Success: It is Important to Define Success for Yourself

Have you ever wondered what makes one person successful while others struggle for success?

I’m not talking about becoming the CEO of a company or a corporation, although if that is your definition of success, by all means climb the ladder. However, I’m talking about daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly being successful at your set goals.

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It begins with your definition of success. Do you maintain your own personal definition of success or do you follow other people’s ideas?

It’s important to have a personal definition of success.

While Dictionary.com gives “the attainment of wealth, position, honors, or the like” as one of the definitions of success, it also includes the “accomplishments of one’s goals.”

Since everyone works at a different pace, your definition of success might not look like anyone else’s definition. It should fit your personality, your abilities, and your timeframe.

Say, for instance, you wish to lose 20 pounds by New Year’s Eve. Magazine headlines that frame the checkout lines at grocery stores claim that you could lose twice that by New Year’s Eve. A friend of yours tells you how she lost 20 pounds in one month. Another friend says, “I’ll bet you can’t do it.”

You decide that losing 20 pounds in two months is a doable goal. You have a little over 8 weeks or 60 days because if your goal is New Year’s Eve, you can’t count that day. You are shooting to lose 10 pounds each month, or even broken down further, you are shooting to lose about 2 1/2 pounds each week. You can do 2 1/2 pounds in a week.

But what if you can’t? What if it takes you three months or even four? Does that mean you are a failure? HELL, NO! As long as you are making forward progress and not quitting, you are working toward the success of your goal.

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Here’s what you need to do to be successful.

First, search for your own personal definition of success. This is the most important step.

(Take a moment to share your definition in the comments below.)

Second, take one area where you wish to find success. What is that end goal? Big or small – write it down.

Third, look at that end goal and determine what steps, or chunks of progression, need to be accomplished.

Fourth, for each step, set a soft deadline. (I need soft deadlines because I usually believe that either a task won’t take as long as it actually does, or I shove too many bits and pieces of each step into a deadline.) A soft deadline will allow you to feel successful as long as you are moving forward. Later, as you become more proficient at setting goals and meeting deadlines, you can move to hard deadlines.

Fifth, don’t make excuses for why you didn’t move forward toward your goal. It’s excuses that become the death of goals and deadlines. Missed a day at the gym. OK, don’t make any excuses. Get in some kind of exercise at some point (if that is your goal) and get to the gym tomorrow. Life has a habit of throwing curve balls at us, but it’s our job to decide which of those are important and which we should just let pass us by.

Last, but definitely not a step to skip, check off what you have accomplished and evaluate your progress.

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What about you?

What is your definition of success? How do you move forward to be successful in accomplishing your goals? Please take a moment to share your thoughts and ideas in the comments below.

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Until next time . . .

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