If you’re struggling to define what a successful life means, I have two pieces of good news for you:
- It’s never too late to start over.
- You get to write your own definition of success.
Many of us chase career titles, money, or social status — and yet we don’t feel successful when we get those things.
That’s because you can only measure success in your life when you define what drives your happiness and helps you find purpose.
What is success to you?
Success is something that you have to define for yourself, and no one can do it for you. Success could mean a sense of giving back to the world and making a difference. It could mean a sense of accomplishment and career progression.
It could mean being able to do the things you love. It could mean being able to provide the best possible upbringing for your children.
It’s entirely up to you.
A one-size-fits-all approach is impossible.
Let’s talk about the habits of successful people, and how successful people achieve great things by defining their own terms for success.
It’s never too late to write your success story
Many people think that they’re already too old to succeed.
Let’s consider some facts:
- At age 23, Oprah had just been fired from her first broadcasting job.
- At age 30, Jonah Peretti was teaching middle schoolers before founding his billion-dollar media companies, Buzzfeed and The Huffington Post.
- At age 40, Stan Lee finally achieved success with Fantastic Four, Spider-Man and X-Men comics.
- At age 50, Julia Child wrote her first cookbook.
- At age 62, Kernel Sanders’ fried chicken business KFC finally succeeded.
- At age 77, Nelson Mandela became South Africa’s president after spending 27 years in jail.
If we can learn anything from these people who succeed later in life, it’s this:
Success has no deadline.
In fact, according to the Forbes Top 100 list, on average, the people who found the world’s biggest companies don’t start until age 35. Out of 539 founders, the average age of starting their company was 40. Many of the world’s most successful people don’t even start pursuing their dreams until their 50s or 60s.
Success doesn’t mean by a certain age, at a certain time, or by a certain deadline. It isn’t about any other person’s measures or metrics except your own.
You can decide when is the prime of your life.
I’ve always wanted to write a book. And at age 40, I did.
But the book I published didn’t feel like “My Book.” And in fact, I almost felt like an imposter.
By age 50, I thought I was ready, but the timing wasn’t right.
Not until I turned 60 did I feel ready and able to write the book I truly wanted to write. Now more than ever, I feel ready to let “My Book” spill out of me and onto the page.
Success must match the rhythm of your soul.
Writing “My Book” came naturally only after some major life lessons and transformations. I used those experiences to answer the big questions in my soul. But it could only happen at the right moment.
I used one of the most cathartic and depressing points of my life as the catalyst to define my take on success. It came when I stepped out of the closet — only to lose family and friends, status and regard.
In the midst of this heartbreak and hope, I was vulnerable. I realized what I needed most at this point in my life: open minds and soft hearts.
My mind had opened wide enough to burst out of silence and hiding. I wanted soft hearts and compassion because my heart had softened, too. An open mind and soft heart finally became the seedbed for the most courageous act of my life to that point.
Moving forward, I sought these values in myself and others, above all. I defined for myself that, at the end of my life, the most important markers of success would be how I answer these two questions:
- How open is my mind?
- How soft has my heart remained?
These questions define what success looks like for me.
When my mind is closed to new ideas and resisting change, I’m not achieving my definition of success. When my heart is hard, holding onto anger and hate, I’m failing.
I measure personal success based on the people who had my back at my most vulnerable point. I carry these questions with me, to guide me through transitions and transformations rocking the foundations of my life.
Today, these questions lead me through successful ventures in all areas of my life.
Including the ability to finally write the book I’ve always wanted to write.
What does success mean to you?
Understanding success in your terms doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time, and many acts of courage, to uncover the deeper questions at the heart of your success journey.
You have to learn how to believe in yourself.
So the question becomes:
How can you discover the seeds waiting to blossom into ideas that drive the process of finding your purpose and meaning in your life?
I’m going to walk you through a short exercise to help get to the root of what success means to you. But first, let’s talk about what success doesn’t mean.
Success doesn’t mean copying what someone else is doing as a metric of your worth. If you use a comparison of achievements as a regular practice, you’re using an unhealthy and toxic practice. STOP that SHIT!
When you think about the strengths of others and then compare them to your weaknesses, how do you measure up? Does it feel good?
As funny as it sounds, we’ve all done just that — compare our flaws to the strengths in other people.
Maybe you see someone online sharing news about a promotion, an engagement, a new car, or a lavish vacation.
We all know what happens next. We immediately look at ourselves to see how we size up. “Megan just bought a new house. Why don’t I have that at my age? What’s wrong with me?”
That’s not to say that comparison has no benefit. Mentors and role models can serve as great sources of inspiration. They demonstrate leadership qualities, and show the steps toward achieving big long term goals and proving that it can be done, at any age.
More often though, comparing yourself to others will leave you feeling dissatisfied and inadequate.
It causes you to lose sight of your strengths and accomplishments. Comparison gives a skewed version of reality that highlights your insecurities while exaggerating the success of other people.
Stop comparing your blooper reel to everyone else’s highlight reels.
When you see someone who seems to have it all, you don’t see the full picture. People project their best achievements and rarely expose their painful failures. In other words, you see the highlights — a glamorous montage of achievements, distinctions, and talents.
At the same time, you can only see yourself from behind the scenes. Day-to-day life is not always exciting, for anyone. It’s filled with awkward moments, messy emotions, and yes — mistakes.
Comparison sets you up for failure from the start. It traps you in an ongoing cycle of insecurity in which you’ll never quite measure up.
The wrong kind of comparison puts attention on the assets of other people, rather than focusing on your strengths and goals. Getting caught up in other peoples’ achievements causes you to lose sight of your values.
You wind up chasing someone else’s dreams rather than pursuing your version of success.
What does success look like?
Since we know that comparison and status symbols are the worst way to define success, let’s talk about creating a better definition — tailored to your unique purpose in life.
The path to prosperity begins by finding out: what it means to you?
Take a moment. Close your eyes. Imagine your life the way you would like it to turn out.
Picture what it looks like when:
- You are performing at your best.
- You embody the characteristics you admire.
- You have accomplished everything you wanted.
Now, take a piece of paper. Spend 10 minutes writing down what you see. Don’t worry about grammar or punctuation.
Simply list all the milestones you want to achieve in different areas of your life. List the principles, habits, career path, relationships, and possessions that define this version of you.
When you’re finished writing, ask yourself these questions:
- Do the goals and attributes in your list align with your values?
- Are these your goals, or are they based on the expectations of someone else?
- Do some of the things on your list matter more than others?
- Have you already accomplished some of the things on your list?
- If not, what are you doing now to work toward these goals?
This process of assessing what you imagine against what you truly desire is powerful. It enables you to highlight goals that mean the most to you — and stop chasing the ones that don’t matter.
You will notice that some items on your list stand out more than others. Think of these as your main dreams and aspirations. Success means moving towards these goals.
At the same time, other items will feel less important. When you examine why you want those things, you may realize… you don’t. Superficial goals and chasing someone else’s dream will lead you further away from success.
If this exercise makes you feel far behind where you think you should be, don’t think of it as a revelation of your failures. Instead, look at it as a new roadmap towards success, and an opportunity to start changing your life.
This way of approaching success provides a starting point that falls in line with your core values.
The next step is taking this clarified vision of success, and creating actionable, short-term goals that will create long-term success.
Discovering your success journey is best done in baby steps.
Looking at big goals can feel daunting. Building a profitable business, writing a book, becoming badass in your field — these things don’t happen overnight.
Through research and experience, I’ve learned that tackling big achievements happens by taking small steps consistently, towards a goal that you enjoy pursuing.
Chicago Booth researchers discovered that to achieve long-term success, you also have to consider short-term rewards. The study surveyed a group of 80 gym members asking:
- Did they enjoy the day’s workout? (a short-term reward)
- Did it feel useful to stay in shape? (long-term reward)
- How many minutes did you spend on the cardio machine?
The researchers found that those who enjoyed their workout spent more time on the cardio machines. In other words, enjoying the process increases your ability to succeed long-term.
While long-term goals are important, studies like this show that finding joy in what you do leads to better success overall.
Maximizing the presence of immediate rewards when pursuing long-term goals, rather than relying on the importance of the goal to carry through, should increase goal persistence.
When you are deciding what success looks like for you, think about the daily steps you will have to take to achieve it.
Of course, it will be hard work. Every big achievement takes hard work. But the work itself has to feel rewarding. Picture what it will feel like working towards the goals you have in mind, and ask yourself:
- Does it use your strengths, or demand skills you’re not suited for?
- Do you enjoy doing it, or do you dread the daily effort?
- Does it make you feel strong and competent, or ineffective and weak?
- Can you see yourself doing the work long enough to get results?
When you paint a picture of success that demands work you hate doing, chances are you will give up long before you reach your goal.
So take your time, and conduct plenty of experiments before you commit to significant changes. Start small and see what if feels like.
How do you define success?
To me, money, status, and possessions are poor indicators of success. There are much more powerful measures to look at:
- Truth: Do you speak and act from your soul?
- Strength: How strong and resilient are you?
- Focus: Are you pursuing what truly matters in your life?
Success develops from your willingness to try repeatedly for a breakthrough — to sweat all the way down until the salt of your soul spills out on the floor.
The lessons and experiences at every stage of life must take place before those big “a-ha” moments that can change your life can happen.
And when you’re ready to reach for it, I can help you find the focus you need to achieve your definition of success.
Have you ever stopped to wonder what exactly success means to you?
Many of us have us never stop to ask ourselves this very important question. Instead, we may follow the path of everyone else, pleasing those around us. Perhaps we may chase the traditional view of success: money, fame and power. But why is it then that so many celebrities and public figures who have all these things seem so desperately unhappy? Is that what being successful is about?
Jim Carrey once famously said, “I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer.”
Maybe a better way to view success is by how much you love going to work. Or the degree you earned through years of education. Or maybe it’s the impact you’ve made in your community, or how much you’re loved by the people who matter to you.
What is your definition of success?
If you still have not defined your idea of success, try this exercise: Take 15 minutes with a blank piece of paper and start writing words, symbols or pictures of what success looks to you. You might want to focus on your immediate or near future ideas of success. You might feel inspired to look at your whole life and start to document what a successful life looks like to you. Ask yourself the following questions:
- What makes me happy?
- Where have I already been successful in my life?
- What lessons have I learned from those experiences?
- What was not successful and what did I learn?
- Who do I admire and why?
- What truly matters to me?
- What do I want to be remembered for?
Success is better measured by what engages and energises us every day.
Typically, the very activities that engage and energise us are driven by our innate natural talents.
If you have strong influencing or relationship talents, you will likely be energised by managing a team or growing a business. Perhaps you are a great problem solver, strategist or visionary, inspired by new ideas and do your best work when you have time to think and reflect. Or maybe you love the adrenaline rush of multiple projects and deadlines.
Success is unique for all of us because we all have a different mix of talents.
As a student at Torrens University, you have access to the Clifton StrenghtsFinder, to help you unpack your innate talents. If you are a current student and haven’t done so already, contact your Success Coach to find out how.
When we consciously apply our talents to our studies, our career our personal life, we develop them into strengths and this is where we find meaningful success.
How do our Success Coaches define success?
Our Success Coaches help students become successful in whatever way that means to them. Our coaches work with our current students throughout the trimester to build on personal strengths and professional capabilities. This specialised one-on-one service helps students clearly define what success means and how they can get there.
“Success to me is doing what you love and being authentic whilst you do it. We all require meaning in our life and I believe you are successful when you have found that purpose and commit your life to it.”
– Toni Jones, success coach for Education students
“I believe success is about motivation. Ultimately everyone wants to reach their highest potential and be happy and fulfilled. The key to finding what motivates you, and ultimately be successful, is to work out what makes you truly happy and helps you to reach your highest potential. As success coaches, we help students to discover what these are for them and use Gallup strengths to help them achieve this.”
– Sarah Reeves, success coach for Health students
“The definition of success to me is understanding what success looks like; make sure you have a vision: what do you want your life to look like in five, ten, fifteen years’ time? Keep setting yourself small goals to create a sense of constant momentum.”
– Richard Whitfield, success coach for Design students
“The definition of success to me means doing something that makes you happy, and something that you enjoy. It also means often not taking the path of least resistance, but opening yourself to new challenges that enable you to grow and develop mentally, spiritually and professionally.
– David Whyte, success coach for Hospitality students
“Success for me is going home feeling fulfilled. Feeling that I’ve made a difference, done the best that I can and helped somebody move through a challenge and towards their goals. Success is that feeling of knowing that I am on the right track and doing what I am meant to be doing. It’s taken me a long time to learn that no amount of money will suffice for a lack of purpose and passion. When I act out of purpose and passion, I feel I have created success.”
– Dan Kuss, success coach for Business Students
What does success mean to you? Sooner or later in life, we are all confronted with the essential question how we define success. No matter if this happens during a job interview or while making plans for the future, finding an answer is not always easy. The word “success” can have quite a lot of different meanings to different people. If you’d randomly ask one hundred people what success is all about, you’d get a vast variety of different answers. When it comes to success, reaching common consensus about a definition is extraordinarily difficult. Some might even say that it’s quite impossible. This article is intended to help you get a good overview about the meaning of success. Its aim is to inspire you to develop your own definition of success for your own life. So let’s explore the different meanings of success in the following.
Many people struggle greatly when it comes to defining success. This is mostly because success is a rather subjective term. It simply means many different things to many different people. Another factor that contributes to this problem is the way mainstream culture portrays success. According to the mainstream view, a person is successful when they earn a lot of money, have a big house and a fancy car. As a result, many people have not only adopted but also integrated this superficial portrayal of success into their life. Consequently, their aims, ambitions and dreams are heavily centered around money, power, status and (sometimes also) fame.
“Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of filling a vacuum, it makes one.“
Benjamin Franklin
Primarily defining success based on the amount of money you earn can be quite dangerous. Even more so, if you believe success is all about having money, you may be setting yourself up for an unpleasant surprise.
What does success mean to you? Is it all about career, money and social status or does it also include aspects such as happiness, fulfillment and joy?
For this very reason, developing your very own definition of success is quite important. Otherwise, you risk wasting precious time and energy on the pursuit of superfluous things that do not fulfill you. Also, by chasing another person’s version of success you might end up having no true sense of a purpose in life.
“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.”
Albert Schweitzer
Not knowing precisely what success means to you will make the pursuit of success a lot more difficult. If, however, you have a clear understanding how you define success in your life, the process of attaining success becomes a lot more focused. It’s a little bit like traveling. If you don’t know where you want to go, you might end up going around in circles. But if you have a clear destination where you want to be, you will march on day after day, until you have finally reached your destination.
Table of contents
Definition of success
Different areas of success
How successful people define success
Success related interview questions & answers
Let’s start this exploration of success by giving a short definition of success.
Definition of success
success
/səkˈsɛs/
nounThe noun success refers to:
- the achievement of an aim, goal, ambition or purpose
- the attainment of wealth, social status, fame, influence or power
- the state of being victorious
- a person that accomplishes desired aims
Adapted by the definitions in Webster’s dictionary
As you can see, these definitions are primarily centered around the attainment of aims or purposes. It is also interesting to see that the attainment of wealth, status and fame are specifically included in an official definition of success.
While these definitions certainly give a good understanding about success, they might be totally insufficient when it comes to your own pursuit of success and happiness. For this reason, it’s beneficial to explore the different potential areas of success and how they contribute to your overall well-being, happiness and fulfillment.
Different areas of success
As we have already addressed, the vast majority of people define success primarily based on the acquisition of wealth, tangibles, status and fame. But there are many more areas that can contribute to your overall perception of success. Success does not at all have to be limited to these four areas. Quite the contrary, by limiting one’s understanding of success to these areas, other important areas in life will be neglected:
Depiction of an imbalanced definition of success that is primarily based on money, wealth and social status.
There are several reasons why focusing too much on wealth, status and fame might be contradictory. First, what’s the point of being wealthy if you cannot draw happiness, fulfillment and joy from it? Second, there’s no point in obsessively trying to pursue a high social status if it requires you to become manipulative and aggressive. Third, what’s the point of attaining fame, if it does not contribute to finding purpose in your life?
What other (more meaningful) areas of success do exist?
- Success is doing what you love
- Success is forging your own path
- Success is enjoying each moment
- Success is not giving up
- Success is excelling in various areas of life
- Success is attaining mastery
- Success is making the world a better place
- Success is overcoming obstacles
- Success is living with love, happiness and compassion
- Success is doing what fulfills you
- Success is following your purpose
- Success is always giving your best
- Success is pursuing worthwhile ambitions
- Success is standing your ground
- Success is standing up for others
- Success is overcoming ignorance
- Success is being happy with what you have
- Success is staying true to yourself
- Success is helping others succeed
- Success is enjoying the little things in life
- Success is pursuing your dreams
- Success is facing and overcoming fear
- Success is learning something new every day
- Success is getting back up after defeat
- Success is attaining wisdom
- Success is being grateful for what you have
The above-mentioned areas enrich the money/status/fame-based understanding of success by a variety of other worthwhile concepts. By integrating these concepts into your overall understanding of success, you can add further fulfillment, meaning, purpose and happiness to your life. Let’s continue by having a look how (extraordinarily) successful people define success.
Successful people on what success really means
Arianna Huffington
For Arianna Huffington, founder of the Huffington Post, measuring success based on money and power simply isn’t enough. She therefore encourages readers of her book “Thrive” to reconsider the traditional thinking of success. Instead of evaluating success based on two metrics (money and power) she advocates to include a third metric consisting of “well-being, wisdom, wonder, and giving.” According to her, by means of including a third metric into the understanding of success, one can combine the pursuit of success with psychological well-being.
Lucy Danziger
To Lucy Danziger, former editor-in-chief of SELF magazine, the process of being successful in life consists of two essential steps. First, you need to discover and understand what it is that makes you truly happy. Second, you need to pursue that which makes you happy.
She also highlights that you should not allow preconceived notions to influence your definition of success. Instead of allowing these notions to influence the career path you choose, listen to what you really want to do.
Federica Marchionni
Federica Marchionni, president of Dolce & Gabbana Inc., says that success can come from a variety of different channels. It doesn’t necessarily have to come exclusively from the work you do. Instead, she points out that when it comes to success, balance is what you should strive for. She also highlights that success is not something that can be attained overnight. She therefore considers the pursuit of success a journey that leads to wisdom and ultimately to success.
John Wooden
College basketball coaching legend John Wooden primarily associates success with a specific mental state. To him, success is all about attaining peace of mind. Specifically, he attributes this to the self-satisfaction you get, when doing your very best.
“Success is peace of mind, which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming.”
John Wooden
Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill, former prime minister of the UK, adds another important dimension to the concept of success. While most center the definition of success mostly around the accomplishment of aims, Churchill’s definition includes the importance of never giving up. To him, success is all about getting back up on your feet after being defeated. Even further, to Churchill neither success nor failure is final. Therefore, to him all that matters is the courage to continue.
“Success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.”
Winston Churchill
Adam Grant
Adam Grant, professor at the University of Pennsylvania, introduces another dimension to success that was previously neglected: helping other people. Specifically, Grant defines success by his ability to help other people succeed.
Herbert Swope
Pulitzer Prize winner and US editor Herbert Swope said, when asked about success, that he couldn’t give a definite formula for success. But instead of defining success, he gave a sure-fire way to fail, which is the attempt of trying to please everybody.
Maya Angelou
The great poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou primarily defined success based on harmony. To her, success is the combination of being happy with who you are, what you do and how you do it.
“Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.”
Maya Angelou
Raj Sisodia
Professor at Babson College and Co-founder of Conscious Capitalism, Raj Sisodia, defines success in two ways. First, success is all about living one’s true purpose. Secondly, he defines success by the ability to have a positive impact on other people’s lives. Specifically, he points out that by inspiring them and lifting them up, one could have a profound impact upon their life and encourage them to rethink the way they act.
Seth Besertnik
Seth Besertnik, CEO of Conductor, defines success as having “little to no regret about what you did.” To him, success is all about the ability to look back at your life and being proud about what you’ve accomplished and created. Also, he highlights you can consider yourself successful if there are no missed opportunities that you regret.
Success related interview questions & answers
All too often, various kinds of success-related interview questions come up during a job interview. It’s always good to have a ready-made answer for these kinds of situations. Possible questions can include:
- What exactly does the word “success” mean to you?
- What exactly does the word “failure” resemble to you?
- How would you define success?
- What is a failure to you?
- What does success look like to you?
- What does success mean to you?
The intention behind these questions is twofold. Firstly, the interviewer might be interested in discovering how you define success in the workplace. Your answer might give possible insights into your work ethic and how you approach things in general. Secondly, by asking what success means to you, the interviewer might want to gain psychological insights about you and your underlying value system. Essentially, asking you to define success is a work ethic question intended to learn more about your motivation and your measurement system.
Potential answer to the question: “What does success mean to you?”
Personally, I define success by exceeding expectations and by delivering more value than is expected. Therefore, I measure success based on my ability to attain my objective in an excellent manner and on time. Being successful means two specific things for me. On one hand, success is the satisfaction of having achieved a specific goal. On the other hand, success is the recognition one gets for that specific accomplishment. All in all, success motivates me to strive for greatness and excellence. It’s the foundation of my unquenchable desire to contribute a valuable part to the growth of the company.
Following up this question, the interviewer might ask you to name specific examples about your successes in the past.
I hope you enjoyed reading this article. We’re curious: what does success mean to you?
Stay victorious!
Subjects>Jobs & Education>Jobs
Wiki User
∙ 13y ago
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successful means you have achieved something and you make
mistakes but you learn from them. to be successful you don’t always
show it sometimes not everyone who is successful HAPPY! :d
Wiki User
∙ 13y ago
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