I Don't Want to Reach the Top If I Missed My Life Getting There

Today marks my two-year anniversary with my company.

Two years ago, I stepped away from a company that I thought was going to be my long-term strategy.

And truthfully, I didn't leave feeling victorious.

I was scared.

I was sad.

I was angry.

I had invested years into building something and had a picture in my head of what the next several years were supposed to look like. Stepping away from that plan felt like admitting that I had failed.

I wondered if I had made the wrong decision.

I wondered if I was giving up too soon.

I wondered what other people thought.

But two years later, I'm looking back at that moment very differently.

Leaving allowed me to start asking different questions.

Instead of asking:

"How do I build the most successful career possible?"

I started asking:

"What does a successful career look like?"

And I've realized that my answer is very different than it used to be.

I am ambitious. I want to build a career I'm proud of. I want to continue learning, growing, earning, leading, and challenging myself.

But I also want a life.

I want a family.

I want to be able to take my kids to school someday.

I want to sit down and have breakfast with them.

I want to make it to the important moments.

I want to take vacations that actually fuel me instead of spending the entire trip answering emails.

I want to have a home, relationships, and experiences that exist outside of my career.

And I don't think wanting those things makes me less ambitious.

I think it makes me more intentional about what I'm working toward.

Let's be honest, the definition of career success is changing.

For a long time, professional success was fairly straightforward.

Work hard.

Climb the corporate ladder.

Get the promotion.

Make more money.

Earn the title.

Stay loyal to the company.

Prove your commitment by how much you're willing to sacrifice.

And for many generations, that model made sense.

But COVID-19 changed the conversation...

Millions of people at the exact same time experienced a completely different relationship with work. Remote work became normal. Flexibility became possible. Parents got to spend more time at home. People gained hours back in their days that they hadn't realized they'd been giving away. And most importantly, people on a worldwide scale started to realize that life is short.

People started asking:

What am I actually working for?

I think that's one of the most interesting generational shifts happening in the workplace today.

Previous generations may have measured success through tenure, titles, promotions, and how high they could climb, and if that's still you that's completely OK!

But there's no denying that today, more people are asking:

What is my career allowing me to do with my life?

I don't think one generation is right and another is wrong.

The world has changed.

The family dynamics have changed.

The workplace has changed.

And our definition of success is changing with it.

I recognize how fortunate I am.

My career gives me a significant amount of flexibility.

I know that isn't possible for everyone.

Some people work night shifts. Some work in healthcare. Some have jobs that require them to physically be somewhere during specific hours. Some are hourly employees. Some are building businesses. Some are raising families while working jobs that leave very little room for flexibility.

I don't take my situation for granted.

And I'm not suggesting that everyone can simply wake up and decide to work differently.

But I do think everyone deserves to ask themselves:

"What kind of life is my career helping me build?"

Because flexibility isn't just about being able to work from home.

It's about autonomy.

It's about having some control over your time.

It's about being able to say yes to the things that matter.

It's about having enough energy left at the end of the day to actually participate in your own life.

And that brings me to something I think we don't talk about enough:

You can't pour from an empty cup at work, either.

We hear that phrase constantly when talking about relationships and loving yourself.

But what about our careers?

A burnt-out, exhausted, unhappy, disconnected version of you is not the version of you that's going to build the most successful career.

You need energy to think creatively.

To build relationships.

To lead.

To sell.

To negotiate.

To solve problems.

To take risks.

To make decisions.

To show up as the best version of yourself.

Rest isn't the opposite of ambition.

Rest is what makes ambition sustainable.

And I think that's the difference between simply having a career and building a healthy career.

And that brings me to the title of this article...

I don't want to reach the top if I missed my life getting there.

This is the part I've become much more honest with myself about.

I don't want to lie on my deathbed wishing I had worked more.

I don't want to wish I had answered one more email.

I don't want to wish I had taken fewer vacations.

I don't want to wish I had missed more breakfasts, birthdays, holidays, or even ordinary Tuesday nights because I was working myself to the bone.

No one's going to look back on me and say, "she was great at responding to emails."

People remember how you made them feel.

I want to look back and know that I worked hard.

That I built something.

That I made an impact on people.

That I challenged myself.

That I was financially successful.

But I also want to know that I lived.

That I traveled.

That I took care of my health.

That I invested in my relationships.

That I built a family and was present for it.

That I had experiences that had nothing to do with my job.

That I didn't spend my entire life preparing for a future that I was too exhausted to enjoy.

A great mentor once told me that "life quakes" happen when something needs to be stirred up.

At the time, I didn't think much of it.

But looking back at where I was two years ago, I think that's exactly what happened.

Unintentionally, I had found myself becoming stagnant.

I was following a path I thought was supposed to be my long-term strategy because it was comfortable, familiar, and made sense on paper.

Then everything got shook up.

And at the time, it felt awful.

But that life quake opened me up to possibility.

Possibility I wouldn't have explored if everything had continued exactly as planned.

Possibility to rethink what I wanted.

Possibility to grow in ways I didn't know I needed.

Possibility to build a career that fit the life I actually wanted.

And most importantly, the possibility to start creating something that matters to me.

Two years later...

I'm still ambitious.

I'm still driven.

I still want to build something I'm proud of.

But I'm no longer interested in measuring success solely by my professional life alone.

I am building a career that supports a healthy life.

A healthy mind.

Healthy relationships.

A healthy family.

And a version of myself that has enough left in the cup to actually enjoy all of it.

So, on my two-year anniversary, I'm celebrating more than two years at a new company.

I'm celebrating two years of learning that changing direction isn't always failure.

Sometimes, it's growth.

Sometimes, it's freedom.

Sometimes, it's the life quake you didn't know you needed.

You don't have to choose between building a successful career and building a life you love.

You can—and should—build both.

Happy 2 years. ❤️