How do you define success?

Looking back at how I perceived success, throughout my life and my experiences the meaning has evolved over and over and over.

Initially success mean making good money immediately and being an accepted member of society, in all completely impersonal to my preferences and what I can relate personally to myself as an individual.

After feigning satisfaction from checking off the criteria I have assumed that defined success and experiencing deep discontentment and emptiness from my life I found a path towards enlightenment that made me flip my perspective 180 degrees, success is not fully tailor made one size fits all and I was on a mission to figure out what this success is to me and that is:

“The positive impact I have on myself and people around me”

This translated into everything I have a hand in, my work, my life and my relationships.  I love being a vehicle to improvement to people around me whether its though advice, being a support, giving love, making their work environment better and so on.

Opening my eyes to this made a huge impact at that time when the frustration drove me to taking wrong measures to search for fulfilment when all it needed was a change of perspective and proper alignment in what I considered my version of success. I was no longer validated by external factors but on self fulfilment and logic in order to feel like I have succeeded in a mission I had in mind. 

This insight has given me the clarity in defining the the path one needs to overtake to reach his highest potential according to his personal values, preferences and strengths.

Hereon I carry myself with a strong self-awareness and constructive outlook, this is always a work in progress when it comes to self-development, examining myself honestly without self-pity or the blindness of anger takes perseverance but in the long term is more fruitful. 

• Consistent self-reflection will become vital if you want to maintain inner peace and clarity in your vision, this involves writing down your feelings, constant self-checks on your core values and how you feel about things around you. 
• When dealing with anger and frustrations, soothe yourself with constructive self-talk, proper venting out and self-care, if you need to check out for some time do it. 
• Assess and reassess your life to make sure you don’t slide and become stagnant; personally that’s what I think comfort zones are all about, falling into the quicksand of stagnancy and becoming too fearful of digging yourself out 
• Allocate time for all aspects of your life to stay on top of the game, family, friends, health, work and fun. If one goes off balance, it affects the rest.

I want to be a person of value in my family, friends and employees lives. A happy mother is a good mother, a happy partner is a good partner, a happy boss is a good boss, and to be at peace with myself I need to define success in what feeds my soul and is meaningful to me and that means releasing the need to compare and compete with others as we all have different journeys to live.

At one point I hit a brick wall in what defined success to me because I let ego take over with being better than others and that is a formula for bitterness, I’m glad to say reading the right literature and speaking to my loved ones and my life coach helped immensely with releasing me from that.

I can honestly say that now I am focused on what gives me self fulfilment and happiness, success and acknowledgment is not based on immediate results but are a product of identifying your personal strengths and values and working on them strategically.