How do we redefine our measure of success if we decide to work forever?

If we turn the tables on “the system” to design our own lives, we’ll need to revisit what it means to succeed too.

Currently, it’s:

Work your whole able-bodied life in an office job getting promoted along the way. Get put out to pasture when you’re 60/65 with enough money to “retire and enjoy the rest of your life”.

If you retired with a title you are deemed successful.

There are all sorts of problems with that model of course, hence The Anti-Retirement Plan.

Have you thought about what success means to you? I think about it all the time. If I am planning on working until my deathbed, the way I live my life must change.

People think that success is achieved by executing a BHAG – Big Hairy Audacious Goal.

It’s not.

It’s achieved with consistent, long-term, daily habits that either support where/who you want to be or take you off your path completely.  Every day you make a choice that is determining your future.

Think about it like this.

The last 5 years of decisions you’ve made have brought you the experience you are having now. Are you in a good place? Are you living an incredible life? No? The decisions you make now will determine what your next 5 years look like.

These are the decisions that are made daily. You either make them consciously, or nothing will change in your life. What decisions have you been making that landed you where you are now? Take accountability for them and start on a new path.

A big step in redefining success would be to start with what your average day looks like.

This is my ideal average day :

• Waking up well-rested when my body is ready to, no alarms necessary.

• Do some meditation and journalling.

• Shower, get dressed, make the bed, feed animals, get outside.

• Do early morning sungazing and grounding.

• Take the animals for a walk.

• Spend a couple of hours gardening.

• Take care of household chores. Have breakfast.

• Highly focused, undistracted laptop work for 2 to 3 hours.

• Have an afternoon nap.

• Drink lots of water during the day.

• Watch some YouTube videos on things I need to learn.

• Get back into the garden or into the kitchen and make things.

• Watch the sunset with my husband and review the day.

• Evening and dinner routine together.

• Bit of no ads TV watching things I love with as little violence in them as possible.

• Read and learn on YouTube before going to sleep, make notes of things I want to follow up on.

• Fall asleep content to meditations or affirmations.

That routine means that I am living life at a pace that I can appreciate and thrive in.

It’s none of the rushing around, sitting in traffic, living to endless deadlines, being bombarded with bad news, eating life-threatening food, living in a constant state of stress and anxiety of trying to succeed at corporate life on someone else's terms - and having to take pills to deal with all that.

My daily habits will become something that supports me over the long-term. It means those 2 to 3 hours of focused attention will train my mind not to be distracted by nonsense like doomscrolling life-sucking rubbish on social media or getting caught up in news headlines.  

Because I am over 50, I need to put all my energy into a business that does not require me to trade hours of my life for money and Microsoft. I can’t sustain that in my 70’s and 80’s, I don’t want to. By then, my business must be running exclusively passively with absolute minimal input. But I do want to still work. It keeps my mind sharp and allows me to explore the many subjects I am interested in, and to create things and write, which I love doing.

If I look at success in my life in general, it will look something like this :

• I have successfully reinvented myself and built a huge brand to be proud of.

• I add value to mankind with the knowledge and experience I share until my death bed.

• I am free to work when and where I want. I work because I want to, not because I must.

• I am 100% free of “the system” because I have generated enough wealth to do so.

• I use my wealth to uplift all the people around me and inspire people to follow their dreams and change their stars.

• I choose who I work with.

• I attract clients who love me and whom I love and can learn from as much as they learn from me.

• My business makes money for me when I’m sleeping.

• My business model allows me to age with grace and embrace each new decade I enter.

• I can pass my business on to the next generation to continue where I left off and make them as much money as it made me.

• My business is meaningful to me and brings me a great sense of accomplishment.

• My business empowers the people that work for me to live their best lives on their own terms too.

• My wealth has made other people their wealth.

• I am doing the things I love to do whilst making more money than I ever have up to this point.

• I live and work in flow and to the rhythm of nature and natural cycles of Earth.

• I spend most of my time in the garden where I am the most connected to Source.

• I get as much rest as I need and go on holiday when I want.

• I have a circle of trusted friends and family that I can share my life with.

• I have a wider community of engaged people with a lust for life and making the world a better place.

• I am surrounded by animals and nature.

• I am healthy, strong, and vibrant until the very end.

• I am able to feel all the emotions life brings us.

• I am actively connected to my Higher Self and All That Is. My intuition and knowing grow stronger every single day.

• I laugh every day and feel joyful about who and where I am. I am having a good time.

• I glide through life with ease and complete safety, knowing that should anything go wrong, there is always someone to help me. I live fearlessly!

• My overall life experience is one of connection, love, abundance, trust, respect, good health, generosity, empathy, kindness, adventure, fun, happiness, and so much joy.

These success metrics mean I am living a deeply connected and fulfilling life on my own terms and just appreciating this gift of life we have been given.

I am creating the reality I want.  

What does your life look like on a micro and macro level like this?

Take some time to really think about it and write it down. The Universe has an amazing way of delivering what you have written. Be clear, be sure and write as though it is happening now.

Because if you don’t design your life to fulfil your own dreams, by default you are helping someone else achieve theirs. And do you even like that person…..?