From quiet quitting and bare minimum Mondays to lazy girl jobs, if you were judging life through a social media lens it would be easy to think that we’ve all lost our ambition and simply want to coast our way through our working lives until we retire.

But we know that’s not the full story. We know that women are still ambitious, but perhaps what ambition looks like has changed. We’re grappling with a new set of existential questions about how important work is in our lives, and that means the way we view success has radically changed. Call it the great re-evaluation. 

So what do ambition and success mean in 2023? And what will it mean in the future? At Stylist Live, we asked Jen Jamie, the director of communications and public affairs at Google, what we need to know about the future ambition. For her, it’s all about defining our own version of success – including what a happy, healthy working life looks like.

Talking about the changes Google has made to support employees at work post-pandemic, Jamie explained: “As a company, we’ve put a massive emphasis on creating a supportive and inclusive workplace culture – one which will support people’s individual needs and help them achieve balance.

“But I think more important than having any of these benefits is a real emphasis on managers having regular conversations with individuals to work out what works best for them. So I think if there’s anything we can all learn, it’s that it’s about the individual and having a personal sense of balance.”

As the conversation continued, Jamie went on to share an example of how she’s defined her own version of success and balance by setting boundaries. 

“One of my boundaries is that my mornings are own – I never do a meeting before 9.30am,” she said. “And that’s just a hard and fast rule. I want to spend time with my family in the morning; the most stressful thing that happens in my morning is trying to satisfy the unbelievable hairstyle demands of my eight-year-old.”

Rounding up the conversation, Stylist’s editorial director Lisa Smosarski asked Jamie to share the one thing we should all keep in mind when it comes to defining success.

“I think it’s just about reflecting – knowing what’s right for you,” she explained. “There’s no collective answer. It needs to be individual, it needs to be personal. And it can be now, because we’re creating a workplace culture where we can allow people to choose what’s right for their lives.” 

Images: shot by Farheenxo