Season 3: Stop Borrowing Someone Else's Scorecard — Jess Goes Solo

In the first ever solo episode of Successful AF, host Jess West kicks off season three with a reset on what this whole show is really about. After 21 conversations with guests redefining success on their own terms, Jess pulls together the threads — and gets honest about her own story: circling the drain on burnout more than once, chasing a version of success she'd never actually authored for herself.

This is a short, unfiltered reflection on why we spend so long chasing the big house, the title and the fancy watch — a version of success that, as Jess puts it, was designed for none of us — and what changes when you stop borrowing someone else's scorecard and start defining success for yourself.

In this episode, Jess explores:

• Why success is self-authored, not inherited — and how to stop chasing someone else's definition
• The gap between knowing you're successful and actually feeling it
• Unlearning the conditioning: why your first thought is programming and your second thought is choice
• The power of walking away, and why grit and relentless optimisation aren't the whole story
• Her own burnout story — chasing a promotion, ignoring the warning signs, and what she found on the other side
• Why how you live your days is how you live your life

Whether you're navigating burnout recovery, a career change, or just the quiet sense that you've ticked every box and still feel like something's missing, this episode is an invitation to live differently — and to give yourself permission to define success on your own terms.

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Love this episode? Hit subscribe and leave us a review! And if you know someone who's redefining success on their own terms, nominate them at successfulafpod@gmail.com - we're always looking for incredible people to feature.

Connect with Jess:

Instagram: @kalicoaching.co

Website: www.kalicoaching.co.uk

Transcript

Speaker 0:00

we are back for season three of the Successful AF pod. And I am so grateful to everyone who listens and downloads and rates and reviews and all of that stuff. When I started this podcast, I wasn't really sure what I was doing, and if I'm honest, I've still got no idea. But every single conversation I have with one of my guests changes my perspective. And I've been asked a few times recently why I set it up, and I don't think I knew why when I did it. I just knew that I needed to do it. I needed to hear stories of other people who were living in a way that made them happy. I've circled the drain on burnout a few too many times, and I think I'd realized that I was chasing a version of success that wasn't built for me and that I hadn't Authored for myself, but I also didn't know what success should look like. And I think we've really lost a lot of the storytelling. We used to live in communities and villages, and there's that whole piece around, women being in the kitchen and doing the washing up and sharing stories. Now, whilst I am really pleased that we have moved away from that sort of women live in the kitchen narrative, I do think there is a gulf where there used to be a lot more sisterhood and a lot more sharing and a lot more sort of being around each other. And I do think that the current version of success that many of us are perhaps unconsciously chasing wasn't designed for any of us. And I say any of us across the board, Regardless of your background, your gender, your identity, I think we've come up with something that was maybe designed post-I-Industrial Revolution, and this is what it should look like. And I don't know how many of us have ever stopped to really think about whether or not that works for us. And, a few of my guests have talked about their values, which I love the conversation around values and what that means. And actually, are we living in alignment with our values and perhaps that success? And so I've looked back at the previous 21 conversations and just pulled out some of the key themes that I think are really worth talking about because they're so different to that sort of big house, big car, goes on loads of holidays, wears a fancy watch success that I think is the typical version of, of what we think we should be chasing. And the first one is very much that success is self-authored and not inherited. And, when Ifey talks about walking away from a medical post and that was, seen as, the best thing ever. But actually she's defined something that works so much better for her. Or Abi, who reframed success as being in the driver's seat of her life, but also knowing that that means trade-offs, but making those trade-offs deliberately rather than having them made for you. Every single guest I've spoken to returns to the idea that you've got to stop borrowing someone else's scorecard, particularly when you don't even know who that someone else is. So that was number one. And then I think there's this gap between knowing and feeling success. And the notion that we so often own our failures, but we struggle to claim our wins. This imposter syndrome that runs throughout many of us, which therefore means it's hard for us to claim our successes, and we'll say, "Oh, well, I had help," or, "I did it with someone else," or whatever. But there's that version of success, and there's also feeling successful. But that doesn't happen unless you've already defined what success means for you And so that's kind of, we start to move down the funnel. Like, you define your own success, you define what that means for you, and then you're more able to feel it because you feel connected to it. And then from that, you also have to unlearn a lot of the conditioning that, the '90s capitalist script and, the Clara Ho's Singapore Dream. The first thought is conditioning, the second thought is choice. And being aware that your thoughts aren't always true and your thoughts are not facts really helps with that definition or, or you know, the narrative. And then also the power of walking away. There's a billion books on the importance of grit and sticking it out and, grinding and, and there are some podcasts out there, one I've listened to really recently, that will talk about, you know, you've gotta be on the go from 5:00 AM, and, and this optimization thing. Like, oh my God, we've got every element of our lives has to be optimized, and we have to optimize our sleep, we have to optimize what we're eating, we have to optimize how we breathe. And you have to work so hard all the time, and it's, if you want anything, you have to go, go, go, go, go. And that's not to say that, we're given things on a platter, because that is absolutely not the case. But I think when you define what success means for you, and actually you curate and create your life around that version of success, then whilst, yeah, some, some days will be really hard. But there is a sense of fulfillment that comes from that because you're riding your own wave and not trying to balance on someone else's slightly wobbly, slightly, y- you know, missing some infrastructure situation. And I think the most important thing that I've taken is that, how you live your days is how you live your life. And you can't just be waiting for the weekend or waiting for the holiday at the end of the year or, it's that whole notion of like, when I get somewhere, when I lose the weight, when I get promoted, when I fill in the gap And I lived like that for so long. So, so long. It was actually my first ever burnout, was chasing a promotion. And in corporate, you not all corporates are the same, I'm sure. But you don't just get promoted for doing your job, you get promoted for going over and above and adding value. And, and that's great, and it's an opportunity to learn. But also, I took that way too far, and I was doing, like, three different side quests on the side of the job that I was meant to be doing. And I just kept telling myself, "When I get there, when I get promoted, when I get promoted, when I get promoted." And I got promoted, and it did not feel great because I'd gone completely the other side of the burnout curve. And it took me so long to climb back around to the other side. And I can see that now looking back, but it's only recently that I've completed Neha Sangwan's burnout coaching course, and I can actually see that, you know, you, you sort of start to notice when burnout's coming and your body sends you these signals. And it might be your heart's racing. It might be that you're reaching for food that you wouldn't normally reach for, or you're using alcohol to numb the anxiety. You start to, to notice these, these alarm signals going off. And if you continue to ignore them, which is absolutely what I did, then you end up flatlining Uh, which, uh, as anyone who knows anything about your heart, is not good. And your body sort of becomes accustomed to this level of stress, and it's it's really hard To for me anyway, it was, like, really hard for me to feel any joy. And then something happens, the straw that breaks the camel's back, and then you just slide into complete exhaustion and inertia and inability to do anything. And that was like, you know, I, I got to this point where I'd, I'd been promoted. I, I had the job title and in theory, that was the success. But what actually was success was after two years of therapy, realizing that I'd been chasing the wrong thing. So basically, all of this is to say you get to choose, and that's the whole point of this podcast. The whole point is to share stories that may or may not resonate, but to show that success looks so different for every single person, and that is not only okay, that is absolutely how it should be. So thank you so much for being with me on this journey, um, as I basically collect a bunch of data for myself to really explore what success is and, continuing to give myself permission to live differently and to throw off, to use Abi's words, the albatross that we are gifted through generations and generations and through society of what success means and looks like. I really hope you enjoy Season 3. It's been an absolute joy to record. I've still got a few more to record, but everyone on this season as per all previous seasons, is an absolute gem, and I have absolutely loved every minute of recording, so thank you.