What Is Your Definition Of Success?
Here’s a question: what does being successful in life mean to you, honestly?
Do you find yourself narrowing the definition of success to having a lavish $500,000 mansion with a stacked four-car garage, incredible wealth, designer suits, and an extravagant lifestyle?
A recent Harvard Business Review survey about the true definition of success found that out of 1,000 survey respondents, 40% correlated acquiring lots of money with succeeding in life.
But let’s keep the Hollywood dreams aside for a moment – is there something beyond the glam and the riches, or is that all?
Living The American Dream – Is It Success?
Who doesn’t want to live the American dream? What started as a term to promote LA hillside mansions and six-figure salaries now defines equal opportunities. Here’s a summary of WeForum.org survey findings of how Americans view success:
1. The definition of success is different between American men and women; men see it as having the freedom to pursue the job they’ve always wanted, whereas women define it by skyrocketing their income to accomplish their life goals.
2. The majority of the American population views being successful in life as having a six-figure paycheck; however, most of them haven’t been able to accomplish this goal.
3. 61% of the American population views “success with family and friends” as being married to a person you have children with and having 3-4 close friends.
That being said, here’s what success is truly about.
Success Is All About Planning And Execution
The Cambridge dictionary defines “success” as the accomplishment of results that one had hoped to achieve. This way, the true essence of success lies in creating a strategic roadmap and journeying to reach certain milestones people have set in their personal or professional life.
And here’s the truth: success doesn’t always have to be huge. If your plans are as little as doing one selfless deed today, and you’ve done it, you’ve still attained success.
Let’s say you’ve targeted losing 50 pounds in the upcoming six months. Once you’ve set the target, you devote yourself to accomplishing it by working out regularly and maintaining a strict diet.
Six months later, when you step on the weighing scale and notice that you’ve lost 50 pounds, the joy and satisfaction that’d rush through your body is the feeling of success.
It’s Beyond Having Loads Of Money
Having money is great; who’d disagree? But is it all that makes you call yourself “successful”?
It’s precisely what The Notorious BIG had said 25 years ago, “it’s like the more money we come across, the more problems we see.” The mo’-money-mo’-problems slogan is undeniably true, proving that it takes more than a stacked wallet to succeed.
Do you know what success looks like? It’s when you’re financially stable and have the creative freedom to work on anything you like for as long as you want without disrupting the work-life balance. That’s when you’ve hit the j!
However, if your sole target in life is to create endless wealth, then acquiring money would define success for you.
Summing It Up
Everybody has a little definition of success, which speaks volumes about their personality and the life goals they’ve set for themselves. If you’re a goal-oriented, highly driven person who wants to change the world for the better, then success will have a whole new meaning inside your head.
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