Typically, it’s around now that many of our New Year’s resolutions start to fall flat. So I thought this week, I’d ask a tough question:
How do you define success?
I think I define success largely by how good I feel. An example? This week I was offered a little project that will probably be one of the weirdest I’ve worked on—weirder than the time I posed as a hand model for a Facebook ad, and on par with the time I wrote a board game for a financial company.
The weirder my work is, the more fun it is. And the more fun it is, the more successful I feel. There are other contributing measures of work success—is the client happy, does the content perform, and so on—but my key metric is how I wind up feeling about the project. If I feel good about it, then I probably see it as a success.
I made this (pretty tasty) fresh cheese! Woo!
This definition applies beyond my work. On the weekend, I made cheese for the first time.
The semi-hard cheese I made is still curing, but already I see my efforts as having been pretty successful. Why? Because I enjoyed the experience—I had fun learning, trying something out, and experimenting. This was a successful experience, even if the cheese itself winds up being a failure. Perhaps that sounds crazy, but making cheese was fun, and it made me feel good.
We all see success differently. How do you define success?
About georgina
I, too, define it by how good I feel.
I definitely don’t describe or define success in terms of money. I do believe it is terms of how you *feel* about something. If you have accomplished something and it makes you feel rewarded and proud, I would say that it was a success. That you are a success. if you are able to do this in most of your life, I would describe your life as being successful.
I have always wanted to make cheese!
Bernice
Assess your life for stress
You should give it a try Bernice. It’s not as tricky as it seems 😉
Hi Georgina!
I think this is a really important question. I find that many of the people that I interact with are constantly defining success by societal standards. They are looking to define success by the expectations of others.
Not only does this not make you feel good – it’s downright dissatisfying. I think the most important question a person can ask themselves is “what does success mean to ME?”
And I love your proposition. Success is about what makes you feel good about yourself. If you are happy with whatever decisions, actions, and thoughts you entertain then by every measure you’re successful.
That’s a great topic, Georgina.
To me, success depends on balance. I look for overall success, and that requires a balance of feeling successful about my family life and professional life. So I try to put balanced energy into my health, my happiness, my relationships, my work and so on. It can take some juggling, but the results make it so worth the while.
I struggle with that one when it comes to exercise. I have to remember that “success” doesn’t mean doing more (more reps, more time, etc.) than last week – success means sticking to it and feeling healthier week by week.
Awesome topic! I love it because everyone’s answers are so unique. Sometimes I get caught in the success is an outcome mindset and forget that success is a moving target daily….for me anyway.
I use a buzz phrase that works for me on a number of different life benchmarks, it is simply…I want to live like a kid and have the money to do it. Have to make a side note, I did not coin the phrase, a good friend of mine did.
I was watching a great little online seminar from Anthony Robbins yesterday and he really struck me – he said the measure of success is how much you progressed. Not changed, but progressed forward and grown from where you were.
I like it because it doesn’t have a ‘benchmark’ that you need to reach, or anything like that. Just that you’re moving in the right direction, no matter where you begin.
Some great answers here!
I think there are two types of people in the world there are people who are reactive to the world around them and the others are proactive. The people who are reactive rely on the out side world to define weather there project is a success or not, and the proactive people define it them selves, by how much they have grown or how they feel.
My friend told me a saying that really had a huge impact on me. It changed me from being a reactive person (blame the world and parents for my problems) to a proactive person (responsible and happy with my self) the saying is “self praise or no praise”.
If you rely on others to give you praise you will never have confidence or success because it all depends on how the other person feels at that time.(you give away your power)
E.g. You might think you have done a great job at some thing but the other person is in a bad mood and tears your project down and you end up feeling terrible and loose confidence in your abilities. Or you could do a half assed effort at a project and the other person is in a great mood, they tell you its great but you know in your heart its rubbish you could have done way better, you end up feeling undeserving.
Where as if you evaluate what you have done by how you feel about the project you will be happy or sad about it one way or another. So if some one comes along and tears your project down because they are in a bad mood and you feel good about your project you will not listen to them because you know in your heart that it was good. They are just being mean. What also happens is you filter out the negative from the person’s comments and view them as possible constructive criticism to take on board and improve for future projects. You have an emotional bullet proof vest on.
I agree completely with emma. i feel if you have learnt from the situation in one way or another it is a success. even if you come away feeling bad. you are empowered for the future.
For most of my life, I defined it the way everyone around me did- in terms of accomplishments or following the rules. Get a job, marry someone, have a couple of kids by 30 and you’re desirable and successful. Every time one of those milestones passed me by, I felt like a failure.
It took me years before I realized I felt so depressed not because I was a failure, but because I was totally buying into everybody else’s idea of what a success is. Now I’m totally okay with doing things my way. It makes me happy and it makes me feel fulfilled.
Yep, being happy and comfortable to do things our own way — that may be a good measure of success also.
I define success as when I can access joy in spite of struggle.
Other than that, I can totally relate what Laura F above says. I too conformed to the point of depression at one point in my life and thought it failure. Eloquently put.
Georgina, now I want to try making cheese!
Do it, Elle! You can’t lose!
That’s a beautiful question, Georgina, and one that I think about every now and then.
Success – in its broadest definition – is achieving our goals.
But being successful and being happy are two separate things. That’s because we need to set the right goals in order to achieve happiness.
If we set out to accomplish goals that are too easy for us, or clash with our values, then we won’t get to experience happiness.
For me, success is about recognizing my needs as a human being and making progress in all areas of my life. These areas are: spiritual, intellectual, psychological, social, professional, recreational and physical.
Achieving success in only one of these areas will mean that I’m overlooking some of my human needs, which will eventually backfire and compromise my happiness.
I love how we can gain additional insights by exploring words we throw around casually! 😀
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