Defining the meaning of success is many things to many people… Each of us, as unique individuals have our own measures of success, with no two the same.
As a child my measure of success was seeing my father have a job and being able to put food on the table, and unfortunately for many this remains their measure of success today.
Growing up in poverty meant that I was indoctrinated (not purposefully) with a mindset determined of scarcity.
This mindset inhibited my ability to image a life of plenty where I could attain the things I dreamed about beyond food on my plate.
It’s only been as an adult that I’ve been able to move beyond this mindset and develop success criteria specifically for me that is beyond my childhood ideals.
We live in an era where success is often viewed in the number of likes and followers you have versus personal contentment and happiness.
In my mind, this view can distort your mindset.
The imagery driven by social media would make you believe that to be successful you need to be financially wealthy and live a jet set lifestyle on an exotic beach somewhere, while being surrounded by expensive sports cars and wearing only designer clothes…
Fortunately for me these are not my measures of success, in fact far from it.
Determining what success looks like belongs to the individual.
Now unless you’ve walked in someone’s shoes, you’ll never know what trials and tribulations they are dealing with, challenges they’re facing or how they view the world.
In reality it’s none of your business what they think of you or what you’re aspiring to.
I guess that’s the beauty of discovering your own personal measures of success.
In reality, these measures will flex, change, grow and possibly even diminish over the course of your life but in every scenario, they will always be yours.
An important dimension to this is that we should also be careful not to judge others, but in turn celebrate their accomplishments and milestones.
Unfortunately, either consciously or unconsciously we measure ourselves against others particularly when it comes to the type of life we live and what we’ve accomplished.
Yep, the grass is greener syndrome which is often driven by fantasy or fear.
What does success look like for you?
I’m not sure if you’re into self-reflection or possibly journalling but I’ve found that both work for me.
In recent years both Judy and I have created vision boards which also allows us to visualize our goals.
Some are long term goals and objectives, others more immediate but in both cases, we’ve seen many of them come to fruition.
It comes down to aligning your mindset to the things that you want to achieve in your life.
By planting these objectives subconsciously you’re constantly reinforcing them into psyche and whether you like it or not are working your way to achieving them.
Clearly this is one tactic that has helped me but like with most things in life these aren’t cookie cutter solutions that you can just do based on what someone else has done…
Defining what success means to you takes time to discover and ferment in your mind.
The beauty of this approach is that you can look across the landscape of your life and evaluate all aspects of success. Not only to determine the “what” but also the “how” will you measure it.
By taking this approach you take control of your life and measure your success by your standards and means versus the way others or society may look at it.
All I know is that for me showing up and being consistent with the things that are important become my priority.
If you want to achieve something, then you need to figure out an approach and go get it…
We know from experience that it may not be easy or as simple as you expect it to be, however perseverance and hard work coupled with focus and consistency will help you achieve almost anything in life.
The only person that can make it happen is you!
Important aspects are timing and your own expectations…
We may place an expectation around the timeline to achieve a certain level of success, but as you know it doesn’t always fit perfectly into your timeline.
Sometimes if our expectations are not met, we can become discouraged and lose sight of our objective thus inhibiting our focus and commitment to our objectives and ultimately our success.
This fork in the road so to speak will determine if you’re truly committed.
Unfortunately, at this juncture many people give up, however this is precisely when we should be recommitting ourselves to the task at hand and figuring out a different approach to achieve our objectives.
Success is never handed to us… we have to work hard and perseverance especially when we hit a roadblock, or when our expectations are not being met.
However, as I said earlier the only person that can make it happen is you.
Your mindset and commitment to your success is determined by you alone.
Food for thought…
Until next week
Ciao!
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