Redefining Success at 40 and Why Slow Growth Is Not Giving Up

At the beginning of this year, I told myself I was choosing slow growth. What I neglected to do was sit down and define what that actually meant.

I was tired of hustle culture. I still am. Tired of feeling like every single moment of the day has to be optimized, monetized, or productive. I didn’t want to live like that anymore. And as much as it pains me to admit, I completely understand why so many people are trying to choose a softer life right now. A quieter one. One where you actually enjoy your mornings, bake bread just because you felt like it, and spend time on things that genuinely matter.

Table of Contents

The Privilege We Have to Name

Here’s the part that’s uncomfortable to say out loud: a soft life is a privileged life.

Not everyone gets to opt into slow growth. Right now in the United States, people are having SNAP benefits stripped away. Families are barely making ends meet. The job market is the worst it has been since 2009 and inflation has made basic survival genuinely difficult for millions of people. Choosing slow is a luxury that requires a foundation most people don’t have access to and I think it’s important to say that clearly before writing a post like this one.

I also think it’s worth saying that even those of us with some degree of choice still feel the pressure. It’s hard to disassociate from a capitalist system when you care deeply about people, the environment, education, and your community. And it’s impossible to survive in this country without income. Which is where the conflict lives for me.

Even though I wanted a soft life, I still very much want more. For myself and for everyone around me.

What Does Success Look Like

This question came to me during my 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training a few months ago. I caught myself fantasizing about building a huge yoga career, doing the income math in my head, mapping out everything I could monetize. And then I stopped and asked myself: is that actually what I wanted? Or was I just doing the hustle thing again with a different label on it?

If I had followed through with that version, I would have burned out just as fast as I did in my last corporate job.

I’m not an expert but I genuinely believe the concept of success as our culture defines it is, to be frank, a scam. Are we measuring success by society’s standards or our own? Because those are very different things.

Success at 40 looks nothing like success in my 20s. Career culture has been quietly dying since corporations eliminated pensions. It’s simply not sustainable to tie your entire identity and your healthcare to a single employer anymore.

Success can look like a lot of things. Having two part-time jobs and feeling genuinely happy because you can afford food and make art. Having a full time career you love while volunteering on the side. And sometimes success is about rediscovering yourself entirely, taking on multiple roles while you figure out what actually makes you feel alive again.

What Slow Growth Actually Looks Like For Me

I want to be really clear about something because I think this gets misunderstood.

I’m a highly ambitious and goal driven person. I’m not opting out. I’ve been working since I was 13 years old and I don’t think I even know how to opt out at this point.

What I am doing is building multiple income streams, pursuing my creativity, and designing a daily life that genuinely feels good. That’s not anti-hustle. That’s intentional ambition and there’s a meaningful difference. It’s also accepting where I am mentally right now.

Right now I am a jack of all trades figuring out what brings me happiness again. There are so many things I love and many of them could generate income. But the question I keep coming back to is: do I actually want to monetize them?

Take knitting. I love to knit. But I am a deeply selfish knitter. I knit for myself and occasionally for the people I love. I do not find joy in mass producing items to sell and that’s completely okay. Not every skill has to become a side hustle. You can simply enjoy your hobbies. That said, it’s also okay to watch others make money doing what they love. The difference is accepting that it’s not for you.

What slow growth actually looks like for me right now is this:

Writing my blog because I love it and it’s something I always come back to
Teaching yoga for joy, to give back, and to (maybe) help pay for a portion of a wedding
Growing vegetables to share with neighbors who need them
Selling flowers from our backyard someday just because it sounds lovely
Building community instead of just building a following
Taking on clients on my own terms, not someone else’s schedule

That’s it. That’s the whole vision. It’s small and it’s specific and it’s mine. And for the first time in a long time, it actually feels like enough.

The Permission Slip

If you’re reading this and you’re exhausted by the pressure to optimize every moment of your life, you’re allowed to define success differently. You’re allowed to want a life that feels good daily, even if it doesn’t look impressive from the outside.

There are many ways to make money. Not just the way everyone else appears to be doing it.

And if you’re reading this from a place where slow growth feels impossible because survival is the priority right now, I see you and I’ve been you. Don’t give up. Keep going. The fact that I get to write this at all is not lost on me. It’s exceptionally hard right now and it can feel like everyone around you is thriving. They’re not. Which is exactly why I think intentionality matters more than ever.

Slow growth is not giving up. It’s finally being honest about what you actually want and where you eventually want to go. 💕

Xoxo.