How You Can Still Achieve Life Success When You’re Chronically Unwell

It’s time to change your perspective.

My curiosity about success — how to define it and how others perceive it — is something that has pervaded my thinking for some years now. Back in 2018, I asked my Facebook followers and friends the following question:

“For you, what does success look like?”

It was a question which seemed to challenge people, caused some debate and elicited more comments than I have ever had before on a social media post. My favourite response was the following:

‘To me success is happiness. How at ease and peace I feel in my life. Therefore, success to me is a moving feast because different things bring me happiness at different stages in my life.’

Success is Happiness…

What a joyful sentiment but different stages of life don’t always include true happiness. Different stages can bring new challenges and changes, and sometimes that can include an adverse change in our health which can impact all areas of our lives. It’s easy to feel like a failure when our bodies and minds can’t keep up with our ambitions.

I experienced this after a diagnosis of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) in 2004 which ended my academic career and a more recent experience with Long Covid which has impacted my energy levels and ability to work on everything I did pre-COVID-19.

Can we still feel successful, and achieve success when faced with the challenges of chronic illness?

It’s All About Changing Your Perspective.

Like what I asked on Facebook, the emphasis of my question was on ‘for you…’

You need to establish how you perceive success within the context of your chronic illness. How has this changed from when you were healthy?

This will involve several steps as outlined below.

Journaling

Start with a period of introspection and soul-searching. This is most easily achieved through writing and journaling.

The words you write are only for your viewing. You can be completely honest with yourself. Express all your emotions from fear and anger to sadness and despair. Write about traumatic events. Write about stress. Write down your worries about the future. Interestingly, research has shown writing about stressful events can lead to symptom reduction — one study demonstrated this positive effect in people diagnosed with asthma or rheumatoid arthritis.

As you weave your way through what you’ve adversely experienced and your negative emotions concerning your illness, start to move towards writing about what still brings you joy and happiness. What makes you smile? What still gives you purpose?

There is no timescale on this. No pressure. Just write until you feel you’ve released all negative emotions and experiences associated with your illness.

Acknowledge That You’re Fundamentally the Same Person

Today you are you! That is truer than true! There is no one alive who is you-er than you! — Dr Seuss

Chronic illness does change things — let’s acknowledge that. You can’t perhaps physically and/or mentally do everything you did before. You are however still the same person with the same life experience and skills. You will hold to the same values and principles you always did.

Whatever you believed and achieved in life before you became unwell can never be taken away from you — take it forward with you.

In your journal, write down all your skills and achievements. Take time to recognise these. Then note your beliefs and values. For example, three of my core values are family, individuality and accomplishment.

Practice Gratitude

Write down three things you are grateful for daily. The benefits of consistently expressing gratitude include:

• Improved ability to deal with adversity.
• A more positive outlook.
• Stronger relationships.
• Increased feelings of happiness.
• Ability to refocus on what you do have rather than on what you lack.

Combined, these benefits will contribute to a greater feeling of well-being.

Having worked through negative emotions, shown gratitude, and identified what brings you joy, your key skills, achievements, beliefs and values, you are now in a better position to identify what success means to you.

Ask yourself the following:

“Despite my illness, what does my successful life look like?”

Describe it. Feel it. Identify what you need to do to achieve it.

What needs to be adapted? What needs to change? Who do you need to speak with? What support do you need and who could provide it? Does it align with your beliefs and values? Do you need to acquire any new skills and is this feasible?

Set new, smaller and realistic goals. Remember it’s now time to be the tortoise and no longer the hare! Set goals within an achievable time frame.

Go easy on yourself. Success for most people is about inner happiness and contentment — don’t let unnecessary stress or pressure set in.

Depending upon your health status, your new successful life might look very different to the one you previously led.

It might be a life you never imagined living. Or it might even be a life which includes long-held dreams and goals. Sometimes a diagnosis can be the trigger we need to remind us that life is short and it’s time to achieve some goals before it’s too late.

Success is not final. Failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts — Sir Winston Churchill

For the last twenty years, I’ve lived by this quote and truly believe we can still feel and achieve success despite chronic illness.

Find the courage to start the process. Buy the journal. Start soul searching. Start writing. Reframe and change your perspective. Identify your new life goals and success should follow.

For more advice when chronically unwell, please see my other published stories like this one.