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Defining Success and Exploring My Core Values

posted 1st November 2011    Written by: Ashley    CATEGORY: All Posts, Ashley, Family, Job/Career/Work, Love/Relationships, Quarterlife Crisis, Season 5, Spirituality, Travel/Adventure

When I used think about the word “success”, I imagined business suits, slicked back hair, and high-rise buildings. I imagined feeling overwhelmed, stressed out, and driven by money. I imagined having little time for the things and the people I enjoy. It made me feel sick to my stomach and want to crawl into a hole to hide from this society-induced standard of what I “need”.

I’ve known for a long time that I don’t want a “successful” life. I want something different.

It wasn’t until I met Molly and she shared with me the idea that we can create our own definition of success, that I realized I wasn’t alone or crazy. Now, when I think about success, I imagine living my life on my own terms. I’m slowing uncovering what exactly those terms are, but I’m making progress.

One of the most helpful and enlightening exercises was choosing my core values in the Joy Equation. My values are what inform my choices and guide me toward the life I want, the life where I feel fulfilled, challenged, and successful.

Success for me is living Authenticity, Connection, Exploration, Health, Joy, Love, Play, and Spirituality.

Authenticity - This is the biggest one for me. It’s all about being truthful with myself. It’s learning to trust myself (and be myself) regardless of what other people think and living the truth I feel at my core. It’s not something that comes easily, but it’s something that I need. I mean, I know when I’m being myself and when I’m not and I know that I feel most confident and proud when I am Ashley.

Connection - Intimacy, openness, and being known. As Hannah said, it means “growing and maintaining deep and meaningful relationships, talking about “real” things, being open and honest with people, spending more time with people that I do connect with and less time with those I don’t”.

Exploration - This is where I tie together my need for adventure and travel with my inquisitive and curious mind. It is about new experiences, learning and growing, visiting new places and trying new things. It’s why I love traveling and reading, and why I’m not embarrassed to spend a Friday night watching a documentary on black holes and super-telescopes.

Health - My physical and emotional state is important to me and this is how I show self-love. My body requires care through practicing healthy and conscious food choices, regular exercise, relaxation, meditation, and sleep. None of my other values will be able to shine if I don’t create and time and space for my health.

Joy - When I wake up each morning, I want to feel joy. This is the excitement of being alive and having the opportunity to live my life. It’s the underlying feeling, stronger and more solid than happiness… The good stomach flops, the huge smiles, the energy, when you can’t contain it and you just have to dance.

Love - I’m talking about the unconditional kind. It’s the commitment, support, honesty, compassion, trust and understanding I build with my family and friends, but it is also the romantic love I share with my partner. It is something I want to share with the world and it’s why I choose to become a counselor.

Play - Quite obvious, for me, anyway. I wouldn’t want to live a life that isn’t silly, playful, and fun. This is about not taking life to seriously and never forgetting to laugh. It can come through in interactions with others, a positive outlook, or a decision to eat ice cream in your pj’s on the living room floor.

Spirituality - My belief in a higher power and having faith in something bigger than myself is where I find hope, peace, serenity, and calmness. I’m at a point where I am uncertain about where organized religion fits into my life, but I just can’t ignore spirituality. Outside of church I can find this through yoga, nature, writing, or just being still.

Now that I recognize my values, I have so much more clarity and a picture of what I want my life to look like. I don’t feel guilty for not wanting “success” because I have defined what success means for me. I have these eight lights guiding me forward toward the life I want to live.

I’d love to hear how you define success. What are your core values?

[photo credit: quasimime]

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Expectation Mania and the Danger of Measuring Up

posted 3rd May 2010    Written by: Molly Mahar    CATEGORY: Molly, Quarterlife Crisis, Tips & Tools

It’s nearly impossible to live life on your own terms…

Your parents expect you to get a good job. The dating pool gives you the stink eye when you’re not dolled up appropriately.  Your alumni chair sweetly requests updates of you getting promotions, marrying, saving the world or having adorable babies.

Society practically demands that you buy into the bigger/better/more consumerism that is kept alive by the promise of “fixing” you or “purchasing” your way to utter coolness.

What about what YOU want?  How can you even tell with those expectations in your face every single day?

“We expected more of you.”

“If only you’d live up to your potential…”

“What will people think if you do that?”

And it’s not only outside forces that we’ve got to contend with… Frequently, we’ve internalized that expectation mania and our inner dialogue is chock full of shoulds, and have tos, and don’t fuck this ups.  Ever think to yourself, “I won’t be a real grown up until I make 70K”  or “Once I get married, then I’ll be set”?

Sorry sunshine, life is not measured in checking off expectations.  If you’re traveling through life on autopilot, trying to do everything “correctly” without ever taking the time to decide how YOU REALLY FEEL ABOUT IT, you’re not living life.  You’re acting a part.

There is no right way to live.  There is only YOUR way.  And as long as that way doesn’t hurt others, allows you to be a kind and just person, and challenges you to go after your heart’s true desires, you owe it to yourself to get really clear about what YOUR way truly looks like.

Every day is another day to make deliberate choices about how you want to show up. Please, for the love of your own authenticity, stop trying to measure up to society’s expectations, or the Jones’, or your parents, or your college roommate’s version of life…

Get really clear on your true desires, your intrinsic motivation.  Clarity is ridiculously freeing.  When you know what YOUR version of success is, you can stop wanting things you don’t want.  You forgo measuring up, and instead, radiate delicious you-ness.

Take a stand against expectation mania, Tribe.  This is YOUR life.  Create your own path.  Dance to your own beat.  Stop caring so much about what others think about you.

Try caring about what YOU think about you.

p.s.  I’ve got some SUPEREXCITING news regarding The Joy Equation! You’re going to LOVE it!  Especially if you need a little assistance getting really clear about your definition of success…  Stay tuned for the excitement & if you’re not already signed up for the eNewsletter (upper right of this page)- get on the list!  Special goodies coming next Thursday!
photo credit:  KTvee

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Taking a Chance on Something Completely “Wrong”

posted 2nd October 2009    Written by: Molly Mahar    CATEGORY: All Posts, Job/Career/Work, Molly, Quarterlife Crisis, Stratejoy the Biz

Hi, this is Kristy — Molly’s intern. Molly is over in Indonesia right now (having the time of her life, I’m sure) so she asked me if I minded writing a little something about my own experiences. I took her up on the offer in a heartbeat.

wrong-wayBack in March, when I first stumbled upon Stratejoy in my department’s internship & job listings, I was looking for a paid, full-time job, preferably to begin in the summer and continue indefinitely. Stratejoy wasn’t that — it was a 10-hour-a-week unpaid internship that would start right away. It was completely “wrong,” — something my head told me I shouldn’t do. But there was a reason Stratejoy caught my eye, and why my heart told me that this was actually completely right.

When I was in high school I was the youngest person to go through a workshop series that was very similar to Stratejoy’ Lifestyle Design with a company called HeartSpark in Portland, OR. It completely inspired me and changed the way I think about my life. So when I read up on Stratejoy and the workshops Molly offers I knew instantly that I was behind what she did and wanted to help out in any way I could.

So I jumped in — I interviewed and landed the internship (although I did get a slight scolding / helpful tip from Molly who reminded her three new interns that it’s bad form not to send thank you letters — apparently no one she interviewed did). Molly put me right to work on developing her new online course based on Lifestyle Design. I was thrilled.

I worked hard throughout the spring and summer to create a fantastic online course — something that retained the authenticity and success of the in-person month-long workshop while giving participants the flexibility of time and distance from Seattle. To toot my own horn: I think I succeeded. I’ll take credit for crafting such a great version of Molly’s course, but the real shiny gold stars go to her for developing such an amazing program to begin with. Let’s just say I had fabulous material and enthusiasm to work with.

And through the creation of the course, as well as actually going through the in-person version, I actually took the time to think about what it truly was that I wanted and what success looked like to me. I had done this years ago in high school, but on the verge of graduation from college I realized it was very important for me to think about it again. Especially since everything — everything — has changed in these years since high school. Haha.

Through this unpaid internship that I randomly stumbled upon and which wasn’t ideally what I had been looking for, I gained experience in a kind of work I’d never done before, defined what it truly was that I wanted from the next couple years of my life, and I ended up actually landing that job I’d been looking for 6 months before, with Molly’s boyfriend Ken, who owns & runs an email marketing company. He was impressed with my hard work, enthusiasm and creativity and wanted me on board. It kind of just fell in my lap — like, I’m realizing, most things eventually do for people.

What are some things that have changed? Well the biggest one is that instead of going straight on to get my PhD in Communication Studies like I’d been planning for a couple years, I’m now considering getting an MA in Sustainable Communities or Sustainable Leadership, something I realized I’m passionate about, first — and taking a few years off beforehand.

Graduating is scary — I do that next June after I write my 40-page Honors Thesis, eep! — but it’s become a little less scary because of the events of these past 6 months. And I’m hoping by the time it happens it won’t be that scary at all.

The online course has just launched and you can still get it for our introductory price, which is 33% off. See this page for The Joy Equation: a 30-Day Guide to Living Life on Purpose.

photo credit: limonada

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