Grace Victory has never been one to make herself smaller. A pioneering voice in body positivity, motherhood and mental health, she’s spent years challenging the expectations placed on women—and refusing to sugarcoat the messy bits.
But after surviving a life-threatening illness, the influencer, author and mother of two found herself questioning something more personal: her own relentless pursuit of success. So, what happens when you’ve spent your whole life striving for the next big thing, only to realise that happiness might look more like sitting on your sofa doing…absolutely nothing?
What It Feels Like to Let Go of Social Expectations
By Grace Victory, as told to Mischa Anouk Smith
There’s a vivid memory I have of lying in hospital and realising that I couldn’t walk, couldn’t talk; I was paralysed, and all I had was the strength of my mind.
I remember doing visualisations, and in the visuals, it was not, like a wedding or buying a house or anything like that; it was to be able to go home and sit on my sofa.
At that moment, I recognised that it’s the very small everyday things that make up your life, and if you keep chasing the next big thing, you’ll never be content; you’ll never be happy.
Learning to live without the next big thing
I think the way I grew up, money has always been an escape route or a sense of security. So I made work my number one. I used to glorify being busy, and pinned my success on always being booked.
Now, I really believe that we should stop asking what’s next, because it puts this pressure [on us] to always be working, grinding, planning, when actually life is happening, like right now.
Having kids and being unwell taught me that relationships are way more important—quality time with people that you love.
I’m still learning to do things just for joy now instead of being productive. My whole sense of worth was based on what I could achieve, and I really had to learn to switch that perspective around.
When you’re born into chaos, peace and groundedness feel quite boring.
I’ve been in therapy since 2016, and so that self-awareness is huge. After really processing being critically unwell, and buying a house, and sort of having a really settled, peaceful life, there was no outside chaos, but I still felt chaos inside. I think when you’re born into chaos, peace and groundedness feel quite boring.
So I’ve had to learn to be OK with kind of a nothingness happening. Just the birds chirping and having a coffee, and nothing truly happening in my life and... being OK with that.
Redefining what success looks like
For me, it’s about being able to come home to myself every day, and not have my value placed in what I can do. My value is in who I am.
I’ve been a high achiever most of my life, and I’ve always strived for the next big thing. So when the thing happens, I don’t enjoy it as much because I’m thinking, OK, so what’s next?
Now I purposefully take stock of where I am, and revel in it. I like to feel it, but it’s an effort for me; I have to actively tell myself to feel it.
Refusing to make myself smaller
We’re in this era of skinny again, and I think that puts pressure on women all over the world in terms of conforming and trying to get really, really thin.
Diet culture, eating less... I think with that comes shrinking yourself physically but also emotionally and spiritually. I’m 36 and I want to do the opposite. I don’t want to make myself smaller; I want to take up space.
I see a lot of talk at the moment, like a pushback around self-love or how loving your body is too hard. And I disagree; I truly believe you have to love your body not, you know, every single day, not waking up and thinking you’ve got the best legs in the world. That’s not what it’s about. It’s about recognising that your body’s got you from A to B, it’s kept you alive. It’s about respect and autonomy.
You don’t have to spend your life fixing yourself
One thing you don’t have to do is dedicate your whole life to working on yourself; that was a revelation for me. I spent my whole life trying to be better than who I was the year before, the year before that, the year before that, and it’s so exhausting.
I was going to women’s circles, reading self-help books, like, all the time. Podcasts, it was all about bettering myself, but actually it’s doing things that fill up your cup and bring you joy [that] will make you a better person.
I think it’s also a moneymaking thing for the industry; the self-help [and] the wellness industry. You know... you’ve got this problem, we can give you a tool to fix it. I’m done. We don’t need to be fixed.
I’m OK regardless, and that’s a really beautiful place to be.
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