What does ‘Success’ mean to me?
Recently, I was reflecting on a comment that was made to me by someone I believed had good intentions towards me, even though the sting of the words they used may not have felt that way at first. “You know if you would just focus on one thing, you could be very successful.” Hmmm… yes, at first my response was, “OUCH!” But this caused me to ponder, if my definition of success was the same as hers; I thought not.
To me, being successful was about achieving in goals that I has set out for myself. I had and have completed and exceeded a great many goals that I set forth in my life. So, in that aspect of successful I felt accomplished.
In a deeper questioning of myself, I then reflected on the questions that I may ask myself at the end of my life. What do I consider a successful life? How do I evaluate my achievements that I had in this Life? How much did I learn and advance from all of the challenges that were presented to me? How much and how often did one help make a positive impact on the planet, people and other inhabitants here? Was effort spent in a selfless manner in making life better in some way for others through your actions? Did I stay positive, helpful, courageous, persistent in my efforts in helping myself and others to evolve? From these questions, I gathered that I believe for me, a successful life is one full of purpose, effort and growth. Having a successful life is one that results in making myself, others and the world- in a better way because of my existence.
Somehow for me the amount of money in my bank account wasn’t there. Now I am not saying the money has/had no value to me, but some how it doesn’t enter my personal evaluation of success. Somehow, I have managed – yes often with the help of others to make it through – without money being my focus.
And in truth, because I have a brain that focusing on many things instead of one, I consider it a gift. I have trained myself to continually keep spiraling back to my working areas to complete and use them to help others. If I could/would have only thought to do only on thing to gain financial ‘success’, all of the programs, materials and conceptual ideas that I put in place to help many, many folks would not have been created nor implemented.
So, after this deep pondering and evaluating the aspect of success in my life up to this moment in time, I do feel very successful in what I have done in life. Every person I meet I strive to touch in some way that makes their life here a little better- even if it is as simple as a smile or a kind thought towards them. All those years of tutoring/teaching, provided information, or creating resources (TaT, McM Literacy, Training info, books, in-person talks), I like believing has advanced myself and others a bit. Through this deep pondering, I can truly look myself in the eye and know that from my own perspective of what ‘success’ to me means, I am successful in my own right.
I believe this is a very good pondering that each person must do for themselves. What does ‘Success’ mean to you? Based on your answer and self-evaluation, how are you feeling about your current state of success in your life?
