Are you currently living your life according to your own definition of success… or someone else’s?
The majority of people never stop to consider what their own definition of success is.
Are you one of them?
Our definition of success is important because it helps us to identify what our priorities are. It also ensures that we pay attention to, and measure the right things. This in turn has huge ramifications on our satisfaction and happiness in life.
So what does ‘success’ in life usually mean to people who don’t stop to think about it? Often a combination of fame, wealth or social status.
Let’s take a look at Oxford dictionary’s definition:
Many people fall into the trap of pursuing fame, wealth or social status, and miss the important point that success is the ‘accomplishment of an aim or purpose’. It is important that we each take the time to define what our own aims are, and what our ‘purpose’ is. This way we can increase the odds that we are indeed the ‘authors of our own ambitions’.
Find ‘success’ in the journey, not the end destination:
We should not define our success on obtaining an outcome. The consequences of our happiness being tied up with the outcome is that happiness will be lost if we fail to reach it. If we focus on the journey, the outcome has less impact on our happiness.
Furthermore, it is human nature to ‘move the goal posts’ when we reach our initial desired outcome. Our happiness will fade as we realise we are no longer satisfied with the initial goal. We will always change our goals when we reach them.
A great illustration of how we should focus on the journey, and not the destination is Alan Watt’s comparison between music and life:
By defining your own definition of success now, you can avoid a situation later in life when you realize that you have been chasing an outcome that society encourages you to chase, but which is not truly important to you.
The fisherman parable is another great illustration of the importance of avoiding the pursuit of society’s
definition of success at the expense of enjoying your ideal life, which is available to enjoy today.
What makes us happy changes – take this into account for a lasting definition of success:
As people we change. Our, thoughts, experiences and actions shape us. What makes us happy at one point in our life is unlikely to make us happy for the entirety of our lives. We must be careful not to fall into the trap of ‘miswanting’, which was termed by Gilbert and Wilson (2000). We are often poor predictors of what will make us happy in the future.
A simple experiment illustrating this fact is one in which two groups were asked to choose sandwiches.
“One group has to choose which sandwiches they want for an entire week in advance. The other group gets to choose which they want each day. A fascinating thing happens. People who choose their favorite sandwich each day at lunchtime also often choose the same sandwich. This group turns out to be reasonably happy with its choice.Amazingly, though, people choosing in advance assume that what they’ll want for lunch next week is a variety. And so they choose a turkey sandwich Monday, tuna on Tuesday, egg on Wednesday and so on. It turned out that when next week rolls around they generally don’t like the variety they thought they would. In fact they are significantly less happy with their choices than the group who chose their sandwiches on the day.”Source: http://www.spring.org.uk/2007/01/why-career-planning-is-time-wasted.php (a very interesting read in itself)
Therefore, the freedom to choose how you spend your time and who you spend it with, when that time comes, is likely to be an important part of your definition of success.
Here are some quotes that reflect what ‘success’ means to me:
“Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.” ~ Maya Angelou
“A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.” ~ Bob Dylan
“I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be compassionate. It is, above all, to matter and to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all.” ~ Louis D. Brandeis
“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success.” ~ Albert Schweitzer
‘Wealth is the ability to fully experience life’ ~ Henry David Thoreau
“Try not to become a man of success but a man of value.” ~ Albert Einstein
“Success is not to be pursued; it is to be attracted by the person you become.” ~ Jim Rohn
“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful, that’s what matters to me.” ~ Steve Job
“Success in life does not mean the acquisition of wealth. Success in life is; a state of being when one can come home at the end of the day, satisfied with what one has done, being able to put your head on the pillow and have a sound sleep, and wake up the next day realising you are a happy idividual, not only because you have found happiness for yourself, but because you have given happiness in the process of one days work to your spouse, to your children, to your family, to your neighbors and to the world at large” ~ Prime minister of Bhutan
If you are interested in further content on this topic, you will likely appreciate these TED talks:
Bhutan – The Pursuit of Gross National Happiness:
Chip Conley: Measuring what makes life worthwhile:
How will you measure your life?
Do you know what your own definition of success is? Which aspects of the above quotes and talks stand out to you?
