Success, Back to 0

How do you define success?

In this series of articles, I talked about not failing and the beginning of my Workday journey. I now want to highlight all the times I took a risk, made the change, and how I started to redefine success.

There were several times that I thought more money and keeping up with the Jones’ was success. Yes, you need to have food to survive, but redefining success happened when I no longer needed more money.

I was now in a leadership role helping to shape the Workday practice. I started out that role focused on Absence again and became an Absence Product Lead. I didn’t like doing Implementations and MA&D work, so I started creating the methodology for the AMS practice. This connected me with leaders around the globe and got me into solutioning and offerings. I also got to build out our teams in Canada, Costa Rica, and Mexico. That’s when I learned what success is.

The company itself wasn’t something I admire. I went 2 years with no raise or bonus. Year 3 I got a 1% raise. Benefits weren’t great. I also saw rounds of layoffs (I was on the first list and my manager saved me) and people voluntarily resigning due to the state of the organization. However, I was in a role that was perfect for me and working with people I liked.

Happiness was my key to success.

I continuously had to learn and adapt in that role.

Why did I leave? The lack of relationship with Workday. There was only so much any of us could do when the company didn’t care. I was doing sales and delivery work. It was too much.

I am now again finding my happiness in my new role. Doing work that I love. Genuinely helping people and organizations from a new perspective. After 3 years and two other roles, I took the risk I was too afraid to take and am on a new path. If you want to know where I’ll be in 5 years, my goal is just to be happy.

I guarantee that my path is not the same as yours, but what I hope you take away from this is that you have to find your own success. Your definition of success will evolve. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help along the way.