The Definition of Success
What is success? Everyone has their own answer to that question.
For most people it means making a truck load of money, for a few it's starting
and growing a close-knit family, for fewer still it's contributing something
significant to the world regardless of the financial reward.
There are some things that I'm still pondering and wondering
about in my head, things I am yet to figure out, but BALANCE isn't one of
those. It's a cornerstone value of my life and it benefits me
enormously. Yes, balance is to me a non-negotiable key to LIFE
SUCCESS. Why, the whole universe runs on intricate balance.
Note the term "life success". It isn't just money, or
just family, or just having a great social life. It's the intentional balance
created and maintained between them.
But balance isn't life success in and of itself. It's just a way
of making sure you don't just achieve success in a single area of your life and
fail in the others.
Let's address the core issue. What is success really? Because it
certainly is not money, contrary to popular belief. I've heard that,
particularly at Christmas time, people are fond of jumping to their deaths from
atop the Michel Angelo Hotel in Sandton. For those who don't know, Sandton is a
very wealthy area and the Michel Angelo is affordable only to the truly rich.
The first thing to realise is that nobody is pursuing physical
things. No one is pursuing money, or a spouse, or a holiday house in France.
Those are all just vehicles that we have associated to meeting our deepest
emotional needs - needs of certainty and security, variety, love and connection
with others, feeling significant, growth, and contributing to the lives of
other.
We are all pursuing those vehicles (the car, the spouse, the
holiday home etc), not for the sake of the vehicles, but for the sake of the
feelings we think those vehicles will make us feel. They are a means to an end.
We want money because we think it will make us feel secure, or people will love
us and think we're awesome, or we'll feel important (significant). Most
people believe money will give them happiness despite research showing that
coming into money only offers a short term increase in happiness.
Life is all about feeling. Don't misunderstand me, I'm not
saying we should rely on our feelings, simply that we all pursue certain mental
and emotional states - certain feelings. We all strive to feel those feelings,
some feelings more than others depending on the hierarchy of our emotional needs.
If you think about it, really, think about it, success is the
degree to which you can meet those emotional needs, regardless of the vehicle
you use. Who is successful? The rich man who fails to
achieve happiness and fulfillment, or the average Joe who has achieved the
same desired emotional state on an average income? The average Joe has met his
emotional needs without money. The rich man failed to achieve his goal for
happiness which he thought money would give him. He's rich, but far from
successful.
Who is really successful? I'm not beating up on the extremely
rich, I'm all for making tons of cash. I'm just using it as an illustration
since money is such a big indicator of success for most people. We strive for
it more than anything else because we sometimes wrongly associate it as the
vehicle to meeting our emotional needs.
You see even though each person has their own definition of
success, the reality is that each person is aiming to meet the same six human
needs, only using different vehicles to do so. The degree to which you succeed
in experiencing your most treasured mental and emotional states is the degree
to which you're personally successful, regardless of the vehicle you've used.
If I think money will give me happiness and fulfillment, and
then I make lots of money but I'm unhappy and unfulfilled then I've failed, as
rich as I am. Everybody will be looking at my Ferrari and telling me how
successful I am, but I'll have failed to achieve my most treasured mental and
emotional state which is why I wanted the Ferrari in the first place. The
Ferrari will just be the remnant left over from a failed attempt at reaching my
end goal, and instead of representing success, it will represent my failure to
achieve what I actually wanted, what all human beings want regardless of
geographic location, culture, race, or gender: Security, variety, love,
significance, growth and contribution.
You may think that pursuing your own happiness and fulfillment
as the definition for success is selfish. It's not. Realise two things:
Firstly, no matter how selfless an act, people on a fundamental
psychological level don't do anything for selfless reasons. I've been taught
and many Christians believe that when they "get the mind of Christ"
they start to do things for totally selfless reasons, not for what they get out
of it. But even Jesus "endured the cross for the joy that was set before
him." Even when people do something 'selfless' it is because it makes them
feel good for having done it. Many people cannot accept this truth, BUT realise
that it is not a bad thing; after all, a good person would feel good if they
did something for someone else. A bad person wouldn't do it at all.
Secondly, two emotional/psychological human needs are the need
for growth and the need for contribution. These are needs of the spirit and
without these two needs being met it's impossible to experience fulfillment in
life. So in pursuing these needs of certainty, variety, love, significance,
growth and contribution, and in your success in meeting those needs, you cannot
but help others and contribute to the world.
"The happiest man in the world is more
successful than the richest man in the world"
This entrepreneur and author shows you How to Become a
Make-It-Happen Person by relating lessons learnt while doing everything from
training with an Israeli Special Forces slash Mossad agent to practicing
exotic, sensual Salsa Dancing.
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