallest step you can take before Friday to close it?
Thanks, Coach JoyGenea
Video Transcription:
So this just needs to be said, and not enough people say this to you or point this out. You deserve success. You deserve joy. You deserve happiness. You deserve to get up in the morning and be excited about your day. You actually deserve that, and you have probably forgotten that because life hasn’t been feeling like that for quite some time, and instead, you are feeling left out or not part of something.
I don’t even know what you’re feeling that isn’t positive. I can find a bunch of words for it. I want to remind you, you deserve to feel successful. So that’s what I wanna talk about today, and that is do you know how to bring that feeling of success into your life? What I find so often when I’m talking to people is they’ve unfortunately forgotten to define what success is.
And in not having a definition, you aren’t aiming at it. You aren’t bringing it into your life. You’re, you’re just settling for whatever each day presents. That’s not it. That’s not it at all. I’ve literally had a couple conversations with brand-new clients this week, and, and it got down to the fact they’d lost the joy in their life.
They’d lost the joy in, in doing things. And so at the core of that is forgetting what’s that feeling of success that happens consistently as you’re striving towards goals. It’s not actually always the achievement of it. That feels really great too, but there’s another incredible feeling as you’re striving towards that feeling of success ’cause really success is a feeling.
That is why it is different for every person, and that is why when you attempt to live somebody else’s goals, somebody else’s feelings, you will get stuck and become miserable because that’s not your definition of success. It’s something you have to be very careful for. I want you to grab a sheet of paper.
I want you to use your phone right now if you’re on it and send yourself an email. Make this so unbelievably simple and answer a simple few questions. How do you define success? Is it, can, can you describe it physically to me? Can you describe it mentally? Like, what, what does striving for something feel like?
What feels successful about that? Can you talk about it in emotional, in an emotional context? Because success is physical. It’s the physical feelings that we have. It’s also the physical things that are in our environment. Can you actually define that? What is it? When was the last time you asked yourself what it is?
I’m gonna bet y- you haven’t for a long time. I’m challenging you. It’s time to look at that again, because success is a feeling, and our brain only gives us those awesome chemicals for achieving some of those feelings when we’ve actually set some parameters. If we’re lucky, we get freebies, but that doesn’t happen very often, and then all of a sudden you’re feeling stuck and bored and discontent with life.
That’s a key word I heard this week. “I’m just so discontent. Life is just so dull.” And I was like, “Dull? Let’s talk about that.” And it was so clear where that came from. They could not describe success at all. So it’s going to bloo- What type of people… Here’s another question: what type of people do you actually wanna work around?
I’ll give you a hint. You wanna work around people that are also striving towards their success, ’cause it’s contagious. You probably wanna be around people that are inspiring. You probably wanna be around people that give a damn if you’re successful or not, and who are investing a little bit in you because you’re investing a little bit in them.
That, those relationships are amazing. So that’s another key question. Another thing I hear from unconventional leaders is that they haven’t, that they got lost in the process of striving for success which they defined 10, 20, 30, I had one recently, 40 years ago, and they forgot to… They’re, th- th- they’re used to making the business plans.
They’re used to setting some goals for the business. They forgot about themselves intrinsically, some goals, what success would look like externally, what success would look like in their life. And it shifts and changes as we grow, as we add new elements, as elements leave our life. It changes, and so it needs to be addressed, I say every three to five years.
It’s a wonderful thing to explore more. Another question, um, what do you want the relationships you are building on your way to success to feel like and to look like? You gotta think about that because that plays into the character of who you are as you’re building, and that’s a key aspect of understanding your success that is not talked about, and understanding what you’re striving for.
You’re also striving to be that person when you arrive there, and I promise you, it doesn’t just miraculously happen overnight. The process, the journey of getting there is actually how you arrive there. But you– And you need to be thinking about the character of the person you’re, you’re moving into, that you want to be.
So that also plays… How– wh- who are you in those relationships? How are you participating in the relationships in your life, in the relationships you’re building on your way to success? Another question I wanna ask that’s really important in this topic: What does growth look like for you? So often when I’m talking with people, I’m like, “So what are you growing?
What are you working on? What are you learning about right now? What are you exploring? What scares you just a little bit in your life?” And when I ask it like that, “What scares you a little bit?” And you’re like, oh, do I get a look. Trust me, I was at a graduation party last week and I asked it. Somebody’s like, “I don’t do anything that scares me.”
And I’m like, “Oh, are you happy?” And they’re like, “Well, I mean-” And we were standing by the food, and I said, “You know what?” I said, “Don’t worry. Didn’t mean to put you on the spot.” I said, “Sometimes I do that.” And I said, “We can talk about that later.” And I changed the subject, and we talked about sports and the weather, and I went to safety zones.
And what was fabulous was about an hour later, still there, that person walked up to me and said, “I hadn’t thought about that in a long time. Nobody’s asked. And you know what? I’m not happy and I’m not stri-” And I said, “You know what?” And that’s what actually brought on this topic, is it… At this graduation party, I just had a simple conversation about success, and when was the last time they defined it.
And I had them pull out their phone, and I had them send themselves an email as they answered these questions. And just, I watched them lighten up just in doing that, just in answering what does success look like? What are the people you wanna be around? Who do you wanna be in relationships? What’s the character you’re building into?
What’s making you uncomfortable and you’re growing? Answering those questions got, got ’em out of that linear, day-to-day, stuck-in-the-muck kinda thinking, and all of a sudden they were over in creativity again. They were over in adventure. They were… Right, notice, they’re thinking bigger. It was awesome to watch.
It was awesome to see their shoulders come down and to see their face lighten up. You deserve that, and if somebody hasn’t asked you that recently, I’m glad you stumbled on this video. Now is your time. Take the time. Take a moment. Fill that out. These are the fundamental questions. It’s this simple, and so often most people never stop to answer these questions, just like I was saying.
I will give you a hint. You are not striving towards your success. You are… If you are not doing that, if you are not striving towards your success, you are staying stuck, and you’ve probably been there a while, and, and nobody’s called it out or mentioned to you, “You seem a little stuck.” It’s not something friends feel comfortable mentioning, so I’m just gonna call it out.
If you’re feeling a little eh, I’ll give you a hand. You haven’t answered these questions. You aren’t dreaming. You aren’t thinking bigger because life is happening, but you, and you have more control over it than you realize You wanna add more fun to your life, you wanna work with some of the most amazing people, if you wanna live an incredible adventure, which life can be, you just forgot.
Life can be fun. You can reframe it at any time, and most things can be turn… Not all. Most things can be turned into adventures, fun, growth, success, things that are leading you towards and building into your success, you being the best human being you can possibly be. I’m JoyGenea, unconventional leadership coach, international neurodiversity coach, and a champion for you reaching success, feeling success daily, hourly, in every way possible that you dream up.
I want you to dream big. And if you get started on this and you go, “I don’t know how to make all that happen, but I wanna have this,” get a coach. I’m an incredible coach. Come work with me. Thank you so much. Bye now.