What Does "Success" Mean To You?

The road to success for anyone is not going to be easy, but i believe with hard work, drive and passion, it's possible to reach the destination called success.

Everyone of us is in some kind of pursuit of success. You can’t deny it we all want to be successful and feel successful. And that pursuit might be different for all of us some chase money, or fame, power, getting good grades, having a successful relationships and so much more but along the road of this pursuit have you ever stopped to ask yourself: What, success actually means to you?

There is nobody on this planet who has not heard the word" success" or unfamiliar with it, so many of us pursue it with such passion or even pure obsession over it, and it’s not only limited to us adults but even our own children these days are often exposed to the word "success" often even from a very young age.

Having a vision, is the first step to reaching the door of success, but without a vision, plan and destination in mind how will you ever know when you’ve arrived? And the thing that often happens along the road is we end up blindly trying to pursue and achieve traditional view of success: which from what you can see is money, fame and power, but if that is truly what achieving success is why is it then that so many celebrities and public figures who have managed to achieve all these things seem so unhappy?

I keep using him as a reference but Jim Carrey once said, “I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer.”

By choosing to live our lives this way, we are actually living a life that is not our own Is this really success? Well, let’s dig a deeper into it to know what success means and how one can define we can achieve our own version of success based on our personality, nature, goals, and mindset.

What is success?

There is no one hard answer to define what success is; instead, it's subjective!

The definition of success, has as many definitions as there are people on this planet in my opinion it vary from person to person.there isn't a one-size-fits-all answer because we are all different, experiencing different things and living different situations and beyond that we all have different values and goals you might find for one person, success might mean earning millions, or being able to travel whenever they like or simply being able to put a roof and feed their family every day is to be successful.

What Success Isn’t

Thanks to social media especially Instagram many of us get too see a flawed version of success in that is so far away from the actual meaning of what it really means to reach personal success! If like me you spend some time on social media, you came across people who have a very narrow version of success. Its all about having fame, money, and power! Having that #couplegoals perfect relationship, making and spending money on stuff, and sharing their so-called achievements on social media for the world too see is what success means!

And there is absolutely wrong for those that choose to do this until we have the younger generation going to this platforms and getting influenced on what success is and to me this is where it all goes wrong! Attaching our success materialistic "stuff" will undoubtedly end in hopelessness and disappointment, which at the end of the day is not success at all!

“Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.”

Maya Angelou

What success means to me?

But if you had asked me this question a couple of years I ago when I was younger, my answer would have been completely different, so depending on the moment of your life you are in the definition of success will keep changing over time. It took time to learn that it's not about having material or having thousands of followers those things and go, but it was actually about having a clearly defined purpose in our life and I believe you are successful when you have found that purpose and commit your life to it.”

Today success for me is doing what brings me joy and sets my brain on fire while still being authentic and true to me and my values

I small trick that has worked for me over the years I usually have a check-in with myself at the beginning of the new year I usually take a moment before going back to work and ask the following questions:

• Does this still make happy?
• What was not success that I thought was and what did I learn from achieving ?
• What truly matters to me?
• Who am i really ?
• What my values?
• What are the things that set soul on fire?
• What do i want to make of my life?
• What type lifestyle do you want to achieve?
• Who do you want to be?

I won’t say I had this definition from the very start! It took a lot of time and mistakes, following other peoples definition of success to finally realizing that I am the only one who is going to define what success means to me!

Success is unique to all of us so have own definition of success!

Starting from our early childhood, all the way to our adulthood, we come across different definitions, versions, and ideas about success from our parents, teachers, and friends. Everyone has their own idea of what success should be. It's good to value others' opinions and ideas but never allow anyone to impose their definition of success on you!

Don't let what you see on your social media also impose their version of success on you. Be more self-aware!

That’s a wrap

At the end of the day everyone wants to reach their fullest potential and be happy and fulfilled in what ever they are doing and everyone of us want to be successful and feel successful and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, but before chasing the money,power, fame, relationships, stop for a second and ask yourself what success means to you and the key to finding what success means to you, is to check-in in with the real you and start the process of elimination to finding who and who you are not.

So really take the time to ask yourself what success really means and looks like to you, and make your own list for your personal and professional life and see if it relates to your day-to-day life, and remember If you don't create your definition of success, someone else will define it for you, someone else will have the power to set your goals, desires, ambitions, and your happiness and life is too short to be living someone else's life!  

Originally published at Aime Digital