Is Success Everything? This question is bothering me for few years now and I’m not able to decide. I have talked to many individuals on this from various backgrounds and they all share different opinion. This is the very reason that I thought to write this article and seek opinions.
In my view, Success is about achieving your set expectations and celebrating it. I get this feeling that without success, life would have no meaning. Why would one live on earth if he/she doesnt want to taste success?
On the other hand, do we really need to be successful to be happy? Does success keep one in peace? When we define success, are we only talking about materialistic achievements? How come each individual have its own success level?
Let’s look at what is the definition or interpretation of success.
Think for few minutes on :
What is success? or What is Sucksess?
What is success for you? Or how do you interpret term ‘success’?
Is it different from others?
Is it like you think that reaching at peek of any career is called ‘success’?
Do you think that you can be successful every day?
Do you feel successful if you improve yourself over time irrespective of magnitude of improvement?
Have you thought about above questions before? If not, than think now and let yourself know your own definition of success.
Definition of Success
I discussed with many individuals ranging from fresh graduate to senior management on definition of success and is what we collectively share:
Success is about achieving your set expectations and celebrating it.
Success is about achievement of an objective/goal. Success is about identifying goals in life and setting a target for these goals and working in smarter & harder way to achieve them and if achieved, human being feels successful.
“The tragedy in life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach. – Benjamin Mays”
One must enjoy success whether small or big. Many people whom I asked “what is success” does not include the celebration part. In my opinion, why do you want to be successful if you do not enjoy it? Hence, enjoy the success.
Break-down your goals to realize and enjoy them
An individual can define the goals at higher level or break it down to minor goals at tasks level, e.g. you are 20 years old and set a target that I want to be millionaire by age of 40, it is a bigger goal with set target but same time, you can break it down in smaller goals e.g. first step is that I would like to have a decent job, second step to be an entrepreneur by age of 25, third step to attain certain skills to achieve the set goal and similarly.
If one leaves goals at higher level, chances are that individual is not clear on how to implement it. Another possibility is that in pursuit of higher goal, he / she might not enjoy smaller successes or minor events in life. Hence, do break-down your goals to realize them and enjoy them.
I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble. – Helen Keller
Success is not an absolute term
It depends on individual to individual. Definition of success is as per your choice. What is success for me might be you don’t care for that.
For example, I remember that during 12th exams, when we came out of mathematics paper, our class-topper was crying because he found that one question of 4 out of 100 marks was wrong and I was quite happy that I could manage to attempt 90 out of 100 marks. For class topper, he had higher expectations from himself and he felt short on that and as a result, he was not feeling successful while I was feeling successful to attempt only 90% of total marks.
Above example illustrates that definition of success is very individualistic and there is no absolute definition of success. Hence, do define your own success criteria.
Success is not a binary term
Success is not about completing a task; success is about how do you complete the task? It is not like that whether you are successful or not successful. Many a times, it depends on the degree of achievement.
More later,
Have The Best Time,
Hariprakashbr