What’s your definition of success, for YOU?
Have you ever sat down and wrote out what it takes for you to feel “successful”?
Feeling like your life has been a success is tightly tied to meaning. Kids. Relationships. Career. Fun. Challenges overcome.
We all create meaning in our own ways, and on our deathbed we’ll each judge ourselves as to whether we feel we made a big enough dent…versus the alternative of counting wasted years.
So it actually has deep reasons and impact to spend some time on this.
Sure, we’ve all seen & heard how “society’s” (or really, social media’s) definition of success can be bastardized. Which totally underscores the need for having your own, customized, individual definition!
And it doesn’t have to be that complicated.
In my experience, there are 5 foundational areas that your own definition of success must address.
1. Relationships
The quality of your relationships and emotions is the quality of your life. Period.
Starting with the relationships that matter the most to you, and consider the current quality of those relationships. Could you score each of them out of 10 (10 = fully satisfied)? What score would you like to have for each relationship? And what shifts or improvements would define the “success” score? I bet it’s not vastly different for most relationships. Putting it in clear, easily actionable steps sure makes it feel closer and do-able, doesn’t it?
2. Health
This is not just your physical fitness, but also your mental fitness. You’ll have your own scoring system for physical health, and for mental fitness, here is a great question to ask yourself: “Does my mind operate more as my best friend, or my worst enemy?” And score it out of 10 based on that last question. Let’s say it’s a 6/10 (i.e. 60% of the time my mind is friendly to me). What score would you like it to be? What are you willing to do to get there? (note: you have more control here than you realize)
3. Growth
Are you learning new things, new skills, new practices that satisfy your interests and bring you energy? Are you naturally curious in some areas and would like to learn more or do more with certain hobbies or interests? What is your current growth score out of 10? And where would you like it to be? I bet you are not far off.
4. Purpose
Could you describe your life’s purpose in a sentence or phrase? If you can, then it’s easy to attach meaning to your work and life. You know what purpose-driven feels like because it’s the work you would do for free just to help others. You’ve at least had moments of that in your life.
What % of your time feels purpose-driven? It doesn’t have to be 90% or 100%...but are you satisfied with your current %? Where would you like it to be?
5. Financial Freedom
The best definition of financial freedom I’ve ever heard is, “Enough money to do almost all the things I really want to do, plus just a little bit more.” That includes all your family/personal expenses, interests, travel, helping others in a way that feels significant, etc.” Enough to cover all that plus just a little bit more. How do you score on that right now out of 10? Where would you like it to be in the coming months? Or by a certain milestone date?
There are other key areas you may want to include in your definition of success – like contribution/giving back, travel, fun, other interests, learning new things… whatever you want to include, just give it a current score out of 10 for ‘how satisfied’ you are with it now. Then define what a couple points higher on that scale would look like. What “success” would look and feel like.
This is literally a 15 minute exercise. And yet, most of you won’t do it. That’s too bad.
It’s this easy to be intentional about the experience of life you will take to your last breath and judgment.
But for some, “it can wait” will be the winning thought. Incredible.
I hope you get what you want and need from this deeply impactful exercise.
If you want some back up…you know where to find me.
"If you live a good life, that seems to be what really matters. If there is something afterwards, terrific. If not, you haven't lost anything." - Joe Morton
Comments