A few weeks ago, I read this awesome blog post by a well known raw food-est named Allissa Cohen talking about her decision to close her successful restaurants in order to live her dream life. She is a fine example of someone who has followed their passion and become extremely successful, with all kinds of amazing opportunities opening up to them as a result. She was well on her way to building an Empire for herself.

The thing that I found so interesting was this: She found herself so caught up in being “successful” and expanding on all the opportunities that she had, that she was not actually living her dream life at all.

The reality for her was that she did not really want an Empire.

She wanted her life to be more in the flow, with space for morning walks on the beach, yoga, and time to relax and enjoy her life. The reality was that she was really busy, and worked long hours under somewhat stressful conditions and her body was not digging it.

To the dismay of many people, she made the choice to release some of her commitments and “opportunities” in order to come back into alignment with her dream.

This really got me thinking. I have a experienced a number of different times in my life where I went for something that I thought I wanted, only to discover that the reality of it was not for me.

Like when I was 20 and could not wait to be the top dog restaurant manager, only to discover that meant I worked 70+ hours a week and was too exhausted to enjoy my life on my time off.

On one hand, I was considered to be very successful for someone so young.

I was making more money than my mother ever made, and I had the status of being the boss, BUT my life sucked in the quality of life department, and I ended up in the hospital one night because of all the stress.

The real kicker was that I made myself “wrong’ for not being able to handle it.

I was using someone else’s definition of success and as a result, I was trying to cram myself into this success “box”.

It took me another 15 years to come up with my own definition of success and what felt good in my life.

I am curious if you have taken the time to identify what success looks like to you?

How about a loving relationship?

What does the perfect workday look like to you?

Take a minute to share what you have discovered in the comments below.