What is success to you? Have you ever asked yourself? If like most people, you are trying to live up to society’s definition of success and not considering what is best for you, STOP!
Success to some might be:
- Expensive car or two – Mercedes, BMW, Ferrari
- Big bold house – with a swimming pool, in a gated community
- Respectable corporate job – something worthy of bragging about
- Attractive spouse
These things are fine if they’re of your own choosing.
But, for some might be:
- Traveling the world
- Running own business from a laptop,
- Having daily adventures
- Wearing flip flops at least eight hours each day
A person with this definition of success would be miserable in the first scenario right?
The scary part is that we might find ourselves accomplishing something that doesn’t truly appeal to us in the end.
Ask yourself these questions and avoid disappointment by creating your own definition of success!
- What legacy do I want to leave for my children and the world? At the end of your life, what do you want to look back upon? Is it wealth and a big business empire? Is it significant charity work? Do you want to look back on a life full of adventures?
- How will you have wanted to spend your time?
- What financial resources do you want to leave behind?
- What do you want to be remembered for?
- What are my values? A lifetime spent living your values will be fulfilling. Most people have a vague or even no notion of what’s important to them, but few take the time to think about it carefully. Pull out a piece of paper and make a list of your values!
- What do I want to do? Make a list of all the things you want to see and do. Everything from skydiving to watching the Northern lights. Write it down.
- What type of life do I want to experience? You might desire a conventional marriage and six children with a white picket fence in the suburbs. Or you might like to live in an apartment mid- town by yourself and take full-advantage of the nightlife for the first 20 years of adulthood.
- What it will take for me to feel successful? Is it living peacefully in the mountains with few responsibilities? Or living in a 200 square meter lux apartment? Imagine various careers and lifestyles. Which one feels like success to you?
- What if no one else would ever know? The idea of owning a Ferrari might feel like success, but what if no one else would ever know you owned it? Would you still feel successful? An ideal version of success wouldn’t involve the opinions of others.
- Search for a version of success that’s meaningful to you, even if others are unaware of your possessions and accomplishments.
There is no universal definition of success. Free yourself from trying to impress everybody. Create your own definition of success and go get it!
Fotis
www.fotischrysochos.com
