How Do You Define Success

How do I know if I’ve achieved success? Seems it has to do with fulfilling a set of standards. Checking off boxes, right? But what if the tasks you are trying to accomplish are conceptual. Like raising self-esteem or confidence. I realize that there’s no beginning or end to this process and although it’s extremely satisfying , it’s also the one thing you can’t see yourself accomplishing necessarily. The check-boxes are not well-defined.

I read somewhere that to know if your successful, you may need to write your definition of success. If that sounds simple, try to write it down and see what happens. It feels like something you’d almost avoid doing. Except how then do you know where you’re headed and when you’ve arrived? See what I’m saying? without a definition, success stays vague.

I have noticed that even on a daily or weekly basis, I may raise my bar for successful achievement several times and never even properly acknowledge the things I’ve accomplished. That’s No Fair. And on closer inspection of my expectations of what success looks like, I can see that there is some ridiculousness in my parameters.

If I was successful I would:

• Be better organized
  • Have a nicer wardrobe, nicer car
    • Be a better gardener
      • Hire a house cleaning service
        • Be published in magazines
          

           

          • Have my own office with time to write in it
            • Be skinny with whiter teeth
              

               

              • ETC

The problem here is that all these elements of success require me to be someone else.  Unfair again. And there’s no empirical way to find out if I’m successful on any of these without more specific goal numbers. They also seem to be more external goals known as extrinsic goals.

On the other hand, just how do you judge yourself as being successfully kind or compassionate, both being intrinsic qualities we value? That seems only something someone else can decide you are successful being. Or perhaps it’s that our society doesn’t prioritize these qualities as much as the other extrinsic ones. That we are so outwardly focused, we disregard the harder to define intrinsic qualities. Yet I realize that’s exactly what I need to do, value that which I am.

So I’m going to attempt to do some Life goal mood boarding soon. And I have a feeling that I will have to come clean on what my definition of success truly is. And I have another feeling that this will make my life a lot easier to manage. Because I’m not liking the continuous default to a place I’ll never be able to reach as a person I’ll never be.

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