What Does Success Mean to You?

by Jonathan on April 3, 2008

Success is one of those concepts that we all understand, and yet, in reality it means something different to each individual. What might represent financial abundance to you might represent poverty to someone like Donald Trump.
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Your concept of being physically fit is probably not the same as that of an elite Olympic athlete. While swimming a quarter of a mile might represent your new personal best, to someone about to swim the English Channel it doesn’t mean much.
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The point is this; in order to be successful in any endeavor you must first identify what success means to you personally. Some people are just looking for success in one area of her life such as relationships or business. Keep in mind that it is entirely possible to be very successful in one area of life and still be struggling in other areas. For many successful people this is exactly the situation they find themselves in.
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Sometimes people choose to make a conscious trade off, neglecting one or more aspects of their life in order to succeed in another. For example, workaholics don’t generally have the most meaningful family lives. Everyone at work may see them as a total success, while their families are likely to feel quite differently.
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So when we think of living a successful life, we are really talking about having a reasonable measure of success in many different areas of our life. For that to be a reality, it’s absolutely vital that we established a definition for success in each of those areas. This is the only way that we can gauge our progress.
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People tend to measure success by the results that they can see. Sadly, many people consider material wealth as the most accurate indicator of success. A person of modest means might be a wonderful husband and father, well liked and appreciated by everyone that knows him, but still not considered successful. On the flip side, a very wealthy person might make those around him feel horrible, and yet he is still viewed as a successful person.
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Realize that ‘successful’ is not something that we do, it’s something we become. First we become successful on the inside, in our minds, and then we can become successful on the outside.