Breaking free from the "success" script.
Let's face it. We've all been sold a bill of goods about what success looks like, feels like, sounds like, and it's usually anchored in some sort of material aspiration — the house, the car, the bank account. Or maybe it's around power and prestige — the degrees, the C-Suite, the fame and VIP treatment. Or maybe it's less material and more emotional — the relationship, the marriage, the children.
The thing is, all of these traditional "success" metrics are built around external comparison, validation, and approval. What a recipe for disillusion, disappointment, and disaster.
I've been thinking about success a lot lately and how loaded and presumptive this term and topic is. I've been thinking about it a lot because I've had a lifelong internal dialog and battle as I've struggled to define and defend my own, individualized version of success vis-a-vis the traditional version.
I've wasted a lot of my time chasing symbols of success that left me feeling hollow, and then chastising myself for not being satisfied with the traditional symbols that seem to satisfy others so completely. Yet, at the same time, I know I've avoided some of the trappings that would have eventually left me feeling deeply angry and resentful toward myself and others.
When I met my Human Design, I finally had a map for all the underlying tensions and inner conflicts I felt about this seemingly innocuous term, "success." My Sun gate is 54, "Ambition." Energetically, it exists on a continuum of Greed (its shadow) and Ascension (its light). It forms 70% of my personality, and yet, the line that modifies Ambition for me, line 4, is the most mystical of the entire 384 lines of the Human Design Rave I Ching system. This line is neither material nor immaterial, and holds all potential for enlightenment and endarkenment.
In my design I have the strategic gifts of logic and entrepreneurship, which have helped me enormously in my career. But I also have a deep, contemplative nature, the need to explore the world for my own depth and understanding, and a conscious desire to create and communicate beauty.
These very contradictory elements had me living so much of my life feeling like I was in my own way — always stopping and starting. They had me feeling like I was born at the wrong place and time. Essentially, I came into this world with a poet's heart, but in the most material-driven society at a time of the most extreme financial disparity that's destroying and disrupting lives the world over.
Every day we bear witness to the decline in civility, the decline of our eco-system, and the decay in our standard of living because "Ambition" in the collective has created a world in which we are living out the brutal consequences of "success" being measured by one metric and one metric alone: Money.
Instead of money and.
Money and communities that thrive.
Money and quality education for all of our children so that they may one day create their empowered future.
Money and a regenerative eco-system that we learn to work with in harmony in order to create a sustainable future.
There are so many more Money and scenarios that deserve to be recognized and must be re-engineered if we are to survive and thrive as a species, and I'm convinced that "Money and" starts with redefining the success metrics of Ambition, one person at a time, because Ambition without Empathy has created the world we are living in today.
There has to be a better way.
In my own life, I've witnessed up close how "more" money can often lead to less — less freedom, less peace, less satisfaction with the day to day. And while I'm still in the process of learning to live my own definition of success while simultaneously disentangling it from the one I inherited through decades of social programming fueled by the experience of lack as a child, I want to share the most fundamental tip for separating yourself from the madness of the "success" script that has been defined by others for generations.
If you've been wondering what success looks like for you, or what it's all for — the daily grind, the persistent need or desire to prove yourself or your worthiness, the constant drain of never feeling like you have enough time or energy to invest in you, the nagging suspicion that there's more to life than what you're currently living, the dispassionate surrender to a life lacking in personal freedom and joy, the loss of quality time spent with yourself, your family, and your friends — you might be inspired to take a look at your own chart and ask yourself some really basic questions to investigate your own definition of "success".
While the Human Design system is deeply layered and infinitely complex, you don't have to travel down the rabbit hole to investigate all the details (unless you're drawn to, and anyone with the logic circuit or a "1" in their profile lines will most likely be). All you need to do is learn and live according to your Energy Type, Strategy, and Authority.
When you know these three things and incorporate them into your daily practice of simply being you, your life will unfold in the way it was meant to, i.e. in the way your were uniquely designed to experience it when you came into this world. It's mystical and magical watching people and situations float toward and away, based on the shift in your energy and nothing more.
The most valuable "mechanic" in living your Human Design is the wayfinding mechanism, with your "signature" on one end and your "not-self" theme on the other. It's an indicator, like the emergency light in your car, that senses when your personal operating system is out of whack. This warning system is felt through sensations in the body, and it's the biggest gift — and often the biggest hurdle — to living your unique design.
The hurdle is nothing more than a trust fall into the physiological messages that come from our higher intelligence over the blind trust we've been trained to give the thinking and reasoning faculties of our mind (which is often co-opted by the fear messaging of the ego). If we are not in touch with the subtle energies of our bodies, all that's meant for us will remain out of reach, or we'll take the hardest, most convoluted path to get there.
This embodied wayfinding intelligence is an efficient means to tap into the richness of you and your unrealized potential, and the best way to build your trust in it is to notice your unique "indicators," keep a record of the situation you're in or the people you're with when you notice the indicator, and then look at the patterns over time and analyze them against the decisions that got you there and what you were feeling in your body when you made those decisions. (This is how you experience your decision-making Authority.)
Here are the wayfinding mechanisms for the four Energy Types: Generator/Manifesting Generator, Projector, Manifestor, and Reflector. (If you don't know yours, you can grab your chart here.)
-
What does satisfaction feel like? When was the last time you felt deeply satisfied, where the work you produced fulfilled every part of you — it made you feel vibrant and alive, buzzing with possibility?
What does frustration feel like, and what's frustrating you right now? Where do you feel blocked, bored, or stuck? What situations are draining you? Who are the people in your life that leave you feeling low energy and uninspired?
-
What does recognition feel like? When was the last time you felt deeply seen, appreciated, and valued for your depth and unique perspective on a topic?
What does bitterness or resentment feel like? What situations leave you feeling like you have to compete to be seen or your value acknowledged? Who are the people that make you feel invisible or seem to take your contributions for granted?
-
What does peace feel like? When was the last time your ideas moved others to inspired action? Where you felt the spark and potential for co-creation, building on your inspired initiative?
What does anger feel like? When was the last time you felt ready to combust because you're tired of your good intentions and actions being misunderstood? Who are the people that make you feel like you have to shrink yourself in their presence so they can feel good about themselves and shine?
-
What does surprise feel like? What experiences or situations have left you with a feeling of childlike wonder and delight in the unexpected?
What does disappointment feel like? What experiences or situations have left you feeling disillusioned or hopeless?
As a Manifesting Generator, the more I monitor and live in my signature of satisfaction, the less I'm distracted or confused by the conventional measures of success. The more clear, intentional, and unapologetic I am about living my own definition of success.
There's no escaping the need for money and the exchange of money for goods and services in our material world, and I like and value money, no question. I just tend to place a higher premium on time — my time, to do with it as I please. I always have. I may not have a lot of material wealth, but my time is mine, and that's the most important metric for my definition of success.
Human Design teaches us that you can't think your way to genuine success, because it's not formulaic or rational the way we've been taught and told. You can only feel it by feeling into your Energy Type's wayfinding mechanic, and it's not a one-and-done process. It's a never-ending, lifelong practice and daily discipline that will ultimately lead you to a life of less friction and more flow.
Now, who doesn't want that?
Note: Every Human Design chart is more than the sum of its parts, and every element of a chart affects — and is affected by — every other element. Human Design is a deeply layered, complex system that integrates eastern and western traditions and wisdom. When I share discrete elements of a chart, I am simply sharing glimpses into the mechanics of Human Design (and the Gene Keys) to show others how they, too, can discern practical insights from their own charts into their uniqueness and the patterns of thought, behavior, conditioning, emotions, and psychology that keep them from achieving their highest potential or living their best life.
