Happiness, success, and financial freedom are as I believe what the majority of people seek to reach. But we often get caught up in the hype and measure those things using mainstream standards.

Those standards are made to never or rarely be achieved and only by the minority of the world’s population. That’s why most people spend their whole life in a never-ending chase toward these standards, and never get to enjoy life the way that they really want it to be.

We look at celebrities and rich people and we let ourselves be seduced by their lifestyle even if that it’s not what we really want. Just because that’s how the people on top live, we think that we should adapt and try to get to their position. And that only will lead to endless frustrations.

I believe that success, happiness, and financial freedom have no general definition. You might take a look at what others believe to be success and can’t relate to that, and others look at what you achieved and think that you’re really successful, but you don’t see it that way because you have higher standards. Each one of us has his own definition of the things I mentioned above. And if your definitions match the mainstream standards, then that’s what you should go after, but make sure that it’s really who you are and you’re not influenced by some external medium to think that way.

So the first thing everyone should do is to define success, happiness, and financial freedom according to himself. Success can mean a lot of things to different people, and so does happiness and financial freedom. Some define success as having a house, car, enough money to live, and having the people they love around them, some define it as changing other people’s lives, and some others have a whole different definition.

Same thing for happiness, some people’s happiness depends on their success, some can be happy even when they fail, and some have totally unrelated definitions. It all depends on who they truly are.

Once you have those definitions, you’re no longer a slave to the mainstream standards. You don’t let yourself be seduced by lifestyles that doesn’t fit your own standards. And you will start appreciating other people with the same standards as you.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying don’t be ambitions, it has nothing to do with the message I’m trying to get across here. Maybe I didn’t approach it the right way, but that’s how it came to my mind so I wrote it and shared it the way it is.

What I really want to say is: You should dig deep inside yourself and find out who you truly are, and build your dreams based on that, instead of letting external mediums influence you and tell you what you should be dreaming.

Stop living according to someone else’s definitions, and make your own!

What’s your definitions of success, happiness, and financial freedom? Are you living according to your own definitions? Share your story below.