Recently, I’ve spent a great deal of time thinking about how much of my life has been spent pursuing goals that I believed embodied who I wanted to become.

Now, I am a goal-oriented person. I am not suggesting that goals themselves are dysfunctional. What I am saying is that my constant pursuit of achievement has never truly made me happier or more secure in my value. In many ways, it has often had the opposite effect.

Years ago, an aunt told me that once you reach your forties, your understanding of success begins to shift. At the time, I was in my twenties and likely rolled my eyes at the thought. But now, as a woman approaching her mid-forties, staring down menopause and watching my children step fully into adulthood, I can say those words were truer than I could have understood when they were first spoken.

Where I once measured success by titles after my name or positions I could attain, I now find that success means something altogether different.

I no longer feel the same desire to accumulate credentials. Instead, I find myself longing to be settled.

Let that linger for a moment.

Because where I once believed I needed a particular title, platform, or position to matter, life has taught me that some of the deepest wisdom flows from a seated and settled posture. It grows in people who have allowed the love of God to sink deep into their hearts, planting roots that run far beneath the surface.

Today, I reflected on many of the goals I have pursued throughout my life and found myself asking the Lord a difficult question:

“Were these goals born from Your heart working through me, or were they born from an unsettled place within my soul—a weary space still searching for validation?”

The honest answer is that many of them were the latter.

That is not easy to admit.

Even after encountering the love of God, there have been places within me that still sought worth through accomplishment, significance through achievement, and identity through recognition.

So what do we do when we become aware of this?

For me, the answer is simple.

I ask the Lord to recalibrate my heart.

To align my desires with His desires.

To teach me the difference between ambition that flows from love and striving that flows from lack.

To quiet the loud cries of the inner child still longing to be seen and heard, and instead anchor me in the voice of a Father who has already called me beloved.

Perhaps true success is not found in becoming more, achieving more, or acquiring more.

Perhaps it is found in becoming settled enough to believe that we already are loved, already are seen, and already are enough.

From that place, everything else becomes fruit rather than proof.