Success

How do you measure success? The question can be answered in so many ways and often it depends on the context of the question. For example, I wrote a short blog last week that 34 people read. The whole point of the blog was to inspire some dialogue and hopefully explore the crippling lethargy that I sometimes experience. 34 read it, 0 commented on it. Based on context, the blog was an epic failure. It did not achieve its intended purpose. It was not successful. I earned two awards in the past 2 weeks for hitting arbitrary sales goals and helping a specific number of people. I sold 22 homes last year. In order to "qualify" for these awards, I needed to sell at least 15. Who set that number? What is significant about that number? If I sold 14 homes, am I less successful? What if those 14 homes were $1 million dollars each, I would have made WAY more money than selling the 22 homes I did sell. Then who is successful? One person has the award, the other has a lot more money.
"Society" worships success. There are thousands of books, blogs, videos and other media out there centered on "success." There are movies made about "successful people." Everyone has an idea of what success looks like when they see it but very few can explain what success actually is. This is an important distinction as we strive to be successful people. It is very hard to strive for a goal when your definition is "I'll know it when I see it."

Let's start with the flawed description above. Who do you see as successful? Frequently we see celebrities as successful. They started down a path to be a star and they made it. Now they have gobs of money, live in big houses and are household names. Does that define success? We look at business owners and entrepreneurs that have achieved an independently wealthy status, i.e. they can survive the rest of their lives very comfortably without working. Does that define success? How about the president? There is not a higher elected official in our country. Is that success?

I would suggest that "being successful as a person" is not the same as "having success." Having success is very simple to define--the intended outcome has occurred. In other words, a goal was set, an activity was set in motion (or multiple activities) and the intended consequence was met--I woke up hungry, my goal was to not be hungry, I decided eating would solve the issue, I ate and I was no longer hungry--SUCCESS.

Being successful is not as simple. The real hard part is that you and only you can set the meter that measures success--and many, MANY of us don't know (A) what we truly view as success in life and (B) how to get there. I challenge you to figure out what needs to be in place when you get old in order for you to look back at your life and say, "wow, I was successful." It may involve your children, it may involve your work. It may involve strangers you help. It may involve money and material things. It may involve your giving. Regardless, YOU need to define that goal and ignore what society says is success. You will be much happier that way.