Rediscover Your Joy, Redefine Your Success

The Day I Realized “Success” Wasn’t Working

There was a time when I could measure my worth in metrics. Revenue. Recognition. Relentless momentum.

Each new milestone was supposed to bring relief, a sense that I had arrived. Instead, it brought only a brief exhale before the next climb. I remember one afternoon, years ago, sitting in a sunlit office surrounded by proof of everything I had built: awards, a loyal team, a packed schedule, and the kind of success people are told to chase.

But what I felt, if I’m honest, was emptiness.

That moment marked the beginning of one of the most important questions of my life, a question I now ask every client I coach:

“What does success mean if it doesn’t include joy?”

The Cultural Lie We Inherit

Our culture rewards output, not presence. We are trained from early on to perform, to gather credentials, climb ladders, and chase certainty. We’re taught that joy is the prize for doing enough, proving enough, earning enough.

But joy isn’t a prize. It’s a compass.

When we abandon that compass, we start living from a borrowed definition of success. And eventually, no amount of achievement can fill the quiet ache that comes from being disconnected from what truly matters.

In the language of neuroscience, joy is associated with the release of oxytocin and dopamine, chemicals tied not just to pleasure, but to connection, safety, and purpose. When our days become dominated by cortisol, the stress hormone that fuels drive and vigilance, the brain literally forgets how to recognize joy as relevant.

This is why so many high achievers find themselves stuck in what I call the accomplishment loop:

• We set a goal.

• We achieve it.

• We feel momentary relief.

• Then we raise the bar again.

Over time, we mistake relief for joy, and lose access to the deeper vitality that joy brings.

When Success Becomes a Performance

In my work with entrepreneurs and executives, I see a common pattern: success that has become performative.

You’re doing all the “right” things, scaling, hiring, innovating, but somewhere inside, you’re performing the role of the successful person rather than living as yourself.

It’s subtle, but you can feel it:

• The calendar feels full but not fulfilling.

• The relationships are functional but not nourishing.

• The body is tired, even when the mind insists you “should” be grateful.

This dissonance, between what the world applauds and what your soul craves, creates a kind of invisible burnout. You don’t collapse. You just fade.

Rediscovering joy isn’t about abandoning ambition. It’s about remembering why you started.

The Neurobiology of Joy (and Why It Matters)

From a neurobiological perspective, joy is not a luxury; it’s a regulatory function. It restores balance in the nervous system. It widens your perceptual field, enhances creativity, and fuels authentic connection.

When joy is absent, we operate from what’s called chronic sympathetic activation, the body’s “on” switch. You can achieve a lot from that state, but it’s not sustainable. Over time, the nervous system becomes addicted to intensity.

Leaders in this mode often describe feeling like they’re “always on”, restless during downtime, anxious during rest, unable to enjoy the very freedom they’ve created.

The antidote is not less responsibility; it’s more resonance.

Joy is what happens when your nervous system recognizes safety. It’s the felt sense of congruence, when what you’re doing matches who you really are.

That’s why rediscovering joy isn’t indulgent, it’s leadership hygiene. Without it, burnout is inevitable.

Redefining Success: From Metrics to Meaning

When we begin redefining success, we move from the question “What should I achieve next?” to “What actually matters?”

This shift is not theoretical, it’s deeply practical. It informs how you design your days, your business, and your relationships.

Here’s what I’ve learned guiding leaders through this transition:

1. Joy reveals alignment. When something lights you up, it’s a clue, a neural indicator that you’re in integrity with yourself.

2. Joy requires boundaries. If everything is urgent, nothing is meaningful. Protect the space where your energy replenishes.

3. Joy is contagious. A leader’s nervous system sets the tone for their culture. When you model joy, you give permission for creativity, safety, and innovation to thrive.

4. Joy evolves. The things that once energized you may no longer fit. Redefining success means updating your joy map as you grow.

Success, then, becomes less about accumulation and more about attunement, being in right relationship with your purpose.

A Story from the Work

A client I’ll call Ellen came to me after selling her company for millions. On paper, she had everything: freedom, financial ease, respect. But when she described her days, her voice went flat.

“I should be happy,” she said. “But I’m bored and anxious at the same time.”

We began by exploring her story, not just her résumé, but her rhythms, her loves, the moments she’d felt most alive. What emerged was this: she had built her entire business around what she was good at, not what she loved.

Her excellence had outpaced her joy.

Through our work, Ellen began reconnecting with the parts of herself she had sidelined, painting, mentoring young founders, hiking without a phone. Within months, she described a new feeling: “I didn’t realize how hungry I was to just feel wonder again.”

That wonder became her new metric of success.

The Courage to Redefine

Redefining success is an act of courage. It means being willing to disappoint expectations — your own and others’. It means unlearning the idea that productivity equals worth.

It often means pausing a trajectory that’s “working” externally in order to build one that works internally.

But here’s the truth I’ve seen over and over again: when leaders prioritize joy, their impact expands. Joy doesn’t make you less driven, it makes your drive sustainable.

Because joy isn’t about happiness on demand; it’s about wholeness. It’s what happens when all the parts of you, mind, body, heart, and purpose, are finally in conversation again.

How to Begin

If you’re ready to rediscover joy, start small. Think of it as an experiment in remembering yourself.

1. Revisit what used to make you lose track of time. The body remembers what the mind forgets.

2. Audit your energy, not your to-do list. Notice what drains you and what restores you. Then start rearranging accordingly.

3. Replace “Should I?” with “Do I want to?” This question interrupts autopilot and reawakens choice.

4. Create sacred space for delight. Schedule something that has no outcome, a walk, a song, a meal that slows you down.

These aren’t small acts. They’re how you reprogram your nervous system to remember that safety and success can coexist.

A New Definition of Success

When I think about success now, after decades of coaching, entrepreneurship, and personal transformation, I define it as this:

Success is the state of being fully alive in the work you’ve chosen to do.

It’s not about titles or timelines. It’s about congruence. It’s about waking up and recognizing that your days reflect your deepest values, not just your strongest skills.

It’s about building a business and a life that expands your capacity for joy rather than competing with it.

When you live from that place, achievement becomes art. Work becomes worship. And joy stops being something you earn, it becomes who you are.

Reflection Practice

1. What if joy were your most accurate measure of alignment, not luxury, but feedback?

2. If you were to rewrite your definition of success today, what would it include?

3. What’s one action this week that would reconnect you with your natural sense of wonder?

Write your answers down. Then act on one of them, even if it feels small. That’s how joy finds its way back in: one honest choice at a time.

If you’re at the edge of change, if the metrics are there but the meaning feels missing, that’s your soul asking for a new definition of success.

I’d love to help you explore what’s next.

Schedule a Call, and let’s begin the conversation about rediscovering joy and building success that finally feels like yours.