The Secret Of Your Success Is Closer Than You Think

There’s a lot of people out there trying to up-sell you their secret to their success.

There’s also another lot of people out there trying to re-sell you the secret of other people’s success.

Never give too much of your attention to people saying “How to be the next Elon Musk/Steve Jobs etc”. or “I want to be the next Elon Musk/Steve Jobs” etc.

Your life should not be consumed with trying to be a simulacrum of another person. Your life should be about learning to be the best version of yourself.

Other people’s success tips can be temporarily helpful to solving some of your temporary problems. But they won't help solve your most existential problem: “What is the secret of my own success?”

The secret of your success can only be found when you sit in your own secret thoughts of what you actually want and need to succeed at in your life.

In that inner world where all is quiet and the noise of a thousand competing voices are kept away, you can better challenge or confirm for yourself how your desired equation of success is what is most fitting, healthful, joyful and beneficial for you.

If you don’t do this inner work for yourself again and again, you will be assaulted by insecurities, unhappiness and self-flagellation every time someone tries to sell you their alternative vision of success.

You will question whether they know something that you don’t. You will wonder if you got your success equation wrong.

The worst thing that can happen to you in this life is not failure. It's success beyond your wildest imagination - at all the things you didn’t actually care to succeed at. And to realise in horror: you've lived someone else’s success formula - not yours.

The world is littered with too many painful stories of people who reached the highest pinnacles of what they thought was success - and were shattered by how bored, angry, bereft, sad, lonely, confused, unsatisfied they were.

The issue here is less about which success indicators are the “right” indicators and which are the “wrong” indicators.

The issue I’m focusing on is “whose” indicators are you living your life towards - and to be unafraid to question whether those indicators are truly the most fitting, healthy, joyful and beneficial to you.

To succeed at anything, you need to invest time, energy, resources. There are natural limits to what you can invest in. There’s always opportunity cost.

So understanding as early as you can in life what we truly want to succeed in is a high stakes game.

There is a paradoxical element to Success.

Say you believe the thing you want to succeed most in life is

1. have great loving relationships
2. stay healthy as long as I can
3. make enough money to not worry about my next meal or a roof over my head.

If you are clear those are your conditions of satisfaction and success, then anytime you get triggered with a anxious or envious twinge of “Oh no, am I missing out? Am I failing at life?”, you can ask:

1. Do I have great loving relationships?
2. Am I healthy enough to do stuff still?
3. Do I need to worry about where my next meal is or where I’ll stay?

If no, do small steps to course-correct immediately. Start carving out time to connect, work out or attend to finances for instance. Put those little habits in play then keep living.

If yes, great, you may have surprised yourself that you are already succeeding on your own terms. You aren’t as “poor” or “unsuccessful” as you imagined - or as someone was pressuring you to believe.

In that space of self-actualised abundance, you can actually find permission to make interesting “riskier” choices.

You can find more freedom to “fail” when you’ve already succeeded at the things that matter most to you. As long as your risky choices don’t compromise your original indicators, you’re gonna be ok even if you “lose” stuff you’re prepared to lose, or didn’t matter that much to you to be gained. It was just kinda fun to try. (This is why for some people, they can venture into interesting new careers, lose some salary and status but not feel too torn up about it because those things were not a huge “I must succeed there!” deal to them)

The secret of your success is not something to be found “out there” in an endless sea of salesmen and charlatans trying to convince you that you’re wrong and they are right.

The secret of your success is likely closer than you think - it’s already there in your soul and spirit, waiting to make itself heard to you.

Make time, go quiet, pay attention to the first loves of your soul, the call of that still small voice of your spirit - you could already be more successful than you think at the things that most matter. And that deserves celebration.

The most deeply successful people in life sometimes are the ones who thought least about Success. They were more concerned about living in a way that felt most true, meaningful, healthful and satisfying for them. Then rather than track whether they were succeeding or failing, they just focused on living a life in integrity and service to what mattered most.

Never spend your life trying to succeed at things that don’t matter that much to you. It’s slavery to a master you feel most bitter and angry to serve.

If that’s you, take small steps and course-correct.

It’s never too late to change whatever’s not working for you.

Start succeeding at being the best, most healthy, most joyful, most deeply satisfied, most You version of you.