“Tips on how to land a promotion;
How to make a six-figure income in 6 steps;
How to become a famous vlogger, etc…”
There are probably more than 7 billion people on this planet. It’s a colorful and versatile world. Very often, what’s right for me, might not be right for you and vice versa, which is why the common standards for success don’t necessarily apply to everyone.
Let’s redefine success. Let’s discover various viewpoints on this universally important phenomenon, gain insights, explore different perspectives, and engage in personal growth. Together.
The Traditional Viewpoint on Success
There’s no uniform definition of success.
The most common view is that being successful means having a successful business, landing a high-paying job, achieving a six or seven-figure yearly income, etc. Others prescribe to the view that family is what’s most important, so they see the quality of their family relationships (a good marriage, raising children) as an extension of their success in life.
More and more people are opening up and speaking up about how they find that success at work doesn’t make them feel fulfilled, while others are turning away from marriage, children, and the traditional family unit, and redefining what family life and, ultimately, happiness mean to them.
The modern view of success revolves around breaking stereotypes and going for a more individualized approach.
Perhaps you’re unhappy with a high-paying corporate nine-to-five job, but you’d be happy running a small business where you can get creative, make a difference in other people’s lives and achieve your full potential, even if that means you’ll be earning less.
Richard Branson, one of the most successful business magnates of today, says:
“Too many people measure how successful they are by how much money they make or the people that they associate with. In my opinion, true success should be measured by how happy you are.”
Here is insight number one – success is not about how wealthy you are, but whether you’re happy or not.
One of the wealthiest women, Oprah Winfrey, defines success as “being used in the greater service to life”. She finds her happiness in contributing to making this world a better place.
A similar definition was given by the former US president, Barack Obama. Although he landed one of the highest positions a person can in their life, he considers himself successful for the change he could make in other people’s lives.
It seems that even those individuals who have achieved success in the traditional sense, impart a need to redefine the meaning of this term.
After all, our definition of success shouldn’t be so homogenous. Success is more about personal happiness, healthy relationships, acquiring certain personality traits, and growing as a human being.
Growth Mindset vs Fixed Mindset
Success is not linear. Often, it’s not even about the final outcome of our efforts, but about the process we need to go through, to achieve that outcome. But to be able to take this challenge in stride, a person needs to nurture a growth mindset.
A growth mindset is all about focusing on and learning from the experience. It’s about allowing ourselves to make mistakes and treating them as valuable lessons, not setbacks.
A lot of people get stuck in a fixed mindset, where they believe that their traits, intelligence, and overall success in life are predetermined. That’s why they don’t take risks and often perceive even minor failures as disasters.
The modern view of success revolves around breaking stereotypes and going for a more individualized approach.
Perhaps you’re unhappy with a high-paying corporate nine-to-five job, but you’d be happy running a small business where you can get creative, make a difference in other people’s lives and achieve your full potential, even if that means you’ll be earning less.
Achieving a growth mindset means perceiving success as a matter of personal development, acquiring new skills, achieving meaningful relationships, and learning along the way.
We all grow up with certain ideas, affirmations and beliefs about what it means to be “successful”, “a good person”, “what’s right and what’s wrong”, and so on. Our family, as the first agent of socialization, school, society, and culture as a whole teach us the “do’s and don’ts” that we internalize as children and young adults and then practice in life.
However, many of these things turn out to be not the right fit for us. Just look at history: would the suffragette movement succeed at winning basic human rights for women if those women didn’t stop and notice that the values they grew up with and that society had imposed on them don’t comply with who they really are and what they believe in?
We all grow up with certain ideas, affirmations and beliefs about what it means to be “successful”, “a good person”, “what’s right and what’s wrong”, and so on. Our family, as the first agent of socialization, school, society, and culture as a whole teach us the “do’s and don’ts” that we internalize as children and young adults and then practice in life.
However, many of these things turn out to be not the right fit for us. Just look at history: would the suffragette movement succeed at winning basic human rights for women if those women didn’t stop and notice that the values they grew up with and that society had imposed on them don’t comply with who they really are and what they believe in?
What gives you a sense of purpose in life? What is your calling? What brings harmony into your life? What motivates you to wake up every morning? What fuels you?
Stop listening to what others think is good for you, whether that’s chasing money, family life, or a respected career. Listen to your inner self and initiate your own life mission. We often realize that success is to feel good about yourself and go to bed every night with an eased mind. It’s about achieving balance in all core areas of life: relationship with ourselves, with other people, work satisfaction, and taking care of the world (humanitarian aspect).
Success can be measured in seemingly small, yet essential victories: standing up for yourself instead of suffering quietly, taking risks, changing your habits, overcoming challenges and obstacles, being persistent, doing things you enjoy, and, most importantly, staying a good person.
We all grow up with certain ideas, affirmations and beliefs about what it means to be “successful”, “a good person”, “what’s right and what’s wrong”, and so on. Our family, as the first agent of socialization, school, society, and culture as a whole teach us the “do’s and don’ts” that we internalize as children and young adults and then practice in life.
– When you remove the world around you, strip yourself of all expectations, timelines and really dig deep… you can listen to your true self and choose what reality you want to create. So breathe deep and reflect on the following questions so you can redefine what success means to you:
Picture where you want to be in 3 years. What does your life look like? What does success look like? What does “winning” look like to you?
– Now think about what you’re currently doing. Those goals, your day to day, your job, your personal life. Maybe you just love to decorate your home, go do yoga and take on 1-2 clients every month. You don’t need a booked calendar to be happy. It’s time to question what’s driving you and really define what success means to you.
When you find the WHY of what you’re doing then you understand the driving force for everything you do. Once you know that driving force, success becomes a day-to-day event, not a long term one. Because at the end of the day, being happy in your current moment IS success and your “why” is tied to that. Your why can be as simple as becoming your truest self, or impacting the world — it’s up to you to define it.A successful life is more than a high-paying job, admiration from your peers or any other external metric. Real success is living a genuinely happy life for yourself. One that you are proud of even in the messiest of days. Reframe your mindset around success
Parents and caregivers are actively involved in the therapy process, learning strategies to support language development at home.
– When you remove the world around you, strip yourself of all expectations, timelines and really dig deep… you can listen to your true self and choose what reality you want to create. So breathe deep and reflect on the following questions so you can redefine what success means to you:
Picture where you want to be in 3 years. What does your life look like? What does success look like? What does “winning” look like to you?
– Now think about what you’re currently doing. Those goals, your day to day, your job, your personal life. Maybe you just love to decorate your home, go do yoga and take on 1-2 clients every month. You don’t need a booked calendar to be happy. It’s time to question what’s driving you and really define what success means to you.
When you find the WHY of what you’re doing then you understand the driving force for everything you do. Once you know that driving force, success becomes a day-to-day event, not a long term one. Because at the end of the day, being happy in your current moment IS success and your “why” is tied to that. Your why can be as simple as becoming your truest self, or impacting the world — it’s up to you to define it.A successful life is more than a high-paying job, admiration from your peers or any other external metric. Real success is living a genuinely happy life for yourself. One that you are proud of even in the messiest of days. Reframe your mindset around success
Parents and caregivers are actively involved in the therapy process, learning strategies to support language development at home.
We all grow up with certain ideas, affirmations and beliefs about what it means to be “successful”, “a good person”, “what’s right and what’s wrong”, and so on. Our family, as the first agent of socialization, school, society, and culture as a whole teach us the “do’s and don’ts” that we internalize as children and young adults and then practice in life.
– When you remove the world around you, strip yourself of all expectations, timelines and really dig deep… you can listen to your true self and choose what reality you want to create. So breathe deep and reflect on the following questions so you can redefine what success means to you:
Picture where you want to be in 3 years. What does your life look like? What does success look like? What does “winning” look like to you?
– Now think about what you’re currently doing. Those goals, your day to day, your job, your personal life. Maybe you just love to decorate your home, go do yoga and take on 1-2 clients every month. You don’t need a booked calendar to be happy. It’s time to question what’s driving you and really define what success means to you.
When you find the WHY of what you’re doing then you understand the driving force for everything you do. Once you know that driving force, success becomes a day-to-day event, not a long term one. Because at the end of the day, being happy in your current moment IS success and your “why” is tied to that. Your why can be as simple as becoming your truest self, or impacting the world — it’s up to you to define it.A successful life is more than a high-paying job, admiration from your peers or any other external metric. Real success is living a genuinely happy life for yourself. One that you are proud of even in the messiest of days. Reframe your mindset around success
Parents and caregivers are actively involved in the therapy process, learning strategies to support language development at home.
– When you remove the world around you, strip yourself of all expectations, timelines and really dig deep… you can listen to your true self and choose what reality you want to create. So breathe deep and reflect on the following questions so you can redefine what success means to you:
Picture where you want to be in 3 years. What does your life look like? What does success look like? What does “winning” look like to you?
– Now think about what you’re currently doing. Those goals, your day to day, your job, your personal life. Maybe you just love to decorate your home, go do yoga and take on 1-2 clients every month. You don’t need a booked calendar to be happy. It’s time to question what’s driving you and really define what success means to you.
When you find the WHY of what you’re doing then you understand the driving force for everything you do. Once you know that driving force, success becomes a day-to-day event, not a long term one. Because at the end of the day, being happy in your current moment IS success and your “why” is tied to that. Your why can be as simple as becoming your truest self, or impacting the world — it’s up to you to define it.A successful life is more than a high-paying job, admiration from your peers or any other external metric. Real success is living a genuinely happy life for yourself. One that you are proud of even in the messiest of days. Reframe your mindset around success
Parents and caregivers are actively involved in the therapy process, learning strategies to support language development at home.
If you dig into the history of the word success, you’ll see that older definitions were synonymous with outcome, regardless of whether that outcome was positive or negative. However, if you look up the meaning of success as it stands today, two words stick out: accomplishment and attainment. In many respects, this shows how influential culture can be on our perspectives – we receive messages from the world around us about what success means and internalize them.
Because our perspectives affect how we feel, not just about our actions and behaviors, but about the actions and behaviors of others. And these judgments, which are often subconscious, affect our ability to feel fulfilled.
What does success mean to you? – Progress with Liam
By Anushka Thareja
Psychotherapist (Psychotherapist and Founder Touch Of Peace Care)
Touch of Peace Mental Health Care Services Pvt. Ltd. Building an inclusive haven, where emotional well-being is woven into daily life.
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