It’s Time to Define Success on Your Terms

“Define success on your own terms, achieve it by your own rules, and build a life YOU’re proud to live.” ~ Anne Sweeney

There are already numerous books, articles, podcasts out there trying to bottle up the word success and come up with a definition that stands true for each one of us.

Let’s talk about two individuals — Eva and Rachel — both working in the same industry. Eva is an ambitious young woman who wants to have a successful career, travel to new countries, meet new people and live an independent life.

Rachel is one of those girls who wants to have the best of both worlds. She always dreamt of getting married, going to an office, coming back and spending time with her family. This was how she has imagined her life all these years with all her priorities in place.

Coming back to Eva, she gets an offer from a leading MNC headquartered in another country offering her a fat pay cheque and other impressive benefits. She takes up the job as it perfectly aligned with her dream.

Whereas, Rachel is happy within her city, keeping her priorities intact and willingly balancing both sides of the spectrum.

Now, who in your opinion, is more successful — Eva or Rachel?

If you ask me, both are equally successful on their part. Each one of them knew what they wanted in life and got it. That’s success for me — you respect what makes you happy and work hard to achieve it.

Happiness equals success

I believe that happiness and success go hand in hand — you can’t be truly successful if you aren’t happy from inside.

It’s sad how the society has ingrained the notion in our mind that success is directly linked with money. The more money you make, the more successful you are.

Whereas what should be more talked about is whether what we are doing is bringing us happiness or not.

Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.

What success means to me

For all those who don’t know, I am an entrepreneur and founder of ProofHub, a project management software for better work and time management. You can click here to know more about it.

Without beating around the bush, a successful day means moving forward, learning new skills, and having a good time with my loved ones.

I know that I’d be able to crush my day when it is well-planned and goals are broken into smaller chunks of tasks.

Not just this, I like to plan extensively and I love making to-do lists. Trust me, nothing is more satisfying than ticking off tasks from your daily to-do list as it fills you with a sense of purpose and keeps you focused.

When you are focused, you get more done that largely contributes to your success. When all these things are coupled together, every single day is a success for me — whether I am working at my office or chilling with my wife and kids at home.

On an ending note…..

When you sit back to contemplate your version of success, focus on creating a life you’d love to live in and the one that brings bouts of happiness along with it.

Cheers!

Author Bio:

Sandeep Kashyap is the Founder and CEO of ProofHub — a leading project management and collaboration software. He’s one person always on a lookout for innovative ideas about filling the communication gap between groups, teams, and organizations. You’ll find him saying, “Let’s go!” instead of “Go!” many times a day. That’s what makes him write about leadership in a way people are inspired to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more.