The Simple Truth About Success
Posted July 28, 2009 in How-To, Inspiration, Lifestyle 16 Comments »
Success.
That elusive, intangible thing that we’re all searching for day after day, month after month, year after year.
What is success? How does one achieve success? How long does it take? Is it even possible?
What Is Success, Really?
The basic definition of success is incredibly simple:
Success is the realization or accomplishment of goals, desires, or purpose.
The problem is, as you can see from the definition, that success is a different thing for each and every person.
Society has its generic version of success — the high-rolling, powerful, attractive person who vacations on a yacht and commands legions of personnel — but not everybody wants that. In fact, there are millions of people who think they want that version of success but actually don’t.
Let’s take a look some different ideas of success. Here are a few common versions:
- Having lots of money and/or power
- Having lots of free time
- Being good at a sport or hobby
- Being popular and well-liked
What’s really funny, though, is that if you look at people much later in life, success becomes an entirely different thing:
- Finding love or friendship
- Raising a good family
- Spending time with loved ones
- Staying healthy
But success doesn’t just vary with age, either. Think about what it means to be successful in a third-world country:
- Finding enough food to eat
- Staying warm and dry
- Protecting your family and friends
After all of these definitions, what is success really? If it varies so much from person to person, how can it even be called the same thing? Here’s the truth of the matter:
Success is knowing and accomplishing things that are important to you.
How To Be Successful
You’ll notice that the above definition of success has two very different parts. Knowing what is important to you, and Accomplishing the things that are important to you. For most of us, the first part—knowing—is actually the most important.
Understanding what is important to you, what makes you happy, what makes you feel good about yourself, etc… is very difficult, but it is critical because we often get the answers wrong. Many people spend their lives struggling to become wealthy, only to find that once they have wealth it isn’t nearly as important to them as other things like, say, love.
Ask yourself a few questions, and think about what would make you feel successful:
- If you had Goal XYZ — would you really be happy?
- Why is Goal XYZ important to you, how will it make your life better?
- Pretend you’re stranded on a desert island, what would you want most?
Based on what’s really important, you probably already have some areas where you’re very successful. It’s easy to overlook that fact sometimes, but it’s important to remember.
Most people also have aspects of success that they haven’t yet achieved. For many middle-class Americans, Europeans, Canadians, and other first-world country dwellers this elusive element is money.
Accomplishing the elements of success that you don’t yet have requires hard work and perseverance, there’s no other way to put it. If something is that important to you, though, it will be worth working for. To put everything together:
Knowing what’s important to you is key, and recognizing achievements you’ve already made will make you happier. Goals and accomplishments that you don’t yet have will take hard work to accomplish, but it’s worth it if they’re really important.
Success is a Journey… A Long Journey
Imagine for a moment that you’ve achieved your current biggest goal. Whatever it is, imagine that you now have it. In fact, imagine that you accomplished it 6 months to a year ago, and the initial glow has worn off.
Are you just going to stop now? Are you going to be satisfied that you have the big goal, and just relax for the rest of your life?
Probably not.
You’re probably going to act like the rest of us humans and find some other goal to work on. If you wanted money, and you now have it, you might find that you want to do more fulfilling work. If you wanted to do something you love, and you’ve found that, you may decide that you want more money.
The truth is that success is a really long journey.
In order to be be truly successful throughout your life you need to be happy during the entire journey, and not just at the big landmarks. Most worthwhile accomplishments take so much work that it’s not possible to reach them without maintaining happiness and solid morale throughout the process.
The other problem is that some things are just not within your power to control. I’m a firm believer that all goals are reachable with enough effort, but realistically there are things that you might never accomplish.
That doesn’t mean you should give up and settle for what you have. It means you need to be happy the whole time you’re struggling and fighting for your dreams. In fact, the very act of struggling and fighting for your dreams should make you happy.
Final Thoughts…
Let’s look back at some of the main points about success:
- Success is whatever you want it to be — whatever is important to you
- Knowing what is important is the real key for most of us
- Enjoy the success you have, and enjoy working for the things you don’t
What do you think?
About the author: Mason Hipp is an entrepreneur, marketing guru, and writer. He blogs about life and business at FreelanceFolder.com and is co-author of the Book The Unlimited Freelancer. Follow him on twitter @MasonHipp
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16 Comments
Branko Zecevic
July 28th, 2009 at 2:36 pmHi freelancer!
Here you try to define success and thank you on that effort!
Like you say success determine every individual according on their wishes.It is also important to say that happiness is mutual for every successful person!
For me happiness and joy in life is areal success!
Laura Spencer
July 28th, 2009 at 4:07 pmWell said Mason!
I agree 100% Each of us has his or her own definition of success and not everyone has bought into society’s definition.
Your third world definitions did give me food for thought. Most of us in the U.S. and European countries have so much that we take for granted.
The takeaway point, I think, is to know what you want and pursue that. Anything else and you’re bound to feel less than successful.
Raymond Selda
July 28th, 2009 at 9:44 pmJust when I needed another inspiration. This is a very inspirational post. I’m making my own break right now so I can do the things that I really love the most. I already started working on my business and my long term goal is to have a successful business in the next 5-6 years so I can go full time in professional drumming. Being able to work for yourself is success enough for me. Thanks so much for writing this Mason.
Sean Savanah
July 28th, 2009 at 10:21 pmSuccess = Happiness + Balance
Happiness = Success + Balance
Balance = Success + Happiness
But ultimately, it’s about balance not extremes – having all the elements in your life that bring you happiness be balanced – love, home/shelter, food, career, interests, people – all evenly weighted, none out-weighing the other – about distributing your energy to those things that matter in your life – that’s my definition of success.
It seems most people strive for extremes – excessive wealth, infatuation, oversized homes, goals they can’t achieve, being someone they can’t be – these are all extremes that throw your life out of kilter and make you unhappy.
That said – I’m very unbalanced! ;-)
Anca
July 29th, 2009 at 1:17 amGreat article Mason.
Indeed, everybody has its own definition for success. I like this one “Success is whatever you want it to be — whatever is important to you”. It is essential for people to be able to distinguish what is truly important for them and not to waste precious time with other things.
Bala
July 29th, 2009 at 1:38 amExcellent Article… Really it was very nice information…
IvánPérez
July 29th, 2009 at 7:28 amAre you telepathic? I just wrote something that expresses the same idea you say in the “Success is a long journey” part.
Good article! Cheers.
Computer
July 29th, 2009 at 10:36 pmThe idea is, if you really want a goal more then anything you need to keep moving forward. If you stop, you will end what where you are. If you want to move forward, then start walking.
Simon Stapleton
July 30th, 2009 at 8:00 amSuccess is about having Clarity of Purpose, and making it happen. Gaining money and influence is not necessarily success if it wasn’t the purpose – these can sometimes be incidental to other objectives, or lucky accidents.
A hobo can be considered successful if his/her desire was to be free from the trappings of modern society and live a carefree life – right? Maybe not by social standards, but I think that success is whatever we say it is, and we make it happen.
Most people want to be rich, but being rich is a measure of success, not success itself. What must one do to be rich? When you know that, and you have clarity on what it takes, you can make it happen.
CheapCars
August 3rd, 2009 at 1:53 amGreat article! “…Success is whatever you want it to be — whatever is important to you…”, exactly.
Keep the way of your life doing what you like to do. In cold words, pay you bills doing what you like to do. It doesn’t matter if you’re rich, popular, ugly, pretty, etc, if you do in your life what you like and enjoy to do, you have successful life then.
Ludlow
August 5th, 2009 at 12:09 amExcellent article.
I was just in the middle of planning the success of my new business when I came accross your article. I was inspired and I now have a cleared vision for the success of my bussiness.
Clarity is very important for success. When your vision is clear then all you have to do is the hard work required to make your vision become a reality. Remember to enjoy the hard work too…success is usually just over that hump.
Alen
August 9th, 2009 at 6:24 amThis was really great Mason.
I believe a lot of us forget about this valuable point:
‘you need to be happy the whole time you’re struggling and fighting for your dreams…
…In order to be be truly successful throughout your life you need to be happy during the entire journey, and not just at the big landmarks.’
Personally, I forget about that and take life too seriously making it hard to reach my goals. I need to remind myself every now and then to enjoy the journey.
I would like your opinion on Clarity, its difficult.. its tough not being confused. Seeing what you want from life, what your good at and going for it… its easy to say but difficult to put in action.
Sim
December 2nd, 2009 at 4:43 amHi,
I love the picture!
May I post it on my website?
http://www.coachingandcoaches.com
Let me know you allow..
Looking forward to your positive reply.
Thank You!
Regards,
Sim
Motyar
February 10th, 2010 at 8:51 amSuccess is journey a log journey……
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