Not everyone wants that kind of success

Because building a life you actually enjoy is the real power move.

There’s this moment in The Devil Wears Prada when Miranda Priestly looks at Andrea and says, “Don’t be ridiculous, Andrea. Everybody wants this. Everybody wants to be us.” And for a long time, I believed her.

Not her exactly, but the idea underneath that line. The belief that success should be impressive and it should come with recognition, titles, high visibility, and some clear signal that you’ve made it. I used to think that if you were talented and worked hard enough, you’d eventually be rewarded with all the things you were supposed to want: bigger stages, more followers, a faster pace, more proof that you were doing it right.

But something shifted.

I began to notice how many people I admired were building in a different way. I started paying attention to the ones who weren’t chasing constant visibility but still carried a strong presence. I noticed how much I craved slower mornings, deeper conversations, more space to think and create. I realized that the version of success I had been taught to pursue didn’t actually make sense for the kind of life I wanted to live.

It takes a certain kind of courage to admit that. Because we’re surrounded by metrics and milestones that celebrate more, faster, louder, and we rarely stop to question whether we actually want those things or whether we’ve just inherited the hunger for them. The truth is, some people are not here to climb in the way others are. Some people are here to build with care, to move with clarity, to create meaningful work at a rhythm that doesn’t burn them out.

That isn’t a lack of ambition. It’s a different kind of ambition, that is grounded in self-respect, in discernment, in the ability to define success on your own terms and not apologize for it. Not everyone wants to be seen all the time. Not everyone wants to lead a team or scale a business or expand their reach. Some people want to work well and live well. Some people want to go deep, not wide.

There’s a kind of power in choosing a life that actually feels good to live. And even if it doesn’t look like the version of success that gets the most applause, it’s still valid. It still counts. And for many of us, it’s the only kind that ever really made sense.

What would change if you stopped measuring your success by someone else’s definition?