An Internally Centered Idea of Success
Finding your core values, letting go of the life you think you should live, and defining success for yourself
It feels good to be home. It feels good to come back to an apartment, a city, a life that feels like my own. After three years of moving around every few months, it still feels new to have a home to come back to. To leave for the weekend and look forward to sleeping in my bed, getting my favorite Thai take-out, and lighting all the candles around my room. It feels good to be settled in – a feeling I have craved for so long but was so scared of the idea of. Seeing settling as something that would lock me in place, keep me stagnant, and quite frankly, something I am better than.
As soon as I shifted my perspective on the idea of “settling” (in, down, or in life) – my entire life changed. I grew up feeling stuck in my own life. I felt stuck in the place I grew up in, counting down the days until I was 18 and could start a life of my own. I felt stuck in the decision to become a dancer once I got burnt out at 17. I felt stuck, stagnant, and suffocated.
While all of that was true for me, I also took for granted having all of your clothes unpacked and in one place. I didn’t think about the ease of getting around when you aren’t constantly getting lost on new streets. It didn’t even dawn on me how lucky I was to have all of my friends and family living no more than 20 minutes away from me. I looked only at what I wanted to change instead of appreciating all of the goodness that was around me.
So once I got to the other side, experienced a life untethered, I began to miss the very things I took for granted. I lived a life filled with exploration, discovery, and adapting to new environments. I met people who lived all over the world. I came to know myself in a way outside of the bounds of my home country. I began living the life I said I would live – no home, few belongings, and the ability to pick up at any moment.
And yet, after two years, I began to miss what once was.
I craved all of the things I once had and forgot about the allure of a nomadic life I used to dream of. I wanted more than anything to not think about where I was going to live next. I spent the following year at odds with myself because the life I created no longer was the life that felt supportive for me. I wondered what would happen if I kept going? What would happen 5 years from now if I had no place to call home? Would I ever be satisfied staying in one place or would I constantly be looking for the next best thing? I knew I just had to choose.
So I did and now I have been here a little less than five months. It’s not the longest I’ve lived someone in the past few years but it is the most settled I’ve been. It’s the first time I have all of my belongings with me instead of sitting in boxes at my parent’s house. It’s the first time I am buying decorations and investing in nice dishes and ingredients to stock my kitchen. It’s the first time I don’t have any plans to go somewhere next.
And it feels like I can finally exhale.
But I don’t want to completely give up the things that I cultivated from a nomadic life – the intentionality, the exploration, the openness and willingness to try new things. How can I bridge the gap between these two ways of life that in my mind have been so separate for so long? Is it possible to be settled down and still live a life of exploration and change?
I watched a reel last weekend on finding your core values and it’s been all I have been thinking about since. I’ve never done a traditional core values exercise. I’ve never sat down with a bunch of words and really tried to figure out the things I value. So, I thought, there’s no time like now. I looked through over 100 words ranging from family and recognition to play and abundance. I started with 20. Paired it down to 10. And then got to 5. Three of which I switched out after the fact.
Exploration – Friendship – Authenticity – Well Being – Self Expression
Five words that encompass the things that I value. The life that I value. And in this exploration, I realized that my life is pretty aligned with my values. I am doing a good job at prioritizing these things and creating space for all of them throughout my day-to-day and that is something to be celebrated! In looking at my values, I also realized that nowhere on the list of my values are things like recognition, fame, success, status, mastery, etc. And yet, that’s what society’s standard of success revolves around. That’s why I constantly feel like I’m not doing enough.
Although it would be cool to be famous one day and give talks to thousands of people and sell millions of copies of my books, for me, those things would not indicate that I lived a good life. I don’t value them. I don’t think being famous or “successful” makes me a better person. I don’t really value mastery for myself – mastery of an art, a career, a life. I don’t need anyone to tell me I am a good writer to enjoy writing (and to know myself as a good writer). Those things don’t matter to me so why I am using them as indicators of success?
Why am I feeling discouraged that my Substack has only a few hundred subscribers when in reality, the numbers will only leave me wanting more? What if, instead, I celebrated the fact that I show up each week in this container of self expression – one that is authentic to me, that allows me to explore my inner landscape? What if it’s not about the numbers or the stereotypical idea of success and instead, redefining success based on your own values?
I’ve known these things consciously for quite some time. I read books on it. I write about it. I think about it, a lot. And yet, it took that little reel to spark something within me to really have an embodied understanding of internal validation. Again, it feels like an exhale – permission to live my life on my terms, without any hesitation.
It seems as if my entire life, or at least this chapter of it, is meant to help me accept the me that I am and not the me that I think I should be. It’s difficult though, to live life in your own lane. To trust yourself and believe in yourself. To do the thing that feels scary but also feels like it was perfectly meant for you. I am in constantly conversation and negotiation with self to love myself more deeply. And before we love, we must accept. We must come to terms with our ways of being and the deeper calling of our soul. We must be okay with things looking differently than we once thought they would.
I must be okay if I do not reach the success that society has told me I need to have. I need to love myself without the fame, or the higher numbers, or the recognition from an external source. If I look to those things outside of me, I will always be looking for more. I will always want more. And we are living in a world that programs us for this – to need the new clothes, the better apartment, the blue check mark to verify our status. And we want these things mindlessly! Without ever checking in and asking, “does this even matter to me at all?”
And if it doesn’t, do you have the courage to go against the grain? I feel scared to let go of my attachment to recognition. I know that I won’t be able to stop looking at the numbers or the analytics or hoping that one day I will be discovered. I know this and yet I still move forward. I continue to explore what matters to me and what it would look like to live a like solely for myself and my values and my dreams for myself. And if I’m being honest with you, I have some work to do on where I see myself in the future because much of that life was created with the desire for recognition, fame, and an externally centered idea of success. And that is okay. I am unraveling yet another layer of myself that is not my own and this is just a part of the process.
I recently read Arrangements in Blue by
and it was one of the most potent and resonate reads of the year. It’s an exploration and reflection on a life that is not centered around romantic love – living alone, being alone, and living a life with the longing for romantic love even when it doesn’t seem to happen. I saw myself in so many of Amy’s words and felt seen in so many ways. As someone who has never centered romantic love, it felt so affirming to know that I am not alone. Although, the longing may always persist, the satisfaction, love, and romance that can be found in a life centered around friendship and the self can be just as nourishing. Hiiighly recommended. I already want to read it again.I will be doing these journaling prompts this weekend for the Fall Equinox:
This EP is soooo good
This essay from
perfectly encompasses what it’s like to be in the process. It beautiful and messy and sticky and weird. But I love it and I love the feeling of being IN something. That’s where all the good stuff happens.If you’re in NYC, I’m hosting a dinner party for multi-hyphenates! It’ll be cozy and intimate and I guarantee you’ll leave with a new friend (even if that friend is me, I promise it’ll be worth it). Come join! Oct 6 at 7p <3 If you can’t make it, follow me on the ‘gram for the next one!
Nikki, you write beautifully xo