Some of the scorecards we're trying hardest to win were never ours to begin with.

I've been thinking a lot lately about success.

Not success in the abstract. My success.

How I measure it. How I know when I'm doing well. And perhaps more importantly, how quickly I can move the goalposts once I get there.

For a long time, the scorecard seemed fairly straightforward.

Work hard. Progress. Take on more responsibility. Earn the next title. Make more money. Build a good life. Be a good mother. Stay healthy. Be present. Keep growing.

None of those things are bad.

In fact, many of them matter deeply to me.

But lately, I've found myself asking a more uncomfortable question:

Did I consciously choose all of these measures—or did I simply absorb them?

Because there is a difference.

And I'm starting to think it matters more than we realize.

No one sits us down one day and says:

Here is the official scorecard for your life. You will now be evaluated against it.

It happens much more quietly than that.

We watch what gets celebrated.

The promotion. The bigger house. The impressive title. The child who excels. The body that looks a certain way. The packed calendar that signals importance. The person who seems to handle everything without dropping a ball.

We notice what gets admired.

And somewhere along the way, without ever making a conscious decision, we start keeping score.

Am I successful enough?

Senior enough?

Fit enough?

Productive enough?

Present enough?

Doing enough?

And perhaps the most exhausting part is that you can be winning in five categories and still feel consumed by the sixth.

The scorecard is never satisfied.

I've been navigating a significant career transition.

I made a deliberate choice to take on a new role that gives me the opportunity to learn something genuinely new, lead in a different way, build capabilities I don't yet have, and stretch myself beyond the areas where I've already proven myself.

At the exact same time, another door had opened.

It was a genuinely exciting opportunity—one I was deeply grateful to be considered for. It offered greater seniority, meaningful work, and a path I could absolutely imagine myself taking. It was what I had been working toward with utmost passion for the last few years.

And that's what made the decision so difficult. Beyond anything I’d ever thought I’d have to make for my career.

These weren't two choices between right and wrong, or meaningful and meaningless.

They were two genuinely amazing opportunities to still have an impact that offered different kinds of growth.

I made my decision thoughtfully, deliberately, and for reasons I believed in.

And yet, afterward, I still found myself wondering:

Did I make a mistake?

Part of that question was legitimate. Big decisions come with uncertainty, and choosing one door inevitably means wondering what might have happened behind the other.

But if I'm honest, there was something else there too.

One of those opportunities came with a bigger title.

And there it was.

The invisible scorecard.

The one that says upward is always better.

That a bigger title is evidence of progress.

That choosing a different kind of growth over hierarchy might mean falling behind.

That if you could have moved up and didn't, perhaps you've failed some test you were supposed to be taking.

I had to ask myself:

Whose test is this?

Because I don't remember consciously deciding that every career move had to maximize title.

I don't remember deciding that the only acceptable direction was up.

And yet the scorecard was there anyway.

I've also been thinking about what it means to be grateful for an open door.

I believe opportunities deserve gratitude. Being seen, trusted, and invited into something bigger is never something I want to take lightly.

But perhaps gratitude and obligation aren't the same thing.

We can be deeply grateful for an open door without believing we're required to walk through it.

And sometimes, the hardest choices aren't between a good door and a bad one.

They're between two good doors that lead to very different versions of our lives.

Maybe an open door isn't always a direction.

Sometimes it's simply evidence that more than one future is possible.

This isn't just about careers.

I've noticed how easily this happens everywhere.

You want to earn a certain amount. Then you do, and there's another number.

You want to run your first race. Then you finish, and immediately start thinking about the next one—or how you could have been faster.

You want to lose weight. Then it's not enough to be healthier; there's another number, another size, another version of your body to chase.

You want to be a good parent. But what does that even mean? More quality time? More activities? Better meals? Less screen time? More patience? More memorable experiences?

There's always another metric available.

And I'm someone who genuinely loves goals.

I don't want to stop being ambitious. I don't want to pretend that striving is inherently unhealthy or that wanting more means we're ungrateful for what we already have.

I still want to grow.

I still want to do hard things.

I still want to see what I'm capable of.

But I'm increasingly convinced that ambition without examination can become a treadmill.

You keep running because you've become very good at running.

You just stop asking who chose the destination.

I don't think titles are meaningless.

I don't think ambition is something to apologize for.

And I certainly don't believe that wanting more makes us shallow or ungrateful.

I care about growth. I care about doing meaningful work. I care about what I'm capable of becoming.

I still want more from my life in many ways.

The question isn't whether we should want more.

It's whether the more we're chasing is actually ours.

Because there's a difference between pursuing something because it genuinely matters to you and pursuing it because you've absorbed the belief that it's what a successful person is supposed to want.

One is ambition with intention.

The other is simply following the scorecard.

Maybe your scorecard came from your parents.

Maybe it came from school.

Your industry.

Your peers.

Social media.

The neighborhood you live in.

The people you spend time with.

Maybe it came from an earlier version of you who needed achievement to feel safe, worthy, or secure.

And maybe that scorecard served you once.

That doesn't mean it gets to govern you forever.

I think one of the hardest things about being a high achiever is recognizing that we're often very good at meeting expectations.

Give us a target, and we'll pursue it.

Give us a problem, and we'll solve it.

Give us more responsibility, and we'll find a way to carry it.

But perhaps the more important question isn't:

Can I succeed at this?

It's:

Do I still want to?

Those are not the same question.

I'm not suggesting we stop measuring anything.

I actually think the opposite.

We should measure what matters.

But maybe we need to become much more intentional about deciding what deserves a place on the scorecard.

What if career success included not just title and compensation, but learning, autonomy, meaningful work, relationships, energy, and whether the life around the job still has room to breathe?

What if health wasn't just weight, pace, or appearance, but strength, sleep, mobility, energy, and trust in our own bodies?

What if wealth wasn't simply how much we accumulated, but the choices it gave us? The freedom!

What if being a good parent wasn't measured by creating a perfect childhood, but by whether our children feel safe, loved, known, and able to be themselves?

What if success wasn't one score at all?

Maybe that's the point.

I'm still ambitious.

I'm still figuring things out.

I'm still susceptible to the bigger title, the next goal, the faster time, the better version of myself waiting somewhere just beyond where I am now.

I don't think that part of me is going away.

And I'm not sure I want it to.

But I do want to get better at noticing when I'm chasing something because I genuinely want it—and when I'm simply trying to score points in a game I never consciously agreed to play.

So this week, I'm asking myself a question.

And I'd love to ask you the same:

What measure of success are you still carrying that you're no longer sure you chose?

Maybe it's the title.

The income.

The house.

The body.

The perfect family.

The packed calendar.

The need to always be capable.

You don't necessarily have to abandon the measure.

But perhaps it's worth asking whether it still belongs to you, or if there’s another way we can measure.

Because some of the scorecards we're trying hardest to win were never ours to begin with.

And maybe success starts with choosing our own.

Nikki

The Wider Measure is a weekly newsletter and podcast for thoughtful high achievers exploring work, health, wealth, family, identity—and the measures that make a life meaningful.