What's Your Definition Of Success?

Recently I noticed a theme on my social media feeds: Success Posts

I am enjoying the thought-provoking content as people post about their thoughts around success, what they do to set goals for success, and their journey to success and beyond.

The clear message, to me, was everyone has a different definition of success.

My question to you is, “What is your definition of success?”

Uh, Kimi, why are you encouraging us to navigate off of your post? That’s counter-productive.

I am invested in YOUR success and the journey to achieve it and grow past it.

Your journey may not be with me.

I want you to have a real, honest, come-to-Jesus talk with yourself about what success means to you.

Real Talk: It’s not always about the BIG money.

Money, to me, is one of the manifestations of success, but isn’t the pinnacle of success.

“I want to make a million dollars” is the usual quip I hear from online entrepreneurs I interview.

Can I be blunt? Did you make $1 Mil last year? What makes you think you’ll make it this year if you’ve never done it before? Do you know what it will take from you to get there?

Did you even make $250K in your business last year?

$10K?

Consistently?

What does it require from you to make this happen in 12 months?

Strategic Success Milestones.

You need a way to measure if you are going to hit your goal or not.

When coming up with your definition of success, may I suggest that you define what success means to you that fits into your life, that way on your journey to “success” you still have a relationship with your partner/spouse, kids, family, and friends when you hit that milestone?

Most are so focused on the end $number that if they don’t hit it they think they’ve failed which can lead them down a mind-suck of negative thoughts, actions, and behaviors that can cost them dearly.

Yes, we can back it out and talk about the law of large numbers, but this is DEEPER than that. This isn’t that type of post.

Determining if you’ll be successful is more than just taking the investment for your number 1 solution and dividing it by an end $number and then only asking yourself how many “sales” did you make that week/month.

Ugh, that method alone is a recipe for disaster and disappointment.

I find that focusing on success-milestones along your journey that aren’t always about money, increases your chances of making it to your Big Success Goal and you can make money, real money along the way.

Ultimate Success is a journey of hitting and celebrating success-milestones along the way that impact your life and business.

What does that look like?

• Success as truly having clarity around who you really want to serve
• Success is having a business that you can build around your LIFE (and not fit your life around your business)
• Success is having a business where you can work when you want, how you want with whom you want
• Success is spending your time with clients you enjoy and saying NO to those that would suck the life out of you and eventually cause resentment
• Success is spending your time teaching, leading, consulting, and speaking on THE topic you most LOVE
• Success is outsourcing the rest of what you do to trusted Referral Partners and freeing up your time to work with higher-end clients on the topic you love
• Success is sharing your expertise that builds a legacy beyond what money can buy as they implement your knowledge into their lives and they change the world
• What if success were based on serving and building a tribe of raving fans who will buy from you when the time is right for THEM and will refer you and introduce you to others?
• Success is having your sales page do the heavy lifting so when they get on the call, they are, as Joey Ragona says, “preinfluenced®” to buy from you
• Success is that the person who visits your page stops scrolling because they immediately recognize you are speaking to them and the problem they NEED to be solved
• Success is that when they stop scrolling they start reading your compelling headlines
• Success is that when they read the headlines, they start reading your magical copy
• Success is when they read your promised outcome they WANT the transformation
• Success is when they see your offer that delivers on the promised action, they take the #1 action you need them to take on the page
• Success is when they click on the link to download your lead magnet in the lead magnet delivery email
• Success is when they click on a link in your email marketing campaign
• Success is when people unsubscribe from your email list
• Success is when they book a call, they show up
• Success is when they show up they say YES
• Success is when they show up and say NO
• Success is defining that in sales, you either sell something, learn something, or, if you’re lucky, both
  
  

By planning out your success milestones you gain clarity around what it takes to get to your ultimate goal (However you define success).

You are able to pinpoint in the plan where you aren't seeing success and adjust the course as needed.

Also, remember to celebrate the success milestones along the journey to hitting your (insert your definition of success). :)

And if you don’t hit that $number or what you've defined as the BIG Success goal, you can pinpoint which success milestone you need to adjust to increasing your chances of getting there.

What are you doing, strategically, to get the RIGHT people into your funnel to hit these success-milestones that WILL substantially increase your chances of achieving your ultimate goal?

This is why I suggest meeting with a Business Consultant & Launch Execution Strategist to work with you on defining your success-milestone mapping of what success means to you with a thought-out plan to achieve it without losing what matters most to you

If that’s with me, great. If it’s not, please find someone! Don’t waste any more time.

I’m curious, what is your definition of success for your business?

Yours In Success,
Kimi Brown
AKA The Joyful Contrarian


P.s.

I’ve been in business for 6 years but I wasted too much time before I understood the power of not just having a large $ goal in mind but creating a strategic success milestone plan to increase the success of hitting that goal.

I could have shortcutted my journey had I figured this out sooner! Ya, I’m a little pissed about that.

That’s why I’m trying to shortcut YOUR journey.

I’ve only been strategically growing since the very end of 2019. Before that I was at $5K a month consistently and couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t get past that, overwhelmed, in burnout, and resentful. I almost quit. Thank GOD I hired my first business coach in 2019.

My “Success Goal” is to retire my spouse. So that means I need to replace $130K/year at a minimum. Not a million dollars. I’m starting with this as my 2023 Big Goal.

But I have success-milestones I want to achieve and celebrate on my way to getting there!

I constantly review the success-milestones from my plan to get there and adjust as needed. This way I know if I’m on track to hit it or not while keeping the quality of my life as the MAIN factor in my decisions.

Starting in early 2020, on my journey to my “Success Goal”, and utilizing my success-milestone gameplan (think mini-wins along the way) I have many reasons to celebrate:

• Ability to give monetary support to those in need and to increase the amount to charities I support
• Hire business coaches for the past 3 years in my business
• Attending in-person business retreats (even in the Caribbean!)
• Hired someone to come clean my house every 2 weeks freeing me up to do what I most enjoy
• Hired someone to do the yard work in the hot, burning sun (this was my husband's favorite success outcome!)
• Weekly meal delivery for dinners (the amount of time, energy, and money this has saved us have been worth it!)
• Pay off credit card debt that hung over our heads for far too long and put that money back into our budget
• Paying for emergency expenses when they come up without having to use a credit card
• Taking regular vacations and not having to pick a destination based on staying with friends or family
• Taking Mondays and Fridays off
• Realized a dream to have plantation shutters in our home - paid in cash!
• Hire someone to help in my business even when only bringing in $2K a month which helped me blow past the number that much faster
• So much more

Have I hit $130K a year yet?

Nope.

Am I on track?

YES!

Following my success-milestones plan and adjusting them along my way has given me awesome success outcomes to celebrate along the way as I grow to that goal!!!!

I’m looking forward to determining my next goal once I retire my husband!

But it all starts with strategy. Strategy First. Always