I've had to start thinking of success in much smaller, more concise terms than I used to.

While I was growing up, my ideas of success were those fed to me by a world that favours patriarchal power structures, economic value, and heterosexual happy endings. None of these have the same relevance to me now, or the same accessibility.

At 26, I was on track to buying a house, marrying a man, and having a baby. All of which are the external markers of success our society is built on and which we use to judge others.

Because I have an incurable autoimmune illness, it's unlikely I'm ever going to hit those markers - and also because I'm a bisexual feminist who isn't neccessarily interested in marrying a dude. So those aspirations began to feel a lot more like measures of my failure. And I don't need to feel like that.

Living with illness means every day is a success. Every day that I get up, manage my medication, manage my pain, write even when I'm so fatigued I can barely hold a pen, write even when I'm so sore it feels like my ribcage might actually be trying to detach from my spine, get published even when a thing might take weeks of small steps to come together. All of those days are a success.

Every day that I accept my body and know that today I cannot write, that today it might only be possible to walk the five minutes to the supermarket and back, that today I may achieve very little other than looking after myself and learning to sit with my own frustration. All of those days are a success.

Every day that I continue to talk about the realities of chronic illness, that I manage to communicate this openly and genuinely, that I have people respond and walk alongside me. All of those days are a success.

Every day that I learn more about how my situation relates to politics and can influence it, that I learn more about what being a feminist means and how intersectionality teaches me and enriches my life and relationships, that I learn more about myself as a bisexual woman and feel comfortable in that skin. All of those days are a success.

I wanted to participate in everydaysuccessstory because I've been told I'm "inspirational" a lot, and I'm not. Everyone has tiny successes every day, mine just happen to be within a framework of some quite challenging circumstances. Illness doesn't make me a hero. It's just changed my frame of reference.

Tiny successes matter, and they all add up. It's about deciding what that looks like for you.

And the most important thing is cutting yourself some slack. No one can be Great!TM every single day. As long as you're working towards something that is important to you - that's what success should feel like.

Follow Sarah on Twitter @_writehanded_

Read more of her writing at http://www.writehanded.org/

(original post Sep 2016 - Fight Like a Girl Club)

When I was 17, I went to the doctor. I wanted to sort out the migraines and irregular, painful periods that I’d had since 14 and the trail of hair that was appearing under my belly button. I was diagnosed with PCOS. Basically, he said, “You have this disorder. It’s common. Here’s some birth control pills.” No information or advice about diet, lifestyle, or alternative medication. Just the added encouragement of “With the severity of your symptoms, your chances of having kids are about one in a million.” My ultimate dream, that of being a mother, gone in a flash. Bearing children is the most natural thing a woman can do, and I couldn’t even do that right. So what good was I? What’s more, the birth control pills did nothing but make me constantly dizzy and nauseous.

Still, I managed to lead a relatively normal life for a few years, and after I took myself off the pill, I even lost a bit of weight. I had some tough times, like anyone does. PCOS was a big part of some romantic disasters that affected me greatly. There was the guy who used the fact that I was self-conscious about it to emotionally abuse me. You know the type–he goes for the girl with the low self-esteem because he thinks she’ll be easy to control. I was with him for a while. Then there was the guy who was incredibly sweet and head-over-heels in love with me until I broke the news about the infertility. He thought about it, then charitably offered to stay with me, even though I was, in his words, “horribly flawed.” Just what a girl likes to hear. I preferred the idea of being alone to being his pity project, so I walked away.

I was 23 when somebody close to me passed away. I’m guessing, in hindsight, that the stress spiked my cortisol levels and set off a change in my hormonal profile. The fact that I was living on a student’s diet of apples, toast and vodka probably didn’t help either.

I slowly but surely started to gain weight again. My skin got really bad, with pimples and discolouration everywhere, and I started to notice unwanted hair on my face and body that was growing much thicker than before. To say that I felt like less of a woman is an understatement. I felt like a beast. I had no energy. It was like I had been hit by a train. I stopped menstruating altogether for 6 month bouts. When I did get a period, it would last for two or three weeks. I was in agony and would have to deal with clots almost the size of golf balls.

My mood was all over the place. I plunged into a depression and stayed there. Years of my life disappeared into endless tears, cigarettes and confusion. I have always been the nervous type, but my anxiety spiralled out of control. I was having panic attacks almost daily, just at the prospect of leaving the house. I have a loving family, but I didn’t feel like I could ever make them understand what I was going through. People see PCOS as a non-fatal disorder, and this may be so, but the depression it can trigger is no joke. There were times when I could easily have taken my own life.

Then I changed doctors. My new doctor gave me a little more information about PCOS. Just little inroads, which led to me researching it on my own and understanding it better. He also seemed to be under the impression that I wasn’t completely worthless, as I had come to believe. He let me know that it wasn’t my fault–I didn’t choose to have PCOS. He listened to me, like other doctors before him had not done, and he invested some time into actually doing something proactive about my health. He tried me on different medications and different diets. He encouraged me to make small changes. Very slowly, I came back from the brink.

Eventually, I felt confident enough to make a big change–I stopped smoking. Boy, was it hard. In fact, it was torture, but after a year smoke-free, I started to think to myself, “Wow, I actually did it. I took charge of my own health and did something amazing. Wonder what else I could do?”

Now, a few years later, I’m answering that question. I’ve lost 40kg. I’ve educated myself about my disorder, and the whole ‘knowledge is power’ thing really is true. I’m more confident. I’m still nervous and self-conscious and probably always will be, but there are no more panic attacks. I know my triggers and have strategies in place for when things get really tough because I’ve learned that stress management is a priority when you’re dealing with hormonal issues.

My menstrual cycle is now manageable. I’m in my mid-thirties, and with no guy on the horizon, I’ve pretty much given up any dream of being a mum, but I’ve come to realize that when your dreams get crushed, it makes room for new ones. I’m hoping that one day maybe I can do something that makes the world a better place for other people’s children to grow up in. I’m hoping to reach my goal weight. I’m hoping to return to work sometime soon. I’m hoping to travel one day. That’s the biggest thing I’ve learned, really, is just to hope.

___________________________________

Update: I'm now working at a children's charity, making a difference in a job that I love, and training for my first marathon.

Follow Ange on Twitter @pcoshoney

I think maybe others judge my success by my education and career, and yep, I’m proud of what I’ve achieved. I’ve worked my arse off for it, and I’m really grateful for the opportunities I’ve had.

But it’s not where my success is.

Maybe people think I’m successful because I come across as pretty emotionally onto it. I’ve read a lot of self-help books, spent a lot of time in therapy, and I’ve had some incredible life experiences. People come to me for comfort in bad times and laugh with me in good times, and that’s a huge honour. It fills my heart up.

But it’s not where my success is.

Here’s the thing: I spent much of my life terrified. I won’t get into specifics - it’s too personal - but let me say I had a troubled childhood, and those feelings of insecurity, anxiety, and vulnerability have stuck around for much longer than I would have liked. I spent too many years living my life in fear, and as the saying goes, “a life lived in fear is a life half lived.”

My life was totally half lived. It was limping along.

So, what changed?

In a nutshell: I made a decision to listen for that quiet inner voice, and trust it. When my spirit told me to move, I moved, even when it was scary or strange. When my soul told me to stand firm, I did so with all the courage and conviction I could muster. It started in small ways, and built itself up and up as I gained confidence in the process. And you know what? The more I listened to my heart, the more free I became. Fear started to loosen its grip, and that made space for love, and peace, and hope.

I truly believe you can be anything, including lead a life others might consider lowly or without status, and so long as you’re true to yourself - so long as you act in love and not fear - you’re a total winner.

And that is where my success is.

Follow Cate on Twitter @CateOwen

To be honest, I never really thought about success in a grander sense than getting good grades. Never thought about what my capital-P plan was or how I was to progress (or even really what it was I was supposed to progress to).

Opportunities presented themselves, and I took, or rather fell into, them.

I was the kid who found school, and later university, relatively easy. This isn’t me boasting, rather the opposite: I coasted. The trouble with that though is, of course, figuring out what I wanted to do. If you can do most things, what’s your direction? I just ended up doing the minimum I had to in order to get that A grade, and after that I just really didn’t care. The grade and doing the least possible to get it were all I focused on. Screw planning. Screw a direction. Direction presented itself when the next opportunity happened, and I’d just take that, and then the next thing, and the next thing. If one could assume a mantra for this stage, then that mantra was inertia.

It’s kinda obnoxious. Ok, it’s REALLY obnoxious. And narcissistic. I’m not saying I was Donald Trump here, but bloody hell. At least I didn’t bankrupt anything I guess.

The one hiccup to this cruise was figuring out I was queer. And being disowned for it.

It’s one thing being a child of privilege, with a hugely privileged background, and another thing entirely to find yourself dependent on student allowance and a part-time job at KFC (good lord but I hated that job). Again though, I defaulted to my usual plan: set up things so you don’t have to think about them, then just apply the minimum of brain-effort to get the top grade. Why should you do anything more?

In a weird, screwed-up way being disowned almost made things worse in this regard: my parents were something I no longer had to worry about proving myself to either.

(don’t get me wrong though, there were lots of melodramatic 1990s nights & early mornings spent sitting on the bonnet of a car staring out at the ocean, with occasional bouts of screaming at it … Millennial readers? Let me tell you about a thing called ‘grunge’. You know nothing, Jon Snow).

Getting through to the end of undergrad with two degrees in the physical and social sciences, I went on to honours in one after initially thinking I’d do the other (did mention the lack of plan, right?). Being offered a Master’s scholarship off the back of that work, I was offered a stipend to do PhD study in the United States.

In Chicago no less. God, I love Chicago. Miss it terribly. Not the summers there though (think mid 30s C with like 80% humidity … you sweat & stick to EVERYTHING).

I found myself a young 30-something lesbian woman working as an adjunct professor on a pittance at one of the most diverse large urban public universities in the US, teaching courses on gender analysis, intro policy, advanced social theory. I had got the highest possible pass in my PhD Subject Exams and had a near 4.0 grade for my PhD courses, and I was just on the cusp of doing the last bit: the dissertation. You’d think I’d have it made, right?

Cue record scratch.

That young 30-something woman was also running straight into a brick wall; a lack of motivation. The thing that had motivated her throughout her 20s and into her 30s was gone; she simply didn’t care anymore. Later, she’d figure it out that she had simply burned-out, combined with never really asking herself ever what she wanted to do with her life.

Nearly a decade and a half spent as a broke-arse student, scraping by on whatever she could get, ignoring anything else that she might want because priorities like food, an apartment, electricity, fees, course-expenses always trumped any conceivable ‘want’ she might have. I did it because that’s what you do, right? That’s what you’re supposed to do. You put everything aside to be able to focus on what’s important and get that done. And I did. For years. I ignored how much it ground at me, because it’s what you do in order to succeed.

But, I’d never asked myself what it was that I wanted, what it was I was getting all those top grades for. What was it that all this success was leading to? Did I even want the logical academic route after graduation? I had not even never asked myself this, I hadn’t even thought of this as a question I should be asking. I ran into the enormous brick wall that was this huge question, without even realising till some time later that this was what I had run into. In hindsight, it’s probably not an accident that I did this at the last possible step of my study.

While at the time I didn’t know what was going on, I did start to recognise a) that there was indeed something happening, and b) that this wasn’t something I could ignore and push through. Even my stubborn-arse self EVENTUALLY realised that something was up (honestly probably should have realised a year before I did … I am truly a dumb-arse in some things) and I couldn’t keep just pushing on.

Though I tried, during this period I had taken up running. I was quite literally running over 10km A DAY. If that’s not a metaphor for avoiding shit, I don’t know what is.

But, the GFC had hit, teaching positions were drying up anyway as state governments in the US were cutting back on education in massive ways, and if I were to take a pause from study, before starting the dissertation proper would be the logical point.

Cue again standing on the edge of a large body of water (this time, Lake Michigan) looking like something out of a John Hughes film (though, less attractive mind you).

I sold & gave away virtually everything in my entire apartment, cancelled the cable, my cell-phone, and internet, and eventually after finishing teaching a summer semester course full of absolutely brilliant students (it was a 200 level gender analysis course, so naturally they got me a sheet-cake with ‘Vaginas Rock’ on it to say goodbye), I found myself standing in Midway International Airport with my best guy friend, my girlfriend at the time (she got the cat), two large suitcases, and a ticket back to New Zealand.

Talk about reverse culture shock.

Nothing screams shock to the system and thinking yourself a failure, like coming back to New Zealand WITHOUT the PhD you went there for, with just two suitcases of possessions in the whole world, very little money, none of the trappings of 30-something adulthood, and MOVING IN WITH YOUR MOTHER.

Yeah, my mother and I had patched things up after the whole disowning thing in my second year of university, particularly so after my father died. But still, I WAS MOVING BACK IN WITH MY MOTHER.

Kidding, she was actually pretty cool about it all.

But, I still didn’t really have a clue what was up with me which really let my feeling of failure run rampant. Plus, they don’t call the GFC ‘global’ for nothing … I had decided, as far as I could decide anything, that I really needed time away from academia. To just think, for however long that would take. I needed a jobby-job, and plus I’d heard about this thing called ‘money’ that sounded really bloody nice.

At that time, all I could get were temp office positions. I mean, I wasn’t expecting to walk into The Devil Wear’s Prada or anything, but shit. Just think about how successful you feel when your task for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, for months & months, is to unclip staples from file folders, organise them, and then feed them through a rickety old scanner that would break down if you just looked at it funny.

The one thing though that this all gave me, was a chance to think. In between fighting off large feelings of failure really for the first time in my life, I could just THINK. Not just staring off into bodies of water like Winona Ryder, this is the hard yards of thinking, and mostly not even coming to a conclusion. Small flashes of occasional insight, drip-fed into my brain. I was way familiar with 3am, I can tell you that.

Eventually I figured out that I had burned out. I had simply pushed myself beyond where I could, for too long, for a reason that I simply didn’t know. I still didn’t know at the time what that was, but at least now I was asking the right bloody questions.

I finally got offered permanent positions, and made my way up the corporate ladder, getting offered more and more money. I remember one contract promotion I honestly looked at the document and was all “they want to pay me HOW MUCH?!”. I got back an apartment worth of things, I could purchase holidays, I could do all the stuff that I wanted and buy what I wanted. Paid down my student loan and put money into my KiwiSaver.

And right when I was earning just about six figures, right when people were talking to me about buying property and embracing all the normal corporate and middle-class markers of success, I started to FINALLY figure it out.

This wasn’t it.

The corporate world wasn’t it. The money wasn’t it (ok, maybe it was a little bit the money). I fit in the corporate world like a square bloody peg in a round hole. What all these people thought was “what you did” … settling down, house in the suburbs, the minivan/sedan combo, the commute to-&-from the office every damn day down the motorway, kids, etc … it wasn’t for me. I didn’t want these markers of ‘success’. I just simply didn’t want the ‘normal’ life. It took me years to get to this realisation, for all the parts to fall together, but get there I did.

I wanted to go back to university and finish the damn PhD.

So, I quit that near-six-figure job and applied to a PhD programme here in Wellington, NZ. I got in, and after temping in a part-time public-sector job for a bit, found work as a research assistant and being a tutor. Enough to fund my studies and, you know, live.

Giving up the wonderful apartment I was renting in Thorndon hurt. I cut back my budget to the bare bones (haven’t given up my hairdresser mind you, I have some lines in the sand), and I’m renting a tiny granny flat without anything resembling a real kitchen or clothes-washing facilities.

And you know what? I’m fucking loving it.

There are still the 3am wake-ups wondering what the hell I have done, plus freaking out about money from time to time, but in reality, I now am where I am supposed to be. And I’m damned good at it. I know what the hell I’m talking about, I’ve defended my near 30,000-word research proposal, had it accepted, got full candidature, got back into teaching (though I am only tutoring right now), am working as a researcher, presented at a conference, representing other PhD students on committees, and am about to start my own research. All in just over a year and a bit.

I may be earning bugger all right now, and pulling stupidly long hours, but I’m CONSCIOUSLY doing what the fuck I want, and that’s amazing.

So, what from here?

As a 40-something now you’d think I would know, wouldn’t you? Well, here’s the thing I’ve finally bloody well figured out … for me, knowing where I want to go and what success is, isn’t about career so much (though I do have a ballpark idea), it’s about knowing the kind of lifestyle I want.

I don’t need loads of money, I’d love to work part-time, have a small apartment, time to read bad literature and watch good film, have friends quietly over for wine, good beer and good cheese, ride a Vespa … and do work that doesn’t stress me out too much or make me be in the office for long-arse hours, but rather engages my brain as a researcher with the world in critical analysis and thought. That’s the good shit right there. That’s a lifestyle I want, not a career.

Plus feed my cat and keep him happy. That’s kinda important.

Where I end up doing this, I don’t quite know. Even if that ends up being in New Zealand or not. But here’s the crucial point for me in being successful: do this CONSCIOUSLY.

Don’t just do things because it’s “what you do”. Think about them. Really think about them critically. Question yourself and question those goals. Take all the damn time to do so. And even if you do eventually decide that the ‘normal’ life is really what you want, at least then you’ve made the choice for yourself and you know yourself that what you’re doing isn’t something you’re sleep-walking into. Because honestly? Too many people really just fall into their lives.

Success to me is being aware of the choices you’re making in life and why you’re making them. So much of your life isn’t of your own making, the privileges you have and oppressions you face, as you will undoubtedly experience so many constraints on what your choices can or can’t be. But where you can, really think about them. This isn’t new-age mindful bullshit, but rather taking the time to think about what you really want, to really question everything, for however long that takes, and whether those conventional markers of ‘success’ are what you want.

Or is it something else?

Because I’d say, when you find what you want, then succeed at such, it’s actually fucking worth it.

Follow Sarah on Twitter @sarahhbickerton

Marewa Glover, Professor of Public Health, Massey University reflects on getting to Professor.

When do we give up our dreams to be a... writer? Psychologist? Or the next Helen Clark? Truthfully, I never fantasised about being PM. I never thought I’d be a Professor either, but from 1 January this year the appellation on my office door changed.

I did once aspire to be a writer, I thought, of novels. But I felt so harshly put down for my first attempt, I never tried again. Surprisingly to me, I have instead authored or co-authored over 100 scientific journal articles, over 60 research reports, 2 collections of poems, several short stories and numerous short opinion pieces. After all my regret at not ever finishing a novel and feeling for decades that I mustn’t let go of that goal - I have become a writer. I also have to conclude that the writing I’ve published will have far more effect than ever one small novel of mine could have had.

I still believe that fiction can be transformational, revolutionary and can spark social change, but I’m no Anne Frank. My story, my sorry upbringing, all the abuses I’ve been scarred by - they occurred in peace time. I hate to accept it, but they are normal, ho-hum, banal molestations, rapes, beatings - miserable painful stories people are frankly sick of hearing about. I struggle to dress it up, to deliver it in an entertaining way. So, I’ve shelved it.

Sometimes you get what you desired in a different form. I didn’t become a fiction writer, but I am a writer. I didn’t get justice for the wrongs done to me either. But again, this is just the way it is. There are so many of us who have never, will never, experience justice because injustice is built in to our society. I won’t ever see the men who abused me outed as paedophiles, but I can fight the sexism and racism that supported them to use me for their own sick gain. I can fight the lies people of influence are spreading so that they can maintain their power and income. My current focus, for example, fighting for a smoker’s right to vape instead – this is a fight against injustice. There’s a kind of vicarious healing that comes from getting justice for others.

I didn’t realise that reaching the level of Professor, to be celebrated as a Woman of Influence finalist - this success - this is my justice. Despite all the crushing acts, the times I’ve been ignored, bullied and belittled by people, I have achieved a career height, a position and role in society that they would have denied me. I couldn’t see it at the time, but this big success, that was beyond my own vision for myself, is the accumulation of smaller successes. Every time I was pushed off course, I felt anger. I knew they were wrong about me. But you can’t tell people you’re not the distortion they’re projecting on to you - though I tried. You can only be yourself and do the things only you can do and create what only you can create. The work, your art, your outcomes is your defence.

The anger fuelled my persistence, maybe to prove them wrong, more so to not let them rob me of more than the brief indignity they put me through. If I had let the abusers’ taint my view of self, if I had allowed the fear to govern, I would not have had my daughter, I would not have tried to have another relationship, I would not have gone for another job or more research funding. After each insult, I’d do as my Mum had advised, ‘put your lippy on and get back out there.’ Though it didn’t feel like it then, each time I did that was a success and it’s those everyday small successes that added up to get me to Professor.

Follow Marewa on Twitter @MarewaGlover

One of my most vibrant memories from my primary school days is being in class at lunchtime. The windows behind me looked out to the school field and behind that was the principal’s house. It was partly cloudy out there, but the sun was bright and coming in through the window. There was a table behind me. There was a red book that my hand was on. And there was a classmate in front of me. He was nearly a year older than me and so much taller. Around him were a few other people in my class, including the girl who was the most popular in the school. So beautiful, with long hair that I envied and a bright coloured hair tie. You know the ones that were Fluro colours because Fluro was just everything at that time.

She told the boy in front of me what to do. He had a white t-shirt on. He wrapped his hands around my throat and began to choke me. He lifted me from the floor. I was terrified. I was choking. They were laughing.

I don’t know what happened after that. I don’t remember him letting me go or what made him stop. I wonder if I blacked out and they fled.

I remember trying to tell a teacher what had happened. She was busy, I could talk to her later.

I remember telling a friend’s parent who picked me up from school what had happened. It was obvious, he liked me and besides, if I dropped my chin down I would have stopped choking.

It was at this point that I stopped telling people about most of what happened to me. Because most people didn’t care. And if I retaliated I was the one who got into trouble.

I remember seeing that girl years later when I was fifteen, I hadn’t seen her in years but she and her friends leaned out car windows to yell at me for being an ugly slut. Bystanders were shocked by the things they yelled at me and that I didn’t retaliate. I just walked away crying.

I was bullied most of my life, told I was stupid, fat, and ugly. I believed it. Even when I was in the class for the smartest kids in the school, I still waited for it to be taken away, and I didn’t try as hard as I should have because hey, I was stupid.

My family life wasn’t always the happiest. There was stress due to finances, my parents often working extra jobs, Dad even working in other cities away from us because that’s where the jobs were. And looking back I know my parents weren’t meant for each other. There was a lot of fighting and that they ended up divorced should not have surprised me. (It still did.)

There were the boys and men who thought I should give them more than I wanted to. I was one of the “lucky” ones in that no one took it all the way. But I fought off more advances than any woman should have to. I still remember running and hiding, I still remember shaking and trying to decide if I should tell anyone what he had tried to do that first time. I still remember being blamed for it.

Books were such a happy place for me. I would lose myself in stories and could devour a novel in a few hours. I made up stories. Sometimes I would tell the stories to people. Sometimes I would pretend the stories were real. I wrote little stories. I wrote poems.

I began to self-harm and think about suicide when I was fifteen. I wanted someone to rescue me and help me. Sometimes I wanted the knight in shining armour but, more often, I wanted the fairy godmother.

I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to be a counsellor or therapist. I wanted to work for the police and be a counsellor. I even wanted to be a Methodist minister for a while.

I wanted to help people. I wanted to rescue people and heal them in ways I didn’t feel healed myself.

In my work life I was bullied, and yes, I endured sexism. I became burnt out by things I endured and the people I was around.

My health began to go downhill, mentally and physically. It almost cost me my marriage. It took years to find out that one of the biggest problems was that I had PCOS - Polycystic ovary syndrome. It explained a lot with the miscarriages, the weight gain, the health and mental issues. (I was told it was quite the miracle that without help I had become pregnant and successfully had my son and that there would not be more.)

There were times that I spiralled close to the darkness.

And still, I wanted to be a writer, I wanted to help heal people. I wanted to live a life for me, as me.

I’ve come to learn what I wanted was to live an authentic life as my authentic self.

And here I am.

I am not a success in the way that some people would see, I am not living the life of fame and fortune. I am not an international bestseller with ten movie productions behind me and a follower count that has more numbers than a phone number. (Though, I am still working my butt off toward achieving that.)

But I am a writer, an author, a storyteller. I have self-published my books and I have people who love my characters and harass me for more words. I have the time and ability to write every day and explore the worlds and voices within my head.

And I help people. I might not be changing the world, but thanks to, my words, my creations, my empathy and my effort, I have brought a light into some lives. I have helped people see that they are amazing and worthy of feeling loved and pursuing their happiness.

I have a loving family, the most amazing supportive husband on the planet and the most loving and wonderful son. And through some sacrifice and a lot of hard work, the chance to keep following my dreams to write and to help people.

I have recently come to realise that I am a success.

I know now that it can get better, that we might be broken but we can still shine. I am a strong woman who has fought hard to know her worth and to quiet the dark voices that others have left inside me. I am a strong woman who has found the courage to fight the darkness and follow my dreams into the light.

I am a success.

My sister-in-law works in a government department that creates policy for Social Development. We were speaking about poverty in New Zealand one day, the state of things, the injustices done. A typical Sunday arvo kind of chat. But then it changed.

‘But you have done so well, considering. I’m so amazed and proud to know you’, she says.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, given the statistical likelihood of someone with your background succeeding, you are an anomaly’’.

I was taken aback. I mean sure, I know my story, but no one had called it out as an anomaly before. A bit uncomfortable at this thought, I tried to pretend I didn’t know what she was meaning. But she was having none of it.

‘As you are a woman, from divorced parents, a low income family living in a rural community, part-Maori, with only a high school education, and a teenage single mother, you had a very low likelihood of becoming someone more than that.’

And there it was. My shameful statistical one-liner. Never in my 40 years had I had that laid out in black and white for me. I was mortified, insulted and ashamed. I went red in the face…I stuttered. I didn’t have the words.

‘Jesus H Christ when you put it that way you make me sound so terrible, and such a loser.’

She was somewhat apologetic, although reiterated that the facts remain. I think she was perplexed by my visceral response. She meant it as a compliment, and went on to say that I was a inspiration, and repeated she was proud to know me.

This conversation has stuck with me for a long time, for many reasons. The facts, the connotations the statistical words bring to mind, the shame I felt. Why did I feel so ashamed and confronted about being put in this particular set of boxes? I have spent some time (over) thinking this.

Firstly, lets address the current state. I am a successful women in Technology, earning a six figure salary, in a senior management position. I live in a nice neighbourhood in a house valued at more that $1M, with my husband who is a CEO, and our new daughter who is 15months old. I drive a nice car. I don’t think about the price of things when I buy them anymore. I don’t think about budgeting as we have a buffer in our everyday account that we try to keep above $5k or so. We spent more than $50k on our wedding. We travel overseas when we want to. Have I earned it? Fuck yes I have. It is because my husband is a CEO? Fuck no its not, although its definitely good that we are both doing well. I work hard and deliver, every time. I am very good at what I do, and worth every penny I make. I write this to show you how ridiculous my life is, and the privilege I have. I also write it to show the contrast to the way things used to be for me, and the statistical anomaly I am. And to admit to myself that I am an outlier.

Now lets go back to 1992. I was all of those things she said I was; an unmarried mother of a new baby, two months away from turning 17 years old. I didn’t know I was pregnant until I went to the doctor for indigestion. They told me I was 7 months pregnant. I know, I was also one of THOSE stats too. And no, it was not denial, it was a flat stomach, period having, contraception taking normality with no reason for thinking this was the case. I was about to finish 6th form and head off to Uni that following year. I’d only ever had one boyfriend.

Upon letting my parents know, my step mother’s first response was ‘how am I ever going to show my face to my friends now — I’m so ashamed of you! You have ruined your life’. My father was silent, and I watched him grey before my eyes. I decided to visit my Mother (the Maori side of me) on the West Coast and get out of my small home town before it all blew up in my face. She met me off the train, and looked at my flat belly, yelling at me for playing such an awful prank. I had to show her the scan for her to believe me. I ended up having my daughter 6 weeks later after 17 hours of labour, 5 weeks before my guessed-at due date. I had never even held a baby, and spent the first two weeks in hospital learning what to do to take care of her. I had initially decided to adopt her out, mainly due to the shock of the situation, but I soon came to terms, and remember thinking to myself that even though it wasn’t intentional, I needed to take responsibility for my actions, and therefore changed my life goals to be focused on this tiny baby girl, instead of other dreams I had.

As I was too young to go on the DPB, I had to go on the Emergency Benefit until I turned 18. When I think back on this time, it was not as bad as people would imagine, even though I was surviving on such a small amount, I think $120 a week initially for a good year of so. Man, I was good at extracting the best value out of every dollar. I had people help me; my sister found me a tiny holiday home to rent near her home, for $40 a week, from this old couple who wanted to help. I just had to get out at Christmas so their relations could use it. It was on a cliff by the sea in a tiny costal settlement, so close that if you walked out the gate you could fall 10 metres into the sea, and at night you could feel the waves crashing which shook the house a little. It was me and a baby, a black and white tv, and a two bar heater. I fed the baby with everything she ever needed first, and then I ate mainly Continental Pasta and Sauce with steak. In those days steak was very cheap and chicken was only for the rich. It was a really great time. I didn’t know anything about child raising, and it was before the internet told you all about it, so I just played it how I felt it, and it worked out better than most who know more. I didn’t have a career to miss, so it was all about growing a great person and I was okay with that.

I met my first husband-to-be when she was 9 months old (and I was 18), and we dated for several years before I moved in with him, in a different town, and we got married when I was 23. I got a job as a waitress in a local pub, doing lunchtime and evening shifts, so I could be there when she got home from school, and then leave again once she was ready for bed. At this point we were typical blue collar people (he was a panel beater and then a mechanic), earning under $50k between us. I recall celebrating when I earned over $500 a week as it had been my target to reach for so long. It was also a good time, full of friends, simple fun and our first mortgage. He still lives in that first house with his new family and is still happy with his simple but good life.

But there was much I needed to prove — to the people who told me I had ruined my life and wouldn’t amount to anything, as well as to myself. I knew I was capable of a lot, and I had a high resilience, which meant I could pick up things quickly, cope under pressure and never panic. From the pub I went to work for a Pharmacy as a shop assistant. I learnt a lot about people and their problems there. From there I went to work at a newspaper selling advertising, and learnt a lot about sexism there. And then my favourite one so far — I worked at a fine NZ Art Gallery. Here I found my love of computers, websites and photoshop. I spent many happy years there as an associate, dealing in $M+ artwork sales. I published art books and catalogues, dealt with marketing of exhibitions, opened a new gallery for them in a different part of the country, and learned a great deal from an infuriating man who was very bi-polar. But I listened, and learned fast. I ruined such a perfect job by purchasing my own business on a whim. Throughout the many years before, I had learnt the art of make up and offered my services through some salons for balls and weddings. I was very good at it and it was a fun on-the-side thing I could do when I wanted. But then I bought a closed but fully kitted out beauty salon/day spa business and decided to make it my full time gig. I sadly quit my job, got a loan from the bank and off I went — managing my own business at 28.

I have no idea what made me think I could run my own business, but I did, and did so very well for a time. I had staff — hair dressers, beauticians, nail technicians, and I took care of the make up and spray tanning. It was a crazy time. I came up with curious marketing ideas that went off very well, and became a player in the game of business in one of the main centres of NZ. People treat you differently when you are the boss of something. It commanded a level of respect, without me doing anything differently. It was strange that I was the same person who worked in a pharmacy not long before, but suddenly I was invited to everything — fashion week, big parties, promotional stuff left right and centre. I worked for cable TV agencies to put make up on famous people. I was there when a famous sports person got engaged, and then when she got married, and then when her first born arrived — all for a magazine to print the first pictures. Geez, thats a crazy thought.

There was a rough time ahead, as I went through a miscarriage and a separation within a 6 week period. I took some time off to recover. Even though I had been checking in over the two months I was away from the salon, when I returned, things had not gone well. The person I trusted to manage things had, unknown to me at the time, a rather drug dependant boyfriend, and had started skimming cash from me. Not just a little, but a lot, and products that she sold off on the side. One of my reps called and said he was concerned with the stock count he had just done as it was way off what she had listed. Again, this was only 2 months off. I then got a call from IRD saying I owed them, even though I had approved any payments to go to them. A long story short, I ended up nearly going bankrupt due to this woman stealing over $80k from me. I managed to pay off most of my debts over time, looked after my remaining staff, finding them good jobs, and selling the studio to one of my beauticians for $1. My accountant took no responsibility, the person who stole from me didn’t take any responsibility and still to this day she ‘can’t work out how this is her fault’. I nearly prosecuted her as would have been my right, but she by then had gotten pregnant and was on the DBP from the druggie, so I figured why put myself through the pain of it — I said Fuck it, I can start from scratch — I had done it once already. She would get her own one day I was certain. Goodbye being my own boss, and my marriage.

During this time of ‘life restructure’, I had taken a second job that someone shoulder tapped me for, while still running the business, to pay my debts as fast as I could, as well as put food on the table for my daughter and I. I managed a Real Estate company’s website, their marketing and their sponsorships. From there, I was shoulder tapped by a friend, to work with someone who had sacked three marketing managers in 6 months. She had a reputation of being a tough cookie who ran a tight ship, and who was a very successful CEO of an organisation she started from scratch, My friend thought I would be the kind of person who would fit with her, and he was right. I learned a great deal from this inspiring, stroppy, unreasonable and determined woman. I began my full blown career in Marketing through this, and spent many good years at the top of that game, before the organisation was sold for some ridiculous amount to a blue chip company who wanted a cool sub-brand to own that side of the market. The office was being shipped to Auckland and absorbed into their way of being — I did not join them. I decided then was the time to move into technology, as this was where I saw the future of anything important going. It was 2008.

I talked my way into a tech company as a Solutions Manager; the one thing I knew I always did well was come up with solutions. Technology is a very skewing industry to be in, as they pay more than seems feasible for anyone to paid, right from an intern level position up. I quickly went down the project management path and led projects from $50k to $250k in the first year I started. I could take complex ideas and create simple pathways to deliver them, and interpret this into non-tech speak. Learning early it was not good enough to just manage developers, I had to understand what they do, so I could call out any bullshit they try to throw my way. The first time a senior dev told me ‘it will take me as long as it takes’ and then he failed to deliver, I swore I would never be set up to fail by others again. From Projects, to Programmes, to Head of Delivery and Digital Transformation, technology has morphed as fast as my own roles in the industry. I still have no formal qualifications for any of these roles, but after a certain point, it did not matter, as my value became self evident.

I have proven my ability to others as well as myself, and I am no longer striving to prove anything to anyone. I have argued with high powered people in high places and won. I have successfully turned big failures into big wins. I am a woman who is a force to be reckoned with.

I am no longer motivated by proving I am not a ‘loser’. But what I realised was, I never was in the first place.

My grown daughter is turning 25. She is doing great and is an amazing person in her own right, and is beginning a career that will play to her strengths and abilities well. I have asked her directly about her childhood, and what she liked or didn’t. Its a strange feeling to be able to actually ask how well you did as a parent. She says she wanted for nothing, and had a happy childhood. We may not have had the most expensive things but she always remembers being told she could choose to do anything. She loves that I encouraged her to read, and can’t remember a time when there was not a book in her hand or a story being read. As I start that whole growing children journey again at 40, with my second daughter, I can honestly look back and say I am successful, in career and home life.

Which brings me back to the original point (I know it took a while)— my shock and shame at being so succinctly put into a box that implied so many things. As someone who went through this journey, I struggle to relate to that statistic, even though there is no doubt that it is true. I have never seen myself as lesser based on almost all of those things. The ones that I do relate to, I used as motivation to succeed. I wanted to prove those doubters wrong that I hadn’t ruined my life, and I could be more than that. I am sad that I felt ashamed of the stats, as this makes me realise that society has placed so much shame on these things, that no wonder I am an anomaly. I only felt shame when others shamed me for them. And that is the shame we all need to feel — how dare we layer this into peoples misfortune or decisions, and especially their ancestry or what situation they were born into? Nothing ever is a given, and we need, as a society, to be doing the opposite, to encourage bravery and growth (and support this through our government), no matter what the circumstances. And we should not be defining people for their statistics. We should be defining them for their actions. My decisions were poor when I was young, but I took responsibility for my actions. Making bad decisions does not mean your life is over, it means you need to be resilient, take responsibility, and move to where you want to next. I chose the life I was living, and I took advantage of every opportunity I had, but you won’t find me judging people who take different paths. I was not afraid of losing as I already was starting from the bottom. I know that I will be okay if I was to be right back to the beginning again.

As a society, we should share these stories of success, not because of the ‘look how far they’ve come’ loser-to-winner story or as an example to shame others because they haven’t done the same, but as examples that nothing is predetermined, success looks different for everyone, and the opinion you have of yourself is more important than other peoples views of you.

Statistics can be damaging if thats all thats ever looked at. Being told you are a failure, or the implication due to statistics that you are unlikely to succeed means you start there. Me telling my daughter she could do anything she wanted meant she started there.

I am a statistic, but statistics are not who I am.

Follow Diana on Twitter @excapeartist