Success tastes like a blue raspberry slushy

Success is a weird little gremlin of a word.

We talk about it like it should be easy to define. Like every business owner should be able to sit down with a fresh notebook, a good pen, and a hot coffee and write some beautiful visionary statement about what success looks like involving unicorns and rainbows.

Meanwhile, I have always hated that question, “What does success look like to you?”

Sir, I don’t know. Can I interest you in a revenue goal instead?

That has always been the easiest way for me to answer it.

Give me a number. Give me a target. Give me something measurable that I can put in a spreadsheet and then obsessively track like a completely normal person.

But the problem with tying success to a number is that I have a bad habit of moving the number.

I get close, and suddenly the goal gets bigger. I hit a milestone, and instead of letting myself feel it, my brain goes, “Cool. But what’s next?”

Super fun. Very peaceful. Highly recommend if your hobbies include never letting yourself enjoy anything.

I thought paying off my credit card would make me feel successful.

There is a very specific kind of relief that comes from paying off debt that used to make your stomach tense every time you opened the banking app. It felt responsible, like I had cleaned up a mess that had been sitting in the corner of my brain for way too long.

And it did feel good. Really good. But it didn’t feel magical.

Then, thanks to Q2 revenue, I was able to contribute $8k toward the down payment on the house we are buying. Purely from my business, in addition to the money we had already set aside.

That felt more than good. It felt like proof that the business I have been building is not just for a little “fun money”, funding more software subscriptions or buying me another coffee I absolutely did not “need” (notice the quotations I used because I always need coffee).

It is creating real options for my family. But, truth be told, even that still was not magical.

This past weekend, we went to the local Harley Davidson store to watch a motorcycle stunt show, and afterward we decided to swing by Target because my kids love badminton and had completely worn out the cheap set we bought them over a year ago.

While we were there, we grabbed a couple of Super Soaker water guns because last weekend I kicked their butts in a water gun fight. We had to rotate who got “the good water gun”, and I feel slightly “guilty” that I might have hogged it (again, notice the use of quotations here).

Obviously, this could not continue. We are a civilized household.

Side note: Nothing says “wholesome family time” like watching two grown men defy both gravity and common sense inside the Globe of Death (really, that’s what they called it!) while your kids become emotionally invested in badminton equipment and water artillery. #livingtheamericandream

As we were checking out, my husband noticed the slushy machine and told the kids they could each get one.

No big conversation. No budget meeting in aisle 12. No mental math about what we would have to give up later because we said yes right now.

Just, “Go ahead. Pick your flavor.”

So there they were, all three of them, filling up their cups with sheer joy. The machine was sticky and probably covered in germs. The colors were aggressively artificial and would inevitably turn their lips and tongues gross, unnatural colors of purple, blue, and green…

And yet, in that very moment, I looked at my husband and said, “Wow. I feel like we made it.”

And I meant it because there was a time when we would not have popped into Target and bought toys (and a new toaster) and three slushies “just because.”

Not because we were mean parents. Not because we were trying to make some dramatic character-building point about not being wasteful. And certainly not because we care about the health-related dangers of food dye (sorry, not sorry).

For most of our marriage, we just didn’t have that kind of lifestyle. We lived on a tight budget, and in order to stay out of debt, we did not buy what we did not need.

We were careful because we had to be careful.

So standing there in the Target checkout line, watching my kids hold slushies we bought for no other reason than because there was a slushie machine available and we felt like spoiling them, I felt successful. And it was, well, magical.

It wasn’t the credit card payoff.
It wasn’t the $8k contribution.
It wasn’t the Q2 revenue number.

Turns out what “success looked like” was a blue raspberry slushy and a Super Soaker and that, my friend, is the answer I never could have come up with.

Maybe Success Isn’t the Goal

If you had asked me years ago what success would feel like (and every single coach I have ever worked with has), I would have given you a number. I would have said a revenue goal, a savings goal, being debt-free, maybe even buying a house.

All good things. All worthy goals.

But goals and success are not always the same thing.

Goals give you direction. They help you make decisions. They keep you from waking up every day and running your business based on your mood and caffeine, which is a terrible operating system even though caffeine does deserve an honorable mention.

Goals matter, but success is not always the goal itself. Sometimes success is the feeling the goal was supposed to create.

And maybe that feeling is the ability to say yes without spiraling or make a normal, ordinary moment feel extraordinary for no reason at all.

I think that is the part we miss when we are focused on defining success. Or, at least, it’s the part I’ve been missing.

We tell ourselves we will feel successful when we hit the next number, pay off the next thing, book the next client, launch the next offer, or finally get the backend of the business out of our heads and into a system.

(And listen, I am all for the system. You know this!)

But if we are not careful, we can become so committed to the next milestone that we completely miss the moment the current milestone made possible.

Your business might already be creating evidence that things are changing, but if success only counts when it looks impressive on paper, you may walk right past it because it is standing in front of a slushy machine instead of sitting inside a Stripe notification.

This is where I realized I needed to separate two things: What I’m trying to achieve and what I’m hoping that achievement will let me feel and maybe you need to separate those too.

Because while they are connected, they are not identical.

You might be working toward consistent $10k months, but what you actually want is to stop feeling panicked every time sales slow down.

You might be trying to pay off debt, but what you actually want is to stop feeling like your past decisions are following you around with a clipboard and judgement.

You might be building better systems, but what you actually want is to close your laptop without wondering what ball you dropped.

That does not mean the goal is wrong. It just means the goal is the path, not the whole point and if you are a goal setter who struggles with vision, I need you to hear this because I am talking to myself too…

You do not have to perfectly define what success will look like before you are allowed to build toward it.

You may not know the moment until you are standing in it and that’s okay.

Set the goal. Work the plan. Build the system.

And let yourself notice the little moments that your work is making possible because they count, even if they are not flashy or impressive to anyone else.

Even if they taste like pure iced sugar and come in a plastic cup.

Your Weekly Challenge

This week, I do not want you to fix a system. (I know, I know, unexpected plot twist.)

I want you to reflect on the difference between what you are trying to achieve and what you are actually hoping to feel.

You can journal this, talk it through with a business friend, pray about it, or stare into your coffee until it starts making eye contact. Whatever works.

Ask yourself:

1. What goal am I working towards right now?
2. What do I think that goal will finally let me feel?
3. What fear do I think will quiet down when I feel successful?
4. What am I tired of carrying?
5. Where have I already experienced a small piece of the success I have been working toward?

You do not have to force a perfect answer because the point here is not to predict your “future Target checkout line” moment.

The point is to slow down long enough to notice it when it shows up.

And if you have ever had one of those unexpected “oh my gosh, I made it” moments, will you DM me and tell me the story?

Big or tiny. Fancy or completely normal. Revenue-related or slushy-related.

I would genuinely love to hear it.