What is success?

I've been thinking about the definition of success lately.

Success for me, like most of society, has been determined around how much money is in my bank account and even though I never made a lot of money from being a veterinary technician, I still determined how successful I was based on how much money I was bringing in.

Starting this farm and store with Alex has kind of thrown that on its head. I've never personally had so few dollars in my bank account while also feeling complete bliss.

Neither Alex or I are paying ourselves for all of the work we do on the farm yet. Start up costs are high so we're just putting all of our profit back into the farm and then using our other jobs to support our life.

And yet, this summer has been one of the best I've had in a long time and it's mainly because I've been able to appreciate where I'm at right now. I don't think I've ever been able to do that before.

I was talking about this with a friend of mine who is 5 years into her business and I mentioned something about wondering when I'll be able to pay myself and her answer changed my perspective. She was telling me how even though she's 5 years into her farm business, she doesn't pay herself yet either and then she said, and I quote:

'if your quality of life is high, you don't need a paycheck'. 

It's completely flipped the script for me. I've seen it time and time again throughout my life and I think it's finally stuck 

A successful life is not one of money but one of quality. 

We should be asking ourselves what our quality of life is, not how much money we make. For the first time in my life, I'm truly realizing that the amount of money I make and the quality of my life are not the same thing.