A street musician who loves every set might be doing better than a star who dreads every show.

People get ranked by scale and almost never by how they feel on a Tuesday. Somebody playing on a corner for small money, genuinely enjoying every set, may have the better life compared with a famous person who has come to dread the thing they do. Audience size is easy to measure, which is why it stands in for success. It says nothing about whether you want to be there.

Watch your own reaction just before you do the thing you claim to want. Dread, flatness, or a small lift. Track it for a week and treat the reading as information about direction.