19 Feb Are you measuring your success correctly?

I used to love seeing the number of my followers grow. It was exhilarating, and I knew I was doing something right.

Or was I?

Maybe. People were finding me. That’s a good thing as awareness for my show and work matters. I needed more eyes and eyes. Right?! That’s especially true if I want to find sponsors and partners for my show. Big numbers speak volumes in this space. I kept seeing all of these social accounts with tens of thousands of followers. I knew I had to compete with those accounts to get a slice of the pie.

That’s initially what I thought as I started my podcast and building my social media channels.

It’s all wrong. None of that matters anymore, and I’ve been thinking a lot about that these days.

Wait, am I trying to be instafamous?

If you’re like me, you’re not looking to become instafamous. I want to do the work I love, help and serve people, and make a difference in the world by doing #allthethings that mattered to me. To make this happen, I need to become successful. But first I need to understand what success meant for me. If this isn’t something you’ve thought about or figured out yet, it’s time.

For me, success is seeing the impact I’ve made for others (and the world), being profitable (to support this work and my life), and having a balance of time to work and enjoy life with my people.

Impact and actions

Today, I want to talk about how I measure, impacting people and the world. It cannot be measured by the number of followers. Because followers that are not engaged are in fact, not impacted by me and my content. Instead, it’s measured by engagement and actions of the followers. Here’s how I see the differences.

Let’s say I have 100k followers on Instagram and a few people engage with my content semi-regularly. Am I in fact impacting people and the world? Not really. That’s because people that care, participate. I’m barely scratching the surface of participation here. There are many reasons they’re not reacting. For example: I could of attracted the wrong audience, the followers are bots, not real people, or they could of been purchased (AKA fake accounts).

In my reality, I have 6.2k Instagram followers and many of my followers engage in conversations with me. Comments in my feed are more like paragraphs and continued conversations, sharing ideas, feedback, and more. When posting Stories, direct messages are common. I can also see that people are viewing my profile, and using my profile links to visit my podcast, websites, etc. I also know my podcast audience continues to grow each week. These are all measurable, and more importantly, meaningful.

I see real proof that I’m creating and sharing something that’s helpful and wanted.

Don’t feel defeated

Even though I’ve never purchased followers, I was initially measuring myself against others that may of done it. And all that did was set me up for failure.

When you measure yourself against numbers you do not understand (e.g. other accounts) it’s easy to see how you do not measure up. Do that enough and you’ll feel defeated, which will affect your work and attitude. And that’s the last thing you want to happen. I’ve been there too. Never again.

The more you understand success (for you), and the correct signals that indicate you’ve made it, the less you’ll care what others are doing, nor how many followers you’ve gained.

Sure, I have room to grow. Don’t we all? But I’m creating a life that’s full of things I love doing, and I can see the results.