Are you defining success on your own terms or performing it for someone else?
A few snapshots from recent coaching conversations:
- A healthcare executive at the top of her game by every external measure who quietly admits her health is declining, her relationship with her child is strained, and she feels anxious all the time.
- An SVP of a financial firm who smiles his way through leadership meetings while secretly dreading every one of them, feeling trapped in a role that drains his spirit.
- A leadership team that posts glowing photos from their offsite retreat, complete with hashtags about culture and connection and then confides in me about the dysfunction simmering beneath the surface.
- A CEO who celebrates “rapid growth” in every town hall while confessing exhaustion and fear of the business actually slowing down.
These stories might sound familiar either because we’ve either witnessed them or we have lived some version of them:
- On the outside: flawless updates, notable accomplishments, stretch goals, and polished leadership personas.
- On the inside: fatigue, inner friction, disconnection, and doubt.
This gap is the difference between what we show (or perform) and what we truly feel.
Success Theater is the performance of success based on others’ standards, expectations and external cues independent from our own internal feelings, values and cues.
It’s what happens when we pursue what we think we should value – things like money, titles, awards, curated vulnerability, ROI, KPIs, constant growth – without stopping to ask whether those markers reflect our own definition of a good life.
None of these pursuits are inherently wrong if we come to them from a place of authentic choice.
The problem arises when our relentless pursuit of them is driven by pleasing others, proving our worth, or quiet insecurity. Over time, success theater can cost us our health, our relationships, our creativity, and, perhaps most devastatingly, our inner sense of peace. We may look successful while feeling increasingly empty, disregulated or burned out.
The good news is that we can choose at any moment to walk off of the success theater stage and into a more authentic definition of success.
I’ve watched many leaders make this intentional shift, again and again. When they do, something profound happens:
- Wellbeing: They reclaim their health, creativity, purpose, and inner calm
- Alignment: They gain clarity and become less reactive to noise
- Resonance: Emotional friction gives way to resonance, energy and joy
- Humility: they no longer need to look successful or talk about success so often because they genuinely feel it on the inside
So how can we define and pursue success on our own terms, in a world that rewards optics and reputation over authenticity?
1. Spot Performance Cues (in your body)
How do you spot when you are performing success more than living it?
Maybe it’s when you say what’s “strategic” instead of what your gut instinct is telling you, because you think it will be better received by others. Or, the concept of “masking,” you curate empathy and vulnerability to appear relatable instead of just communicating naturally, flaws in all. Or when you find yourself hustling relentlessly toward a goal that someone else defined for you and it begins to take a toll.
Often, the first signals show up in our bodies: chronic tension in the neck or shoulders, stomach tightness, persistent stress or physical symptoms that won’t go away. One client developed an eye twitch and began shedding her hair while stuck in a success-theater role. When she left that environment and redefined success on her own terms, those symptoms disappeared.
Your body often knows before your mind is ready to admit it, so listen to your body cues.
2. Create Space to Vision
We allow others to define success for us when we don’t make space to define it ourselves. Create your own unstructured time “retreat,” even if it’s just an hour or two. Go somewhere without distractions and let yourself think forward several months or even years.
Ask yourself: If you were giving yourself a standing ovation based on what matters most to you, what would you be doing (and who would you be in terms of energy and presence)? In that future, what truly matters beyond money, recognition, or appearances?
Get brutally clear about your top priorities and what you are not willing to sacrifice. Ask people you trust when they’ve seen you most engaged and alive. Don’t worry yet about constraints or logistics. For now, focus on vividly picturing your future version of success.
3. Courageously Choose Success (On Your Own Terms), Again and Again
Redefining success on your own terms takes courage.
It means saying no to things that once defined you. It may mean disappointing people who benefit from the “performance success” version of you. It requires choosing alignment over approval, again and again.
Courage is the bridge between performing a life that looks good and choosing a life that feels right.
In the end, true success isn’t what you can post, pitch, or perform. It’s what you feel in your gut at the end of the day and how well you sleep at night. It’s how healthy you feel. It’s who you’re becoming and whether that version of you feels alive, connected, and at peace.
So ask yourself today: Am I pursuing real success or performing it? And what would it look like to choose differently, starting now?
