Success v/s achieving purpose: which one to bet for?

To lead a meaningful life is everyone’s dream. For some, dream stays as dream, while the rest works towards achieving it. But often we are not sure about the indicator that validates the above quest. While the whole world is inundated with Success Mantras and repeatedly prophesize on ‘becoming successful’, studies shows the other way. People are forced to be gauging themselves against a scale to measure the level of ‘success’ they have achieved in life. While many may ask “Is that a problem, shouldn’t it be that way?”, the answer could be “doing it that way, might not be a complete solution”.

So what matters actually? When success is measured with money, it creates even more mayhem. This logic being injected into the growing generation makes them wholly focused on making money at any stake. If success is an attribute, the counter attribute is ‘failure’, which could be misinterpreted as something that impedes success. Which is not!

If success is an attribute, the counter attribute is ‘failure’, which could be misinterpreted as something that impedes success. Which is not!

This is the reason why, many thought leaders now promote on the method of ‘defining the purpose of your life’ and to measure the achieving levels, rather than looking at how to be always successful. Indeed, financial stability is of paramount importance to lead a decent life, but achieving the desired purpose in life could bring a holistic sense of being contended.

Another reason for not advocating to promote ‘success’ as a yardstick is that, it often requires comparison with others to validate the levels of success, whereas ‘achieving one’s own purpose’ is a goal customized for one’s self, where he could compare with what he/she was yesterday to ‘where he/she strives to be tomorrow’. Inflicting this sense of belief, enlights one’s self and motivates to do things that matters to his/her life, rather than getting caught in a materialistic rat race.

This also applies to organizations, where their ‘Mission statement’ should inspire them to drive forward rather than ‘Vision’, which can be often equated with monetary indices. Those who holds on to the purpose and drives forward passionately, often achieves even more. It is something like, while one tries to reaches the milestones, they also appreciates the barriers that were crossed, the surroundings that helped, the experience that they could feel more than a yardstick to be just touched.

“Ikigai”, a term rooting from Japan also provides a meaningful framework for finding one’s ‘Ikigai’, which translates to “reason for being”. Read an article in Forbes on the above here: