Define Your Own Success
Design independent work around the life outcome you actually value
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 97%
Independent work offers more freedom, but that freedom is useful only after success has a personal definition. Start by deciding whether the primary outcome is flexibility, time with family, room for a pursuit, or maximum income. Then identify the values and priorities the work must support and design the work model around them. A lifestyle-led plan may cap hours or protect seasons away from work; an income-led plan may demand more business development and higher-value clients. This definition becomes a goalpost for evaluating gigs, schedules, rates, and sacrifices. The mechanism is simple: explicit values produce a desired lifestyle, which determines the appropriate portfolio and working pattern.
Origin
Diane Mulcahy says this is the first place she starts with readers, students, and coaching clients who are considering independent work.
Core principles
- 01Success must be personally defined
- 02Lifestyle and income goals require different work plans
- 03Values should shape the structure of work
- 04A clear goalpost makes tradeoffs easier
How to run it
- 1
Name the outcome
Write a concrete description of what feeling successful would mean in your professional and personal life.
Pro tip Describe an ordinary successful week, not an abstract ambition.
Watch out Do not default to titles, salary, or climbing a corporate ladder.
- 2
Rank your priorities
Identify the values and priorities that must show up in your life, such as flexibility, family time, training, autonomy, or income.
Pro tip Force a ranking when two priorities imply different plans.
- 3
Choose the leading objective
Decide whether the independent-work plan should primarily maximize lifestyle, flexibility, or income.
Watch out Trying to maximize every dimension hides the tradeoffs.
- 4
Build the matching work model
Set hours, client types, rates, and seasonal boundaries that reflect the leading objective.
Pro tip Use the desired lifestyle to estimate how much money and work you actually need.
- 5
Use the goalpost
Evaluate new gigs and changes against the definition rather than against somebody else's career ladder.
Watch out A lucrative opportunity can still be a poor fit if it destroys the outcome you chose.
In the wild
A consultant defines success as taking every summer afternoon to train for a marathon. She calculates the income needed for that lifestyle, chooses higher-value morning client work, and declines engagements that require afternoon availability.
→ Her portfolio supports the life priority instead of treating it as leftover time.
Common mistakes
Keeping the corporate scoreboard
Judging independent work only by title and salary ignores the flexibility and lifestyle it was meant to create.
Starting without a goalpost
Taking gigs before defining success produces a portfolio with no coherent direction.
Is it for you?
Best for
People considering independent work who need a clear basis for choosing clients, hours, and income targets.
Not ideal for
People who currently need to accept any available work regardless of fit or lifestyle.
From the transcript
“it's not going to work for you to go out and work independently unless you have a clear idea of what the goalpost is”
“please reflect on what success looks like to you what is your definition what are the values and priorities that are important for you to…”
From the episode
Diane Mulcahy: Go Gig or Go Home
Diane Mulcahy