When will I consider myself successful? Ask a terrible question, get a terrible answer.
It’s not a matter of when. Success is how you live. It’s a state of being, not a result or a point in time.
Consider someone who’s been working towards their goal for 50 years and they’ve finally completed their mission at age 70. Were they not successful during all those decades they’d spent hard at work?
I don’t like that definition of success. It prevents people from choosing farther targets - that’s like choosing dissatisfaction for decades. As a result of that mindset, it’s rare to see people start projects that require decades of dedication. It kills ambition.
Success, to me, is simply living a life that’s aligned with my values.
Successful hence describes a way of being and not a threshold beyond which I consider myself to be enough. It’s not a word I’ll finally be able to use to describe myself once I’ve achieved XYZ to prove my worth. To whom?
To say someone has succeeded in life is to see life as a finite game. When you judge who is successful and who isn’t, you’re participating in the status game. It’s quite sad.
Instead, success should be reserved for measuring specific goals and milestones only, not people.
To play an infinite game is to play an infinite number of finite games. To succeed in an infinite game, all you need to do is to keep playing and to enjoy the game.
The only way for this to be sustainable is to be driven by desire, not dragged by a sense of inadequacy or others’ expectations. Remember: any discipline problem is a design problem. If you have to rely on willpower, have you designed your game right? You get to design the infinite game. You choose the quests it’s comprised of.
If you’re internally driven by your vision, continuing would feel like breathing. You’d be addicted to improvement. You’d be too excited to stop and rest. You’d celebrate by continuing.
Hit pause when you need to though. Be kind to yourself when you get stuck at a level. Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm. Don’t let perpetual self-improvement turn into self-exploitation, which leads to a quick demise.
Success is not the destination. The journey is the destination. Yes, it’s cliche, but have you internalized it?
Let your acts be directed towards a worthy goal, but do not ask if they can reach it: they are to be models and examples, not means to an end.
— Leo Szilard
Aim high. Aim well. Aim somewhere you do not expect to reach. Even if you fall short, you’ll have won in the process.
Do what you can’t. And remember:
The effect that you have on others is the most valuable currency there is.
— Jim Carrey, The Meaning
You are defined by how you treat those around you. You are the sum of your actions, not what you want to prioritize but fail to.
Definition
Success is living in alignment with my values. In other words, success is being myself.
Metrics
- Peace: the ability to quiet the mind
- Self-respect: are you proud of yourself?
- Satisfaction: the ability to stop; having enough.