Success fails when it’s used as a socially acceptable excuse to keep you safe from exploring the unknown, and committing to discover your contribution. 

If you promise yourself that you’ll feel more secure about the future once you’ve accumulated more savings, you also commit to experiencing high stress and dissatisfaction until that achievement.

If you commit to the next career milestone—a promotion, an appearance on a list, some publicity—before you can relax, you’re also excusing yourself from confronting your anxiety head on. You are betting that an external achievement will fill your sense of inadequacy.

You feel uncertain that the things you actually want to do—travel, hobbies, pivoting towards your dream career—will help you make more money, so you decide not to do them until you’ve got more of it.

You don’t actually need more success in order to live fully, according to your values, and in your style. (I am still in the process of learning this lesson.)