Defining Success for yourself

The problem with all of us is that we do not define success by what we want to accomplish but rather by what others in our circles are doing and how we can keep up with them. We are basically keeping up with the joneses. The problem with this is that we are all very different individually and we are uniquely gifted in our capabilities.

Have you ever stopped to consider what success means to you? The definition of success varies from one person to another. It is also dependent on what stage of life you are in.

It is important to first understand what success means to you individually in order to have a marking scheme for self-evaluation. Glenn Meakem became an overnight billionaire when his company went public. He however is known to have said that even though he was wealthy, he would consider himself a failure if he was a bad father and terrible husband. However, today’s prevailing culture defines success largely as financial accomplishment and everything else is secondary to the pursuit of it.

Some of the most famous entrepreneurs define success, in a personal way. They put their families, charities, employees, spirituality above money, status and rank.

I know several people that have achieved financial success but have lost their spouses and relationships with their children along the way. I was once told a story of a very wealthy Kenyan man who spent his life as a miser even to his kids. He did not spare time to enjoy the fruits of his labor with his family and was known to withhold even small amounts of money from them. When he passed away, his children were shocked to discover that their father owned a lot of property and other assets across Kenya. Their father had been a very wealthy man. None of his children wanted to come and manage their father’s vast portfolio and they even gave his money away. They felt cheated and they had their own lives to lead. To this day there are tenants living in his rental houses who don’t pay rent because no one is there to collect.

The point is, as your pursue what you consider your success milestones don’t lose your life and relationships. It will all have been in vain if you were to die and everything you worked for died with you and had no impact on your community or family.

In the words of Stephen Cover, leave a legacy. Even the bible commands us to leave a legacy into our third generation. Consider carefully what you would like your legacy to be and use this as your true measure of success.