What If Success Is Simply Enough?
Day 118 - 124 / 1000
I used to think success could be measured by money, career, and the things I could afford.
This week made me ask a harder question: What does enough look like when I define it for myself?
Here is what has been on my mind this week:
The Money Wasn't Enough
What Money Meant at Home
The Price of Stability
Twelve Months of Freedom
When Ambition Meets Worth
The Career I Kept Changing
What Enough Looks Like
1. The Money Wasn't Enough
When you look back on your life, can you remember a moment when you had the money, success, or an external marker you had been chasing, but it still wasn't enough?
Those moments are like a mirror reflecting what is really happening inside you and what you are really looking for.
I had a similar experience quite early in my twenties.
For my age, and compared with the average income in my country, I was making great money.
I was already working in Switzerland, and coming home to Slovakia with that salary made me feel like I could afford anything.
That was the mistake.
Thinking I could afford anything caused me to buy stuff I didn't need.
I slipped into buying designer clothes, jewelry, shoes, and similar stuff because I thought it made me look cool and rich.
Now, when I look back on that time, I laugh at what an absolutely irresponsible dummy I was.
Well, that's a lesson I needed to learn.
Designer clothes were useless to me because it's mostly just very good marketing, fomo, and half the time, the quality doesn't actually match the price tag.
But having that money wasn't making me much happier either.
Or, an even better way to say it: looking cool and rich, and showing off money, is definitely not what I'm after in life.
I think we go through phases like this more than once in our lives.
Not only with money, but with many other things.
Our beliefs, values, and points of view are constantly changing and adjusting.
Have you experienced a similar phase in your life?
2. What Money Meant at Home
What does money mean to you?
We all grew up in different households, with different habits and mindsets around money.
When we were kids, we might have seen money as something that appeared from nowhere, or didn't appear at all.
In a store, we would hear from our parents that we could either buy something or not.
Sometimes they would include an explanation, like it was too expensive, it wasn't our birthday yet, or it was simply not the right time.
Some of us were motivated and pushed to start earning money early by helping neighbors or trying something on our own.
Others were kept in the comfort of childhood without worrying about money.
All of this shaped our relationship with money in the back of our minds.
The decisions you make today about money are heavily influenced by your childhood and how the people around you taught you to handle it.
3. The Price of Stability
What have you needed to sacrifice for financial stability or career success?
Was it relationships, time, health, creative work, or the place where you live?
There are times in our lives when we all make sacrifices in return for something greater.
Or at least we tend to think we do.
I have needed to make these sacrifices a couple of times in my life.
Most of the time, I sacrificed the location of my life for financial stability, but other things were always attached to it as well.
Since I was 16, I have traveled to foreign countries to earn money so my life could be a little easier and nicer than the options available in my home country.
Was it always easy to leave home?
Obviously not.
I have always loved exploring the world, but leaving my family and friends behind wasn't always the easiest thing to do.
I spent my first Christmas alone when I was 18, and that feeling wasn't worth any amount of money.
But life is never just black and white.
All of these experiences gave me so much in life.
They taught me how to take care of myself, no matter where I am.
And that is extremely valuable to me today.
Would I recommend that you do the same?
Probably not. It depends on the context.
I would definitely recommend experiencing life abroad, even if only for a year.
Being out there in the world taught me much more about life and people than any university ever could.
Do you have to make these sacrifices all the time?
Absolutely not.
It all comes back to your why.
Why are you doing this?
And is there another way to achieve it?
Maybe you're chasing the wrong thing.
If relationships with your family and friends are everything to you, leaving home might not be the best idea just because of money.
If there is nothing holding you back at home, and you want to explore the world and earn some money, you can pack today.
One way or another, I can't tell you what the right sacrifice is for what you want in life.
That is something only you can know for yourself.
So, what have you needed to sacrifice in your life? And was it worth it?
4. Twelve Months of Freedom
What would you do with twelve months of genuine financial security?
Give me the irresponsible answer.
The real answer, the one that reveals what you actually care about when survival is not the primary concern.
I'll go first.
Besides wanting to build the life and business I want for myself, the answer is pretty straightforward.
I would travel.
There aren't many things in life that bring me so much joy.
Since I was a kid, I have loved exploring the world.
And I guess that is also why I have lived most of my adult life in foreign countries instead of at home in Slovakia.
The possibilities that traveling brings are truly unique.
It's about learning from other cultures, trying local food and drinks, trying new things, and meeting new people.
It just feels so natural and human to me that it's almost like an inner calling.
When you travel, you have the opportunity to be truly yourself without needing to please anyone just because of old habits from home.
And that is liberating and encouraging.
We all carry experiences from childhood and school.
For some of us, it was easier than for others.
Bullying, mocking, or emotional abuse from others are all things a young person can go through during that time.
And I was one of them.
I'm not looking for pity here. I found my peace.
It didn't stop me from going after the things I want in life.
All I want to say is that you can choose not to let others stop you from doing what you want in life.
Other people cannot decide what you can and cannot do.
You are stronger than you think, and you can endure more than you might imagine in life.
I love it when someone tells me that what I want to achieve is impossible or that I can't do it.
You know why?
Because it's like telling a bird it can't fly.
Well, watch me fly.
What would that kind of freedom mean to you?
5. When Ambition Meets Worth
What is the relationship between ambition and worth?
Many of you have ambitions, and that is a good thing.
You can have ambitions because without them, you are aiming kind of nowhere.
And if you don't know where you are going in life, things can get messy.
But what if you really don't know?
That is where struggles with self-worth can start creeping in.
Our brains don't like uncertainty.
They like to know the road and the surroundings.
When you are questioning your life, your brain can feed you all sorts of things just to get back to the safety of knowing what comes next.
But that might kill your potential and ambition.
That is the complicated relationship between ambition and worth that we are trying to handle.
6. The Career I Kept Changing
Have you ever taken a career path just because it felt safe instead of taking the one you actually wanted?
As I have already mentioned a couple of times in my writing, I tend to jump quickly onto the next shiny thing, and that includes my career path.
For a decade, I worked in the hospitality industry.
I worked in hotels, restaurants, and bars across a couple of countries.
I went from working as a barback, washing glasses and polishing cutlery, all the way to managing a Michelin recognized restaurant.
I went through a lot during my hospitality career, but when I started reconsidering my future, I started trying new things.
I tried UX design.
I tried selling digital posters online.
Then I was convinced for 100% that I wanted to be a personal trainer, so I went down that road for almost two years, completing all the certifications, just to do what I wanted to do.
When I had passed all the exams, all that was left was to find a gym where I could work and get started.
But the opportunity I was offered was absolutely nothing like what I wanted to do.
After basically saying no to them, I went down the rabbit hole and started asking myself why I wanted this as a career in the first place.
I discovered something I hadn't really considered before: this path was also something I didn't want to pursue.
This led me to take a digital marketing course and spend the next six months specializing in digital marketing.
And here we are now, with my interest turning toward starting an AI business.
I don't know if I can really speak about taking a career path just because it felt safe, because honestly, none of this felt safe.
Everything was outside my previous skill set, background, and knowledge.
To some people, it may seem like I'm jumping from one thing to another.
On one hand, yes. Definitely.
On the other hand, how exactly am I going to find out which of these paths I really want to pursue if I don't try them?
Reminder to you, and to myself: You can do anything, but not everything.
I don't want to go against my own writing because I once wrote that if you don't stick with anything, how can you find out whether you're actually good at it?
That still counts, but at the same time, I think there is space and time to decide otherwise.
If you try something for four or six months and don't see yourself doing it every day as your future career, then I think it's a good thing to let it go instead of continuing to pursue it.
If something might be harder to start in the short term but could show you what it would be like in the long term, then I guess that's a different story.
I mean, look, I'm on this journey of discovering life, just as you are.
I'm learning as I go through life and trying to make my life better.
I'm trying to make myself better, and I'm writing because I hope I can help you along the way too.
I would love to hear about your perspective on this topic. Have you ever done something similar?
7. What Enough Looks Like
How would you redefine success in your own words?
Not the version you had five years ago.
Not the version your family would recognize.
What criteria would you use today to evaluate whether your life is going well?
I find this question quite challenging.
Especially because we grew up in a society that has told us since we were young what success looks like.
It is different for everyone, of course.
Different parts of the world have different criteria and aspirations for success.
The image of success has many different faces.
In the end, it doesn't matter where you come from.
It's about what you decide is your north star for defining success.
Let's return to the question from the beginning.
If I were to redefine success in my own words, it would sound something like this today:
Success is not only about material things that make your life more comfortable.
Bigger, more modern houses, new cars, nice clothes, and similar things are only temporary upgrades. The excitement evaporates pretty quickly.
They are nice, and I think everyone can create a life with things that make them happy, but not to the point where life becomes constant shopping and spending.
Success is the inner feeling of being satisfied from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep.
That doesn't mean perfection, where there are no problems in life and everything is a rainbow.
Being satisfied means that you have enough.
Enough of everything that means a lot to you and makes your life enjoyable.
Having enough in life means you have people to share it with, functional health, meaningful things to do, and time to spend as you wish.
This definition of success doesn't lock you into anything.
It gives you the option to define and redefine success, and to decide what is enough for yourself, not for anyone else.
How would you define success for yourself?
I aim to deliver the most personal stories, insights, and lessons from real-world experiences I have lived through over the past decade.
As I continue building my life and trying to be a better version of myself, I am documenting this journey and the lessons from my life for people who might need to hear them.
Lukáš