Your New Normal: How Do You Define Success?

Part of a series making Post-COVID Future of Work more personal. Most thought leaders are opining on THE New Normal — how COVID has changed everything. Here we dig into what, exactly, that means to YOU.

The global pandemic did a lot more than disrupt health systems, the entire economy, and most things in our lives. It also forced many of us to ponder the big questions in life: Am I happy? What truly matters to me? Why am I doing what I do?

Most of the coaching I’ve done in the past year has been at this higher-level of thinking and questioning. Leaders, managers, and frontline workers were all forced to explore a very fundamental question: How do I define success? At work and in my life. 

Answering that question anew is super-important, as the pandemic created completely new challenges as well as opportunities.

When coaching, I almost always push beyond their first, second, and even third reply to my question. Because most of us were never taugh how to think deeply about success.

Defining success has immense power to shape your future. It frames how you think and shapes the choices that will help you become who you want to be. It holds you accountable. So I want to know how people view success in their gut — the nuances, the intense joys, and the passions behind those metrics. When coaching, I begin poking at that with questions about their work, like...

Success is never just a coolly-defined metric. It’s always also emotional. And people check for emotional success a lot more frequently than they do spreadsheet success.

Your Most Important Job is to Define Success for YOU...

Not for your boss or for your company or how anyone else views you. For you. Gary Keller, author of best-seller The One Thing, asks us to consider success in seven different areas of our lives…

I learned how personal definitions of success can be when writing my fourth book, What Is Your Life’s Work? I asked thousands of people around the globe to write one-to-three-page letters to their loved ones about what really matters in work and in life — their legacy of insights and passions. (Click here for instrux on writing your own legacy letter.)

Here are some examples of what people have shared when I asked them for their true definition of success…

Now Go Deep, Profound, and Simple… Create Your One-Pager

Seventeen years ago, my life was in a tailspin. Divorce, unsure of myself, feeling lost, and lots more. I journaled, and read, and shared, and asked for help, and journaled some more. This is what resulted: My one-pager of how I defined success for me and my work...

Notice the structure: long-term success (Dreams), short-term success (Live Every Day), strategic success (Highest Thoughts), and mapping personal transition (I am Becoming, Soul is After).

Every year since, I check in with how I’m doing on those. And then I create a yearly three-word definition of success that keeps me focused how I'm defining success for the next twelve months.

What is Success for You?

What will your legacy be? What is your life’s work? How will you make a difference in the world? What are your highest thoughts? How will you live each and every day?

Time for you to create your one-pager!

For many of us: The pandemic has created a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to rethink how we define success. Take advantage of it!  

Jensen Site, Twitter. Bill’s new book, The Day Tomorrow Said No, is here! It’s a powerful fable about the future of work, designed to revolutionize conversations between leaders, the workforce, educators, and students. It’s THE book for a post-COVID world! Go here to get your copy for FREE!