Ten years ago, I sat in my corner office feeling completely hollow. My lifestyle was impressive, my inbox was busting with friends requests on social media, and by every external measure, I was winning. Considering I never had a holiday in the last decades, I wasn’t sure what I was winning but it looked that I was…Yet I felt like I was left with no oxygen. That’s when it hit me: I was living someone else’s version of success, not my own.
Growing up in a society where achievement meant prestigious jobs and visible wealth, I absorbed the message early: work harder, earn more, aim higher. The women around me seemed to have it sorted, they juggled demanding careers with perfectly curated family lives, maintained gym memberships they actually used and somehow managed to look effortlessly put-together while doing it all. The unspoken rule was clear: traditional success markers were the only ones that mattered.
But somewhere along the way, I started questioning whether this blueprint was actually mine.
The Challenge That Changed Everything
The turning point came when I encountered someone who challenged me to think differently about prosperity altogether. ‘Prosperity to me means not settling in any area of your life,’ she said. Then I started to think that it really means that you get to decide what prosperity means to you. Those inner words stopped me cold because I realised I’d never actually decided anything by myself before. I’d just been following a script.
The challenge kept coming when listening to my Inner Voice: ‘I challenge you to go deep as it takes to fully re-imagine prosperity and what it means to you. Until you do, there’s a 100% chance you’ll never get there.’
I started thinking about prosperity in three areas: health, wealth and love ( including self-love) but not in the neat, Instagram-friendly way we are conditioned to imagined it. This prosperity of mine was messier, full of contradictions and uncomfortable truths. Sometimes my health paid the price of wealth and love took a back seat. Nevertheless, I managed, in the eye of the storm, to follow my own North Star, until I became one.
Health Beyond the Right Dress Size
For me, health stopped being about fitting into a certain dress size or maintaining a perfect workout streak. It became about feeling in alignment with my mental, emotional and spiritual frequency. It might sound grand but actually meant learning to say no to things ( and people) that drained me, even when they looked good on paper. It meant recognising that protecting your energy was far more important than any professional achievement.
The tricky part? This definition often clashed with the hustle culture around me. While others were bragging about their 5am workouts followed by 12-hour work days, I was learning that progress sometimes meant sleeping in and protecting my energy for things that actually mattered to me.
Wealth That Serves a Purpose
The wealth piece was particularly challenging because it forced me to examine what financial success actually meant beyond just earning more. The idea of ‘creating income from service’ resonated, but it also scared me. What if pursuing meaningful work meant earning less? What if prioritising purpose over paycheque made me look naive or financially irresponsible?
I started questioning whether wealth could be about more than just accumulation – whether it could be about freedom, choice and the ability to live according to my values. This connected with what I’d been reading about building effortless prosperity by aligning your work with what genuinely matters to you.
Love Without the Fairy Tale
Perhaps the most complicated area was relationships. The prosperity definition I was working with talked about ‘powerful, deep, committed, loving relationships with those that matter most’… but what did that actually look like when you’re trying to build something sustainable, something that will last even when you are gone, rather than something that looks right from the outside?
I had to admit that some of my relationships were built on shared social conditioning rather than shared joy, or on maintaining appearances rather than genuine connection. Redefining prosperity in love meant being honest about which relationships actually nourished me and which ones I was maintaining out of obligation or habit.
The Internal Argument
None of this was straightforward. The process of becoming ‘so self aware that I truly feel purposeful, powerful, and significant’ was messier than any motivational quote suggests. Some days I felt clear about my choices; other days I wondered if I was just making excuses for not pushing harder in traditional ways.
The hardest part was the isolation that sometimes came with defining prosperity differently. When everyone around you is optimising for the same goals: the promotion, the perfect relationship, the ideal body. Choosing a different path can feel lonely. I found myself thinking about finding happiness in unconventional choices, even when they don’t match what others expect.
The Daily Reality
Living this redefined version of prosperity doesn’t look like much from the outside. It’s turning down social events that feel draining to spend time on projects I actually care about. It’s having difficult conversations about boundaries rather than just going along to keep peace. It’s celebrating small wins that matter to me even when they don’t impress anyone else.
The phrase ‘never sacrificing one area for another’ became both a goal and a source of constant tension. Some weeks I nail the balance; other weeks I fall into old patterns of overworking or neglecting relationships or forgetting to take care of my physical health. The difference now is that I notice when I’m off track because I have a clearer sense of what ‘on track’ actually means for me.
It’s also meant consuming different content and staying off of social media. It also meant writing more books and running podcasts that focus on self-actualisation rather than just productivity hacks. I realised I needed to stop trying to look the part of success and start focusing on what success actually felt like for me.
Still Figuring It Out
The truth is, I’m still in the middle of this process. Defining prosperity for yourself isn’t a one-time decision but an ongoing conversation with yourself about what actually matters. Some days I feel confident in my choices; other days I wonder if I’m just being difficult or unrealistic.
What I do know is that the alternative of living by someone else’s definition of success, it felt like slow death, running out of oxygen. The challenge that started this whole process still echoes: ‘Take the plunge. It’s time to figure it out for yourself.’ It’s not an invitation to have all the answers immediately. It’s an invitation to start asking your own questions.
I’ve been learning to appreciate what I call the abundance of living authentically – even when it means disappointing people who had different expectations for my life. Some days prosperity feels like having enough courage to disappoint others in favour of not disappointing myself.
The conversation with myself continues, and honestly, I’m starting to think that might be the point.
After 10 years of experiencing prosperity in my own terms, I am really over the moon as the first edition of The Book Of Prosperity Book Series goes out authored by my friend who is launching the book in Trinidad next week. I will come back with more details after the book launch.
