Aligned success begins with self-awareness. When you take the time to do the work to get to know yourself, you empower yourself with information that you can use to make decisions that will drastically increase your likelihood of success. This information about yourself is the basis of your “success formula”.Yesterday, I used my success formula to make a pivot in my life.

You know that voice in your head that seems to never shut up? “Everyone else is so much smarter and more qualified than I am.”

“I have to be perfect at everything I do, or I'm a failure.”

"When people compliment me, they don't really mean it. They're just being polite."

"I feel like I'm pretending to be something I'm not."

I used to stand out. But now I feel like I’m blending in, and it’s making me feel uncomfortable. For my whole life, I felt like I worked a bit differently. It was hard at times but overall I benefited. Whether it be with teachers or bosses, I received a lot of validation and recognition for the things I did. When I had the space to show up authentically, I would shine. And I got used to that being the norm.

The more successful you become, the harder it becomes to be vulnerable. As in, to speak openly about what’s going on in your head, the things you’re struggling with, the things holding you back, the reasons you feel unfulfilled or unhappy.

“…because it became really clear what success looks like for me!”

This is my answer when people ask me, “Why did you choose to step away from your leadership role at a fast-growing company to build your own business?”

Stepping into a leadership role for the very first time can be exciting, motivating and rewarding. But it can also be challenging, draining, and isolating. Here are the top three challenges I faced when transitioning into a leadership role.

What scared me was that I was about to follow a path that didn’t align with what I truly wanted for my career. I wasn’t going to be internally fulfilled by the role despite it being externally validating.

It’s clear the way we work today is not sustainable. People are burning out. They’re losing their sense of purpose. And they’re ready to do things differently, like ‘quiet quitting’. The thing is, quiet quitting is just as unsustainable as the way we’re currently working.

Success without mindfulness is possible but limited. We have grown up in a society that tells us that job title + salary = success.

We all have stories. Stories we create about ourselves. We spend our time collecting specific experiences to reinforce these stories. We believe that, the more we can back up these stores, the more true they become.

I didn’t know it at the time but this was the beginning of a big shift for me. Each of these events provided me with a gift that would help me make this transition into a new version of myself.