130 | The metrics that no longer matter - choosing to measure success by your own standards

In this third episode of The Awakening Series, Dr. Diane van Staden invites clinicians and high-achieving professionals to question the standards by which they define success.

This episode explores a quiet but powerful realization many experience mid-career: the metrics that once motivated and validated you may no longer reflect who you’ve become.

If you’ve followed the rules, achieved the titles, and built a stable career—yet feel a growing sense of misalignment—this conversation offers clarity, permission, and a new lens for evaluating success as you prepare to reinvent your career in 2026.

Key Themes & Takeaways

• Why traditional success metrics (titles, credentials, income, stability) eventually lose their meaning

• The difference between progress and expansion

• How external validation can mask internal dissatisfaction

• The shift from achievement-driven motivation to meaning-driven fulfillment

• Why feeling misaligned is not ingratitude—but maturation

• How outdated scoreboards can keep you stuck in an earlier version of yourself

Reflective Questions from the Episode

• How do you know you’re doing well—beyond external measures?

• Does your current work reflect your values and strengths?

• Do your days energize you or diminish you?

• If no one else was watching, how would you define success now?

What This Episode Is Really About

This episode is an invitation to pause—not to judge your current path, but to notice whether the metrics you’re using still belong to you. True awakening isn’t about abandoning success; it’s about redefining it in a way that feels congruent, alive, and meaningful.

What’s Coming Next

In the next episode, Dr. van Staden explores “The Hidden Cost of Staying Comfortable.” You’ll unpack how comfort can quietly drain vitality, why staying can be just as costly as leaving, and how honesty becomes the first act of courage in reinvention.

This episode builds on Episodes 1 and 2 of The Awakening Series and is a pivotal step toward understanding what it truly means to reinvent your career beyond clinical practice.

Join Dr. Diane van Staden as she guides you through the reinvention journey—one honest conversation at a time.