Before I share any thoughts on success, I understand and respect that it means something different to everyone. There is no right and wrong answer. What I want to do is explore the success concept and help guide you to explore its meaning and how to define it.
To kick off, it’s pretty much impossible to have what one would determine to be success in every area of your life. Think about all the areas you’d like to succeed in. Having a good job, being a good friend, building a family, being a good partner and parent, being fit, being someone who travels the world, eats out a lot, does lots of activities, reads lots of books. You get the gist – the list is endless and to do this all at the same time…!?
If you’re striving to be that millionaire by an early age, I’m pretty confident you may not see your friends much, that you may not have time to start a family and you’re stuck in your office working, not doing much. But maybe that makes you happy!?
As there is so much to consider, sit back and think about what are the 3 most important things to you in your life. Ask yourself – am I winning in these areas? If you’re not, understand what isn’t enabling you to win and dive into a solution. If you are – then….what are you worrying about!? You’re nailing the most important things in your life. From here, extend your list and work your way down it, understanding where you’re winning or not. To support managing this, just use a traffic light system – are these areas a green (nailing it), amber (doing ok) or a red (this needs fixing).
Regardless of what success may mean to you, personally, I wouldn’t want to achieve everything I ever wished for too early. Why? Now this is simple – I wouldn’t appreciate it. If I had it all from my mid 30’s, what would I enjoy and appreciate for my next 30, 40, 50 years!? Also, I enjoy the hustle and I’d miss it. Lastly, success is all about the journey and experiencing the highs, the lows and the painful struggles. The best stories come from the detours, not the straight roads.
Having goals in life is great and I am for sure not against it, but when setting goals you need to actually write down what’s realistic and within certain time frames. The reason for this is, there are so many factors that can alter your journey and change your perspective on life. It could be covid, your health, losing a loved one or having a life changing experience. So much is out of your control.
Let’s explore professional life and what success mean to you. Below are some questions for you to answer. Send me your answers if you like 😜
- Is getting up and travelling to work a chore and painful for you? Or if always working from home, is just attending work a pain?
- Do you end your weeks with a smile, frown or somewhere inbetween?
- Have you got positive relationships with your peers?
- Do you have a good boss?
- Are you interested in the day to day tasks of your role?
- Does your pay allow you to do what you need to do in life?
- Does your pay allow you to do what you want to do in life?
- Are you learning and progressing in your role?
- Is your job challenging you?
- Are you surrounded by great people to learn from?
Answers to these questions will give you a good idea of how content you are in your job. Write down some scores to judge your answers so you have an idea of where you are. You can use a simple 1 to 5 scale, 1 being your low answers, ie you’re not happy and 5 being positive answers, ie you’re happy,
The saying getting all your ducks in a row at the same time has really hit home for me in the last few years. I’ve had 2 kids, bought a house for life, launched and closed businesses, been in hospital a few times – there’s been lots of big events going on. Ensuring all my key life activities are going well has been hard as there have been so many distractions, but when reflecting on it today I know that generally speaking the important stuff to me is all there. It has taken time and a lot of hard work, so you need to be patient. You won’t just wake up one day and have the dream job, be super fit and have a dream home. Life just doesn’t work like that.
I could go on. And on…! This subject is super interesting If you fancy discussing it more – please feel free to reach out and read more of my content here.
