Success is a sticky concept. It’s most often used as a tool to compare ourselves to others: “She has more money than I do, so she must be more successful,” or “She’s a successful mom because she makes it to all of her kids’ games.”
For women especially, it’s easy to let our definition of success get tangled up in the life someone else has chosen to live. When we do this, we can miss out on our own path to a bigger life. Since we first launched LimeLife, I’ve watched many different women from many different backgrounds find their path, come into their financial freedom and capture their own definition of success.
Curious? Here are a few questions to ask yourself to get started.
What does “having it all” mean for you?
This concept of “having it all” first entered my mind in the 80s and 90s. This was the era of Working Girl, pantsuits and high-powered businesswomen. We were told that we had choices – if a woman wanted a career, she was free to pursue it. If she wanted to be a mom, she could choose that path too. But the thing that really struck me, despite arguments otherwise, was that those choices seemed to be mutually exclusive. Society told us we could have it all, but then expected us to climb the corporate ladder while keeping a perfect home and raising perfect children. All with the same number of hours in a week as everyone else.
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This always stuck with me, as I simply couldn’t see how we were supposed to make it all work. In my mind, women don’t truly have choices if we have to trade one choice in to make another. From very early on, my goal was not only to find success in my career and success at home, but also to make it accessible to more women.
Why are we okay with corporations making money – but not ourselves or our friends?
“LimeLife was very clearly the path to this goal, a chance for women to broaden their
choices without having to trade one in. “
Owning their own business empowers women to go after their own goals, their way. It opens the door to financial freedom while also allowing them to find success beyond their career.
But something very interesting happened when we first started talking about our plans for LimeLife. You likely know that LimeLife was inspired by the many makeup artists who referred our products to their friends and colleagues. But the same people who’d happily shared their beloved products often hesitated when told that they could make money for doing exactly that. The stigma around direct sales was strong, but we’re starting to see an incredible shift. People, especially women, are starting to ask the question above. When choosing where to buy natural skin care and professional makeup, more and more are making sure their money supports a Beauty Guide and her goals. And more and more women are seeing direct sales as the path toward goals of their own!
How different would your life be if you had an extra $100 each month? How about $1,000?
Last month we talked about the risks of comparing our comfort zone to others’. We said it was tempting to view someone with a wider comfort zone as a success and consider ourselves failures in comparison. We should be aware that those with narrower boundaries can influence us too! The stigma around direct sales is what makes a lot of people recoil into their comfort zones. When we broaden our own boundaries, others might start to question us or even try to get us to narrow our comfort zone to match theirs.
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But those of us who’ve gone after our goals in this way know we’re on the cusp of something big. Business leaders are predicting that direct sales will continue to grow, soon becoming a very mainstream way for customers to interact with commerce. So if you’ve ever dreamed of “having it all,” whatever that looks like for you, think about how financial freedom can play a part. And remember that not everyone needs to jump into direct sales and make $10,000 a month to live a bigger life! For so many Beauty Guides, just having the extra money to pay their phone bill is life changing.
Think about what it would take for you to live a bigger life. More money, more flexibility, more time with your family… all of the above? Join us and start celebrating all of those amazing choices!