Create Your Own Definition of Success
When you think of “successful” people, who comes to mind?
It depends on my mood.
If I’m exhausted and overworking myself, I suddenly think of someone who was able to retire early and retreat to some remote island where its 70 degrees all day, everyday. This person has flexibility of time and resources.
But then other days, when I’m feeling inspired or hopeful, I think of people who are changing the future in a meaningful way. People who push themselves to the limit in order to discover something new and exciting that will change how humans interact with this universe we find ourselves in.
Then there are those days when I miss my mom, sisters, nieces, nephews, cousins, grandparents, aunts and uncles. In those moments, I think of a mother or father who raises caring, generous children who will someday go on to make an impact in their own important ways.
Success is dynamic and varied. In fact, creating a list of successful in many different fields or topics isn’t difficult.
So why is it so difficult to create our own definition of success? Why is it that so many people are following a path toward “success” just to find themselves miserable?
Defining Success
We all have different desires, values and goals. Yet we end up with definitions of success that have been inherited from the generations before us or the people in our network.
The definition of success (according to our good friends at Google) is “the accomplishment of an aim or purpose”. But somewhere along the way, many people forget to choose their own “aim” or “purpose” just to wake up one day and discover that someone else has already chosen it for us.
In my home town, success too often meant forming a family and saving for retirement. For some people, that definition of success is perfect. For me, it felt restrictive. I wanted to travel the world, learn something new everyday and eventually make a global impact in some direct or indirect way. It’s easy to lay that out now but the reality is that it took me most of my life to figure out my own definition of success.
The only thing that prevented me from following in the footsteps of my classmates, was that I was so unbelievably terrified of living that life. I feared getting stuck in that city.
But I’m not alone. Many people wake up in a job they thought would be their “dream job” just to discover that they are absolutely miserable. They wonder how it is possible to have achieved “success” just to discover that they aren’t happy or fulfilled.
So what causes this misalignment?
When we grow up with our parents values, and then the values of your communities or schools, we’re never taught to choose our own values.
After a couple years of working, we start to know what we like and what we don’t like. If we pay close attention, we start to get a sense for when we feel most engaged, motivated or excited. We learn which moments cause us to feel drained, overwhelmed or frustrated.
It’s in these moments that we can start to determine our own values. And by coupling these values with long-term career and life-style goals, we can start to define our own definition of success.
It’s a good place to be in.
How do you define success?
Mary is the Co-Founder and CEO of Marlow, a career design platform offering career coaching via chat to individuals who are looking to take their career to the next level.
