Can You Want Success Without Losing Yourself?
I want success.
I want my book to reach more people. I want the roles, the rooms, the stages, the audience, and the income. I want a bigger life for my artistry, and I’m not ashamed of that.
But I’ve also had the experience of getting something I deeply wanted—and feeling less like myself once I had it.
That is the tension I want to talk about: not whether artists should want success, but whether we can pursue it without handing it ownership of our identity, peace, or purpose.
Listen to This Episode
“Can You Want Success Without Losing Yourself?” on:
Wanting Success Does Not Make You Shallow
Artists are sometimes encouraged to say that making the art is enough.
And yes, the art matters before anybody applauds it. Creating can be joyful, healing, sacred, and necessary when no one else is watching.
But artists are also allowed to want their art to travel. We are allowed to want an audience, recognition, meaningful income, and larger opportunities.
Pretending not to care does not make us purer. Sometimes it only makes us dishonest about what we want.
The danger is not saying, “I want this.”
The danger begins when that sentence quietly becomes, “I need this in order to know that I matter.”
When the Yes Left Me Feeling Less Like Myself
Years ago, I booked a television show in Australia.
From the outside, it was a clear success. It was the kind of exposure actors work toward, and the kind of booking I expected would bring some sense of arrival into bigger opportunities.
Instead, I felt completely fragmented.
The experience began moving in a direction that did not feel true to who I was. I became disconnected from myself and my purpose, and I found that incredibly difficult to navigate. I spiraled emotionally.
The opportunity was real. The success was real. My gratitude was real. But so was the fragmentation. I had achieved something I wanted, and I was struggling to recognize myself inside it.
That is one of the more complicated truths about visibility: the more public the success, the more public the shame can feel when it does not unfold the way you expected.
When something goes wrong quietly, you have room to make sense of it quietly. When people are watching, the gap between who you are and the version of you being seen can feel enormous.
I do not share this because success is bad. I share it because success is powerful, and anything powerful needs to be handled honestly.
The success was real. But so was the fragmentation.
Success Answers One Question and Hands You Three More
Success rarely creates the lasting arrival we imagine.
You finish the manuscript, then you want the publishing contract. You receive the contract, then the work of helping the book reach people begins. You book the role, then you wonder what it will lead to. You grow an audience, then you become afraid of losing it.
I was thrilled to receive a traditional publishing contract for Audacious Artistry. It was worth celebrating. But the contract was not a finish line. It opened an enormous new chapter of editing, launching, speaking, and getting the book into the hands of the artists it was written for.
Preparing for my TEDx talk on October 3 has carried a similar lesson. The invitation is meaningful, but the yes is followed by writing, refining, rehearsing and a great deal of work.
That does not make either opportunity disappointing. It means the public milestone and the lived experience are not the same thing.
Every yes has a life on the other side of it. You still have to live that life as yourself.
What Are You Asking Success to Prove?
Ambition is not the enemy. The trouble begins when we ask achievement to do a job it cannot do.
We ask it to prove we are talented enough. We ask it to justify the years we have invested, silence comparison or show everybody who doubted us that they were wrong.
We ask one external result to create a permanent internal feeling: Now I know I matter. Now I can relax. Now I have arrived.
But an achievement can confirm an outcome. It cannot settle your identity.
A result can tell you that something worked. It cannot tell you who you are.
Decide What Success Is Not Allowed to Cost
I am not interested in making my dreams smaller, so they feel safer. I am interested in reaching for them without sacrificing everything that makes the achievement worth having.
Before you decide what success looks like, decide what it is not allowed to cost.
Your closest relationships? Your health? Your integrity? The freedom to make art you believe in? Your ability to be present in your own life? Your knowledge of who you are when nobody is applauding?
This is not about avoiding hard work, risk, or sacrifice. A meaningful creative life will ask something of you. The question is whether you are choosing that cost consciously—or waking up one day to discover that the next achievement has taken far more than you intended to give it.
Before you decide what success looks like, decide what it is not allowed to cost.
“Enough” Does Not Mean Giving Up
Enough does not mean you stop dreaming. It does not mean you lose your appetite for a bigger audience, better opportunities, more money, or a wider reach.
Enough means your life is not waiting for the next yes to become valid.
It means success can expand your life without becoming the thing that owns it.
This is what an audacious path to success looks like to me: not merely reaching a bigger room, but arriving there as yourself.
A Reflection for Your Creative Life
Finish this sentence:
I want __________. I am willing to work, risk and grow for it. But I am not willing to lose __________ in order to get it.
Do not write the answer you think an artist is supposed to give. Write the one that is true.
Then ask yourself: What am I unwilling to lose on the way to the creative life I want?
Go Deeper with Audacious Artistry
If this episode spoke to something in you, my book Audacious Artistry: Reclaim Your Creative Identity and Thrive in a Saturated World goes deeper.
It’s written for artists and creatives who still feel called to create but are tired of proving, comparing, waiting for permission, or wondering if their work still matters.
You can also download the free 10-week Audacious Artistry Group Study Guide and walk through the book on your own, with a friend, or with a group of artists.
Read the book + get the free guide:
https://larabiancapilcher.com/book
This article is adapted from the Healthy Wealthy Wise Artist Podcast episode:
Listen to This Episode
“Can You Want Success Without Losing Yourself?” on:
Or visit the podcast page:
https://larabiancapilcher.com/podcast
With you as you keep creating,
— Lara Bianca Pilcher
Connect with Lara
Website:
https://larabiancapilcher.com
Instagram:
https://instagram.com/larabiancapilcher
Build a life of love, purpose, adventure & boundless creativity!