These days, it seems as though we’re bombarded from all sides with so-called recipes for success. Images of what success looks like. Tactics to make us more successful. Warnings that what we’re doing right now might be sabotaging our success.

The implicit understanding being that we’ll do this thing, this way if we want to be successful. And we won’t do any more of that thing. All of this exists for a simple reason. We want to feel successful (even if we haven’t stepped back to individually examine what that word actually means to us and how it would look in our own life).

Successful feels good. Successful is what we are supposed to want to be, right?'

Where many of us run into trouble, though, is that it’s not always clear what exactly we are striving for. And sometimes, even when it is clear where we’re headed, that destination feels somewhat disconnected from what we truly want or who we know ourselves to be. When we’re chasing after other people’s definitions of success, there are questions we don’t ask.

Starting with, what does it mean to be successful?

What does it feel like to wake up each morning knowing you are successful in your life, in your work, in your relationships?

What matters most at this point in time in your life and why?

All of this comes down to values and vision, and clarity about those two things, well, they’re often thwarted by comfort.

It’s really easy to chase other people’s success instead of defining and creating our own, our way. For a while, at least, it can seem like the comfortable route. Most of us do this at some point in our lives because that is what happens when we’re leading ourselves around by the outside instead of spending a little time getting to know who we are on the inside. We spend more time listening to others (mentors, role models, peers, friends and family) instead of trusting that we might have a different and equally valid vision.

What happens? We can, if we’re not careful, become a little too susceptible to outside influences. We compare endlessly. Something doesn’t feel quite right. We can’t seem to achieve things like an adequate integration of our professional and personal lives (this is the so-called unicorn known as work-life balance). We’re stressed far too much of the time and that stress is running too much of the show.

There’s nothing wrong with the recipes.

Recipes are great jumping off points. They are experiments and references. They help us to not reinvent perfectly good and structurally sound wheels. But unless you’ve written those recipes for yourself or at least tested them out and tweaked them to fit your life, you’ll need to dig a little deeper for lasting satisfaction. What works for someone else may not be what nourishes you. In fact, it often misses the mark.

Just like cooking a delicious meal, unless you know what you’re hungry for and what ingredients you have to work with, a recipe isn’t going to do much good. In my life, I’ve always been more of a rule bender than a rule follower. (My strengths profiles reframe this as creativity, freedom, innovation and big picture thinking.)

Although I love trying out new recipes, I nearly always modify the recipe as I’m cooking. Maybe I don’t have that much garlic. Maybe a little spice change would taste better to me. Maybe there are three recipes that all sound good and I wonder what it would taste like if I blended them together.

It’s no different with life.

If you’re feeling stressed by success — how to achieve it, whether you’ll get there, how to juggle it all, how to move to the next level, the new burdens of having “made it” — I invite you to revisit your beliefs about success. Find out what’s underneath it all for you. What’s sustainable for you? What’s nourishing? What’s your recipe?

• When you say you want to be successful, what do you really mean by that?

• Why is that particular definition important to you?

• When someone points out your wins and successes, what’s your go-to response?

• When you’re feeling your most successful, what’s actually happening and not happening to create that feeling?

• What do you need most to be sustainable in creating your version of that success?

I invite you to spend some time defining success for yourself. Say yes to creating success — whatever that looks like for you — in your way.