I am not successful

“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.” -Albert Schweitzer

I am not successful. I tell myself that too often. I tried to conflate my success to my financial independence. I am not financially secure. I am an entrepreneur, started different business, many have failed. I attempted to raise capital for a few startups that never got off the ground. I have no girlfriend, no wife, no kids. I have dreamed of a life filled with celebrity friends, stories written about my life and achievements, yet I have no fame or fortune to speak of. I am an artist, though no one has bought my work ,not that I tried to sell that much. I wanted the perceived trappings of success, nice home, fancy car, out partying every night, traveling the world. I had none. So due to the lack of these metrics I saw myself as a failure.

You must be questioning why you are reading this guy’s blog right now.

I am only a failure if these are the metrics that I choose to define my life by. I am not sure why I chose these metrics for myself. I associated the trappings of success, the fame, the financial freedom, the toys, the accolades as the goal. By those metrics I am not successful.

What are the right metrics? The criterion I should be judging my life by? Am I a success if I change the metrics ever so slightly? I have a great job I enjoy and work with people I respect, with who I am honest, and as far as I know are honest with me. I am living out my dream of being an artist. I wake up everyday and do the work.

I have traded bad habits for positive ones, late nights for a morning routine, TV watching for reading and writing, excessive drinking for cognitive enhancers. I constantly work on improving myself ever so slightly each day. My life is more about process and routine, the grind. It is not exciting. These changes in action, the change in perspective, from working to “get / have” success, to WHY I am working, and who I want to be, is the key. I am in control of my life, happy and fulfilled. I have decided on the person I want to become. Living my life authentically and progressing towards my goals of becoming and artist and writer, which was once only a dream.

By these metrics, I am a huge success, confident that as I continue to live this way, and do the work, everything I defined as success will become the byproduct of the work. Turns out I am successful. Not in all the perceived results but in the process. In the process lies fulfillment, genuine happiness, and whatever material and perceived “success” comes from it. Define your life by the metrics that matter. Moving from what to why, has taken me a long time to figure out, and a journey I continue to travel. Part of this journey and part of my continued growth is to share all that I have learned, and doing the work that comes with writing. Hopefully helping you becomes a byproduct of my work.

Shawn Kolodny is an artist, writer (almost), and entrepreneur. You can check out his artwork here.

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