The True Meaning of Success for Each Human Design Type

What is Success?

When most of us hear the word “success”, our mind jumps to a homogenized definition that includes an assortment of conventionally valued accomplishments that we have been conditioned to believe defines a person’s worth. Oftentimes in Western culture we get confused and think that “success” is the holy grail that everyone must strive for in order to experience fulfillment.

In Human Design, each Type has what’s called a Signature. Your Signature is what you actually long for in life above all else, what will bring you true fulfillment, a signpost of your alignment. For 80% of the population, this is not “Success”...

The only type whose Signature is Success is the Projector.

Still, this doesn’t necessarily mean what you think it means. The essence of Success is recognition. You feel successful when you have no shortage of people who recognize you and see you for who you truly are, invite your leadership, guidance and awareness and provide you with the energy and resources to live life as your authentic self.

This can take endless different forms. It may resemble what your mind believes success looks like, or it could look radically different. The only way to find out is by entering into a deconditioning experiment, learning to make decisions correctly as yourself, and witnessing what unfolds.

As a Projector, recognition is what feeds you on the deepest level.

And oftentimes when Projectors are starved of genuine recognition, they settle for the cheap substitute of validation. It’s like eating candy or potato chips when you’re actually hungry for a real meal, because you’re impatient.

A Projector might appear extremely successful by traditional standards but still feel unfulfilled. You might have an abundance of people who appreciate the value you bring them by pretending to be someone you’re not-but if they aren’t recognizing and inviting your true nature, you will still feel burdened by an inescapable bitterness.

Real “Success” for Generators (including MGs) is actually about Satisfaction.

Satisfaction is your Signature. You must realize that you are not a Projector. You don’t need to be recognized for an activity or experience to be satisfying and correct for you. Your work can be deeply worthwhile even if it has minimal impact on others. If you are prioritizing external validation, this will distract from your ability to align with work you love and feel lit up by.

For Generators, it is all about the satisfaction of the work itself, feeling excited and energized by the process, buzzing as you build and create. If you end the day feeling satisfied and well spent, that was a successful day regardless of what you accomplished or who praised you for it.

Generator Satisfaction takes infinite forms.

For some Generators, a natural byproduct of using your energy correctly (and thus functioning at a high level and emanating your unique brilliance) is that this ends up producing what we typically regard as impressive accolades.

But sometimes, prioritizing process over product requires accepting that the path that is most deeply satisfying for you is not always the path that will win you the most validation from the homogenized world. Regardless, your ultimate aim is simply to use your energy in ways that feel amazing. To connect with people who feel good to connect with. Recognition is only a bonus.

For Manifestors, the aim is Peace.

Ultimately, this is about being at peace with the human condition and the extreme + unusual nature of the hand we’ve been dealt. It is about effectively eliminating resistance so that we can experience freedom and live life on our own terms. Finding peace in our own inherent unpredictability and need to disrupt the status quo, even though change is scary for us too!

Our mission is to make peace with the existential loneliness that all types feel, but we often have a particularly unique and intense relationship to. The Manifestor lives in a closed and repelling aura, impacting others far more than we are impacted by them. Peace emerges when we begin to transcend our isolation and feel connected to humanity.

Peace results from knowing that we are having the unique impact that we are here to have.

A challenge is, having “impact” tends to be one of the characteristics of our homogenized definition of “success”. This is one of the countless reasons why us Manifestors may have a complicated relationship with our own impact.

With time, we free ourselves from our conditioned beliefs about what it means to have “impact”, along with any patterns of rebellion or submission we may have developed in reaction to others’ expectations around our impact. We stop trying to use our minds to decide who we want to impact and how, and learn to surrender to what wants to be initiated through us.

Reflectors crave Surprise.

Feeling constantly delighted by the unknown, on the edge of your seat excited for what life will bring you next. Without surprise, success can be so painfully boring and disappointing. Your true self does not crave “success”; you long for intimacy with the cosmos. Your deepest desire is to make love to the mystery in every moment of every day.

You long to rest in the inherent lightness of your being, to relax into your natural state of nonattachment, neutrality and fluidity, transcending all definition.

Operating correctly as a Reflector is a profoundly mystical experience.

Naturally, a Reflector living their design and embodying their true nature will attract attention and appreciation for their uniqueness. People will be mystified by you and extremely drawn to you.

Not everybody will see you, and that’s okay. You aren’t for the sleepwalking masses; you’re for the ones who are waking up as themselves. Those who are on a path of awakening will flock to you, because they know they can’t do it without you.

Human Design aligns us each to our own unique trajectory.

The last thing I want to do is shame someone for their desires. There is nothing inherently “wrong” with our ambition- and by entering into a Human Design experiment, we learn to tell the difference between what we authentically desire to achieve because we know that it is our path and our true purpose, versus what we think we want/need based on our conditioning.

Your deconditioning process may or may not produce the external results you think you want- but if you take it seriously, it has the potential to bring you the deep, soul level fulfillment that comes from trusting that the life you are living is truly yours.