HOW DO YOU DEFINE SUCCESS?

“Never stop dreaming, never stop believing, never give up, never stop trying, and never stop learning.”― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart

What Is Success?

Most of us would equate success with Money or Fame or Power or Position. But if this is true then a lot of people have never achieved success in their whole life. I think Success is a very personal thing and can never be compared. Because if we equate success with Money then only Mr. Jeff Bezos is successful.

But the definition of success should be different for different individual. For someone it could be to have a good, happy family life or it could be his / her social contribution, or it could be his / her profession and many more. For someone who equates success to family life will not understand why people spend so much of their time and efforts on their professional life and vice versa.

My Definition Of Success

My definition of success is - Have you achieved your dreams? Success is the status of having achieved what you had dreamed about.

Imagine, Mr. A who is in his mid-40’s, working for a MNC, Good Designation, Good Salary, Debts that he is easily able to take care of. But one day he left his job and started a company, where he struggled for few years. When things got stable, still the profits were not so high (he could have made much more working in that MNC). But he was happy and so was his family. He also knew that in some years he will be making good profits.

Now, looking at Mr. A’s story, one who equates Success to Job Security, would say it was not a good idea to quit the high paying job. But for one who equates Success to Doing your own Business, would say it was a great idea.

What I mean to say is that everyone equate Success to different things. Some goals are considered small by some people and enormous by others. What matters is that they are personal and so should never be compared.

“A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do.”― Bob Dylan

My Formula of Success:

Success = Dream + Opportunity + Potential & Willingness + Persistence + Luck

Dream

I think a person is a product of his / her dream.

Dreams are usually beyond your current capability. It at present looks impossible. People may laugh on your dreams. But it all starts with a dream. Your dreams should define the path you take, and these dreams should keep motivating you.

If you must achieve your dreams, believe in them, and imagine yourself living those dreams. And keep renewing your dreams. I think once you are about to achieve what you had dreamt of, the process of reaching there will help you come up with a new dream.

Opportunity

It is not just your dream and potential, but the right opportunity also contributes to your success. In my opinion, if the right opportunity, however small it may be, does not come your way or is not grabbed by you then only potential will get you nowhere.

Potential will help you grab the right opportunity when it comes your way, but without the right opportunity, you will not be able to showcase your skills. So, keep sharpening your potential, so that when the smallest of the opportunity comes your way, you can make the best out of it.

“I will prepare and someday my chance will come.”― Abraham Lincoln

Potential & Willingness

Success is never accidental. Only being at the right opportunity at right time is also not enough. Have you developed your potential to grab that opportunity and are you willing to take up that opportunity?

The only way to develop your potential is to increase your knowledge and sharpen your skills. This will improve the quality of your work, which will get you recognition. By this I mean develop your learning ability and prepare yourself for the opportunity.

Also, willingness to take up that opportunity is very important, as every opportunity has an opportunity cost. Let’s say you decide to get yourself enrolled to an Executive course or an Internal Management Development program, here you will have to put extra effort. Opportunity cost here is losing on your family time. So, are you willing to take up an opportunity is equally important.

Persistence

One cannot put timeline to each dream and expect it to happen as you had planned it to happen. There will be many obstacles which will always prevent you from reaching your goal, but persistence is very important. You cannot give up on your dream just because it is not achieved as per your timeline, you will have to give it some more time and effort.

There is no concept of overnight success, lot of time you will have to play along, keep moving slowly, keep developing yourself for all those opportunities that will come your way and for which you will have to keep preparing yourself.

Luck

Few may disagree with me on this, but I feel luck at times plays an important role in success. What I am trying to say here is right opportunity at right time is called luck. We must have seen so many times that 2 friends with more or less same potential achieve different results. What makes the difference here? My guess is the right opportunity at right time makes a difference here.

Don’t misunderstand me, I am not saying that luck can replace potential or talent. Luck can only get you the right opportunity, what you do with it depends on your potential and your preparation. 

“People often remark that I’m pretty lucky. Luck is only important in so far as getting the chance to sell yourself at the right moment. After that, you’ve got to have the talent and know-how to use it” – Frank Sinatra

Final Take

I think you get the picture. My belief is that all this Dream, Opportunity, Potential & Willingness, Persistence and Luck coming together leads to success. So keep developing your knowledge, skill and potential without giving up on your dream, so that when the right opportunity comes you are ready to grab it.

Any thoughts, please?

Aniket Sonar