DEFINING SUCCESS
Success is a weird concept nowadays. Mainly because we (or I do at least) seem to have quite fixed ideas of what success is, without really understanding where it comes from.
Classic measures include:
Salary
Job title
House location and/or size
Married?
Kids?
Modern measures now also include:
Size of social media following
How perfectly curated your highlight reel looks
Holiday destinations
Perceived online happiness levels
Announcement culture (engaged, pregnant, career highlight)
I spoke about this on a recent email, but generally speaking you don’t get super disheartened watching the Olympics because there are clearly defined barriers separating you from those very ‘successful’ athletes.
Those barriers no longer exist with the current evolution of social media because Olympians now exist in the same news feed as your best mates, and the constant refreshing of those feeds mean we move from one #successstory to another and any measurable or definable success gets lost in the ‘pull down and refresh’.
Think about this: if you were the only person left on planet earth, you would be the most successful. Simply because there’s no-one around to be more successful than you; no-one to compare yourself against, essentially. You would probably also decide for yourself what success means – if you’re genuinely the only person kicking around post some sort of apocalypse, then chances are your daily success story would be surviving whatever wiped out the rest of the planet.
So if you had the option to carve that definition out for yourself, what would it look like?
Would you be doing the same job you do now?
Would you have the same hobbies?
Would you spend as much time on your phone / social media?
Would you spend more time with different people?
Would you skill up in new areas?
Would you wear a tie every day, if you had the choice? My guess is no (because no-one even close to being in their right mind would come to that conclusion in a moment of free choice).
Do any of the measures highlighted above resonate with you, and if so, why?
Let me give you my success measures (which may resonate with some of you and may sound like hell to others – either way I don’t really care because it’s my life…)
WORK:
Working for myself & setting my own hours
Working from home and not having to commute (but also having the freedom to leave home and go work in a café when my partner has a full day of meetings and I can no longer stand the sound of his voice)
Earning enough income to cover my lifestyle and save / invest*
Working on a variety of projects
The option to travel / move to another country and work remotely
NON-WORK:
The freedom to spend time in nature every day
Being naturally active (so that movement doesn’t feel like a chore)
To bed early and awake early (essentially feeling optimally recovered)
A loving, supportive, and hilarious relationship
Feeling grateful and happy every day (NB happy doesn’t mean bubbly and energised. It means feeling content even if I’m feeling like I want to kip on the sofa and watch 9 episodes of Netflix because I’m physically and mentally drained. There is a difference between sad, and low energy – learn it.)
A solid & close-knit friend network
Feeling like I don’t need a yearly two-week escape (read: holiday) from my current existence
*I will personally always sacrifice financial reward for the above level of freedom. No point in me earning more money if I don’t have the time to spend it!
final thoughts…
Measure of success are and should be highly individual. What Sharon thinks of as success for her might be your idea of hell, so why would you spend many years busting yourself to get there, wherever ‘there’ may be…?
The most important aspect of measuring success is making sure the goals you are working towards are in line with your values, and no-one else’s. Sure, if you’re in a relationship you can compare life goals and work out compromises, but you can’t begin that exercise without first knowing your own true north.
