Daisy’s blog: Success - What Does It Mean To You?

I will never forget the morning that I resigned from my previous job. In truth, I had been planning my resignation meeting in my head for months. But when the time finally came, I was woefully unprepared for the nerves and the emotions that came with the words I had been rehearsing. 

It was the look of absolute disappointment in the face of my manager that I’ll remember forever and the frequent comments akin to: ‘but you have so much potential’. 

Why the ‘but’?

You see, she thought that I had made a weak decision, given in to the pressures of working life with a young family and taken an easy way out.  A cop out, a step down in my career. I was in UK focused role and the obvious next step would have been a global one. She couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t want that. 

But what she failed to see – even as with eyes welling up I tried to justify my decision and reassure her that I wasn’t going to a competitor which surely must be good news – that in fact I had made the best, most ‘successful’ decision of my life. 

The new job gave me the flexibility I had dreamt of so that I could spend more time with my children. And while it doesn’t have the long hours, heavy workload and suffocating pressure of my old life, it is certainly not a step down. I took a different direction in my career, I learn new skills every day, am passionate about the business and the content I work with and I am constantly stretched with new challenges and ambitions for the business.

My ex-manager is a great person, a brilliant professional and a supportive leader but she couldn’t see past her own idea of success and consider what might be mine. And she was not the only one to look at me rather sadly as I told them of my future plans. 

Of course, it isn’t lost on me that women with young families leaving pressured roles in search of flexibility is uncomfortably common and probably a driving factor of the gender pay gap. But as a wise colleague and friend once said to me, we are the CEOs of our own lives, it’s up to us to set our own goals and boundaries and only we can know what success looks like for ourselves. 

So, my friends: take time to consider what your definition of success is and go for it. And next time you hear of another person’s future plans, keep an open mind. Their idea of success might be wildly different from yours. 

Daisy spent 10 years in a global firm before moving to work flexibly and remotely for a brilliant little company that supports and inspires people at work and at home. She has a nine year old daughter and five year old son and lives in the countryside with her husband, children and a small, fluffy dog. 

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