I was chatting to a woman this week who had some questions about the GLOW10 Tribe. She’d been doing a strength training program at a gym for three years and wasn’t happy with the results.
“What do you mean by that?” I asked. “What results were you hoping for that you didn’t get?”
I half expected her to say something about how her body looked. But that’s not what she said at all.
Her bone density was still going down. And every session was wiping her out for three days afterwards. Soreness, low energy, just feeling flat. She was sick of feeling like that, for a program that wasn’t even giving her the one thing she actually needed it for.
I felt for her, I could hear how frustrated she was. But honestly, it was also a bit refreshing. She was measuring her training against what actually mattered to her, not against whether it looked like it was working.
Because I think we do this constantly, judge whether something’s working, ours or someone else’s, by outward measures that don’t really reflect change.
We see it with bodies all the time. Someone loses weight and gets showered in compliments, when nobody actually knows if they’re healthier. It doesn’t matter though, because we’ve quietly agreed as a society that a certain look equals healthy.
I think we do the exact same thing with success more broadly. I’m often asked who I’ve got working for me at the moment. It’s assumed I’ve taken a step forward if the answer’s “more than last time,” and a step back if it’s “less.” Or I’ll hear “your business is doing so well” because my Instagram following’s gone up. All things that can go hand in hand with real success. But for me personally, they’re just not it.
It’s taken me a long time to actually work out what I value in my work.
At 22, I thought success looked like fully booked days, back to back patients who needed me, eventually a clinic with people working under me. That was just the picture in my head of “making it.” Because it was the only picture I’d been shown.
What I know now is that I’m better as a solo practitioner. Not because I haven’t loved the women who worked alongside me over the years (because honestly, they’ve been the best) But because managing a team was never where my energy wanted to go.
I also know that I’m better with variety in my work; back to back clients was never going to work for me. Now I get to work 1:1 with women. I get to support groups of women as they exercise. I get to work with women IRL and Online, all around the world. And I get to notice where women actually need support, and build something to fit that gap. I get to problem solve, stay creative, and stay flexible enough to shift my schedule around my family when I need to. None of that shows up in a “who’s on your team” answer, but it’s the actual measure that matters to me.
That woman I spoke to this week reminded me of something important. The real question is never “does this look like it’s working?” It’s “is this actually giving me what I need?”
What are your measures of success right now?