How to Tell If You’re Chasing Someone Else’s Definition of Success (And What to Do About It)

You’re successful by every external measure. The title. The comp. The respect from your industry peers.

So why does it feel like you’re living someone else’s life?

Here’s the truth most high performers won’t admit: You can be exceptional at executing a strategy that has nothing to do with what you actually want.

If you’ve ever wondered whether you’re building toward your goals or just checking boxes on someone else’s scorecard, this is how you figure it out—and more importantly, how you fix it.

Step 1: Track Your Energy for One Week

Not your time. Not your productivity. Your energy.

For the next seven days, pay attention to what activities genuinely energize you versus what drains you. This isn’t about whether something is hard or easy. It’s about whether engaging with it makes you feel more alive or more depleted.

Here’s how to do it:

At the end of each day, write down 3-5 activities or interactions from your workday. Next to each one, note:

• Energy up: Did this make you feel more engaged, creative, or alive?
• Energy neutral: Could take it or leave it
• Energy down: Did this drain you, even if you performed well?

Pay special attention to the energy-up moments. What specifically about them energized you? Was it the type of problem you were solving? The people you were working with? The autonomy you had? The impact you could see?

This practice—called “tracking energy” in positive psychology coaching—is one of the fastest ways to identify where your actual strengths and values show up versus where you’re just grinding through competence.

Why this works: Your body knows the difference between aligned work and ought-to work before your brain does. Energy doesn’t lie. If something consistently drains you despite external success, that’s data.

Step 2: Identify Your Actual Values (Not the Ones You Inherited)

Most leaders can tell you what they should value. Integrity. Excellence. Innovation. Leadership.

But those are often borrowed values—the ones your industry, your parents, your MBA program told you matter.

Your actual values are the ones that show up in how you spend your discretionary time and attention. They’re what you get unreasonably angry about when they’re violated. They’re what you brag about when no one’s watching.

Here’s the exercise:

Set a timer for 10 minutes. Write down every time in the last month you felt genuinely proud of yourself—not because someone else praised you, but because you knew you’d done something that mattered.

What patterns emerge?

• Were you proud because you solved a complex problem? (Value: mastery, intellectual challenge)
• Because you developed someone on your team? (Value: growth, mentorship, impact)
• Because you stood up for something difficult? (Value: courage, integrity, justice)
• Because you created something new? (Value: creativity, innovation)
• Because you brought people together? (Value: connection, collaboration)

Now compare that list to what you’re actually spending your time doing.

If there’s a massive gap between what makes you proud and what fills your calendar, you’re optimizing for someone else’s values.

Step 3: Spot Your Strengths in Real Time

Strengths aren’t just things you’re good at. They’re activities that energize you and that you perform well. They’re your values in action.

The VIA Character Strengths framework identifies 24 signature strengths organized into six virtue categories: Wisdom, Courage, Humanity, Justice, Temperance, and Transcendence.

Here’s how to identify yours without taking an assessment:

Over the next week, when you notice an energy-up moment (from Step 1), ask yourself:

• What skill or quality was I using here?
• Does this show up repeatedly across different contexts?

Listen for patterns:

• “I really enjoy going deep on complex problems” → Love of learning, curiosity, judgment
• “I felt most alive when I was connecting that team member to a new opportunity” → Kindness, social intelligence, leadership
• “I was energized by pushing back on that flawed strategy” → Bravery, honesty, perspective
• “I loved building that new framework from scratch” → Creativity, perspective

The key insight: If you’re spending most of your time in areas outside your top strengths, you’re grinding. And grinding doesn’t create flow—it creates burnout disguised as success.

Step 4: Run the “Ideal Self” Diagnostic

Richard Boyatzis’ research shows that sustainable change happens when you move toward your ideal self, not away from your current problems.

Most leaders skip this step entirely. They know what’s wrong. They know what they should fix. But they have no clarity on what they’re actually building toward.

Here’s the protocol:

Set aside 30 uninterrupted minutes. Answer these questions:

1. If you could design your role around your actual strengths and values, what would change?
   (Not “what’s realistic”—what would be aligned?)
   
2. What do you want to be known for at the end of your career?
   (Not what will impress people—what will make you proud?)
   
3. When you’re operating at your best—fully engaged, in flow, making impact—what are you doing?
   (Describe the activities, the environment, the type of challenges.)
   
4. What would you do if external validation disappeared tomorrow?
   (If no one was watching, no one was measuring, no one cared—what work would still matter to you?)
   

Write this out. In detail. This is your ideal self—not a fantasy, but a north star.

Now compare it to your current reality. The gap between where you are and where you want to be is your roadmap.

Step 5: Identify One Misalignment to Fix This Quarter

You don’t have to blow up your entire life. You just need to start closing the gap.

Look at your ideal self vision. Look at your energy tracking. Look at your values and strengths.

Now ask: What’s one thing I’m currently doing that’s completely misaligned—and what’s one thing I’m not doing that would move me toward my ideal self?

Examples:

• Misaligned activity: Spending 60% of your time in operational meetings that drain you when your strength is strategic thinking
  
  • Fix: Delegate two of those meetings and block that time for strategy work
• Missing activity: You value mentorship and development, but you haven’t invested in your team in months
  
  • Fix: Schedule monthly 1:1 development conversations (not status updates—actual growth conversations)
• Misaligned goal: Chasing a promotion that would move you further from your zone of genius
  
  • Fix: Have a conversation with your leadership about carving out a role that plays to your strengths instead

The rule: One aligned change per quarter. That’s it. Don’t try to fix everything. Just close one gap.

Why this works: Small aligned actions create momentum. And once you feel what it’s like to operate from your ideal self instead of your ought-to self, you won’t want to go back.

Step 6: Build Gratitude Into Your Operating System

Here’s the problem with hedonic adaptation: your nervous system will reset to any level of success. The promotion that felt impossible becomes the new baseline within weeks.

The only research-backed intervention that consistently breaks this cycle? Gratitude.

Not because it’s wholesome. Because it rewires your brain.

Here’s the practice:

Every night before bed, write down three specific things that went well today. Not generic (“my team is great”) but specific (“Sarah solved that client issue before I even knew about it, which freed me up to focus on strategy”).

Sonja Lyubomirsky’s research shows this practice is the most powerful tool against hedonic adaptation because it forces your attention toward what’s working instead of what’s next.

Bonus level: Once a week, identify one thing you’re grateful for that connects to your ideal self or your values. This trains your brain to notice when you’re in alignment, which reinforces the behavior.

What This Actually Creates

When you track your energy, identify your values, operate from your strengths, and move toward your ideal self instead of away from your ought-to self, here’s what shifts:

• Decisions get easier because you have a filter (Does this align or not?)
• Performance improves because you’re operating from intrinsic motivation, not willpower
• Relationships strengthen because you’re showing up as yourself, not a performance
• Work feels generative instead of depleting because you’re spending more time in your zone of genius

You’re not working less. You’re working from a completely different place.

That’s the difference between impressive and sustainable. Between success that exhausts you and success that fuels you.

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Ready to build performance from alignment instead of grinding harder? Schedule a strategy session to explore whether Become the 1% training is right for you.