What is success? - Dr Caroline Gibson

What does success mean? When I first sat down to write this, I started by thinking about the big goals that Lifestyle Medicine has inspired me to look for… a purposeful, fulfilled, meaningful life with balance between the different aspects (pillars) of life. Being a part of the Lifestyle Medicine community inspires me to have good healthy goals, to eat wholesome well-balanced nutrition, to be physically active, to be connected to those we have relationships with and our community, to practice good self-care, to look after our mental health and wellbeing, and to avoid those things that are unhelpful or harmful.

All of those things are potentially good goals to measure some aspects of success by.

But, as I tried to write about success I realised that trying to attain all of those goals feels a bit like trying to do everything, everywhere, all at once.

And at the moment, with life throwing various things at me, success feels like it is a very long way off and I’ve spilled coffee on the map.

This is where coaching comes in.

Coaching can help you reach your success

Everyday as a coach, I support people like you. I can help to define your goals and what success means to you. Whilst spending some time thinking about the bigger picture goals is useful to give an overall sense of direction, the little successes along the way are just as important. Because life isn’t straightforward, we don’t go from A to B, we detour via most of the rest of the alphabet and then decide we’d rather end up at C after all.

And sometimes, those big goals are just way too far away. Some days just getting out of bed and dressed is a huge success.

So, start where you are at.

You don’t need to even know exactly what the ultimate goal is, just the general direction that you want to head in. It’s ok if you don’t know exactly how to get there. You just have to take the first step to move forwards. That’s success.