It’s a thought we all have at some point in our lives. For leaders, and for those who wake up driven every day to do something more, it may pop into our heads much more often.
Am I successful?
What does success look like? Is success a destination, an end point, or is it an on-going state of being?
If you wonder if you’ve achieved success, or if you’ll even know when you do, here are just a few things to help you think about what it means in the first place.
First of all, success has a vastly different definition to different people. Think of success as the ten-mile away view of what your professional and personal life is overall; it’s not a day, or a week, the end of a project or an important sale. And we do think including your personal life in that view is important. Everything you do professionally does impact the person you are when you get home, which means it also touches the people around you in meaningful ways. The key is to establish a definition of what success is, which is often made easier by defining what it is not.
You’re Copying Other People. One of the most harmful things we can do is evaluate ourselves by looking at other people. What might be perceived as success for someone else may not be what your profession, your business, or what you should be striving for. What other people are doing shouldn’t determine how you behave, how you work, or how you measure your self-worth. You decide what success means and no one else.
You’re Just Checking Boxes. College degree, check. Master’s degree, check. The right internship, the big firm, the next promotion. If you view your professional life as a never-ending checklist, it may be time to stop and think about why you’re chasing the next step. Where will it get you, and is it worth the investment of time, money, and energy?
You’re Afraid To Fail. Failure isn’t something that determines your worth or your ability. There are many symptoms of fearing failure; staying in a bad or comfortable job instead of taking on a new challenge, sticking to the same business plan, or saying no whenever a new idea of opportunity comes up. For some of us, the fear of failing is keeping us from achieving what we’ve set out to. And while there’s nothing wrong with being comfortable, if comfortable doesn’t equate to happy, make sure you’re ready to evaluate new opportunities when they arise.
You Doubt Yourself. And this is universal. At times, we will all doubt ourselves. Life is short, and time moves in one direction; we’ll never know if we’ve made the right decisions, the best decisions. The reality is that the path we’ve chosen may not be the only one that was available to us, but it’s the only one we’ll ever be on. Trust yourself, and when you need help finding a different perspective on what you do and who you are, make sure you have people that can give you honest, unfiltered, but constructive feedback.
Success has a different meaning for everyone, but the only meaning that should matter is what success means to you.