Define Success for Yourself

by Jay Delaney

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One of the first steps of carving out your own unique path and living your own life is to take responsibility for defining your own success.  Many of us have minds that are filled with the voices of other people, and these voices often tell us how we should define success.  It doesn’t matter whether they’re the voices of people who love us or the voices of our harshest critics; the bottom line is that it’s easy to let others define success for us.  And there are plenty of people who are willing to give away this awesome personal responsibility.  But people who create their own maps in life accept the responsibility of defining their own success.

Free Agent Nation: Self-Defined Success

I’m currently reading Free Agent Nation by Dan Pink, and I highly recommend it.  He’s one of my favorite thinkers on the topic of how work and meaning relate to each other.  For regular readers of Create the Map, it shouldn’t surprise you that one section of the book that really connects with me is called “Making Meaning: The Four Pieces.”  In this section, he talks about the four pieces that free agents assemble to make meaning: freedom, authenticity, accountability, and self-defined success.  It’s well worth reading this section (p. 65-81 of the paperback edition).  I agree wholeheartedly with these four points, but I especially agree with the idea of “self-defined success.”

If You Don’t Define Success Yourself, Then It’s Likely One or More of These People Will Define It for You:

  • Your friends
  • Your parents
  • Your significant other
  • Your co-workers
  • Your boss
  • Your critics
  • Your enemies
  • Society

Do you really want to live your life trying to achieve success that other people have defined for you?

I’m not suggesting that you be selfish or that you only care about your own needs.  You can define it however you like, and if you want to focus it on helping people, that’s fine.  Maybe you’ll define success as helping the greatest number of people.  Or maybe you’ll define success as helping 5 people in a very deep, meaningful way.  That’s great.  Or maybe success to you is about something completely different from helping others.  What matters is that YOU define your own success.

Success Can Be Whatever You Want It to Be

The good news here is that success can be whatever you want it to be.  You have almost endless freedom with this one, and I really want you to make the most of it.  How will you define success for yourself?

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Todd Saperstein August 9, 2011 at 9:55 am

Great article Jay! Something I have learned over the last few years is that people of accomplishment will define and redefine success for their entire existence. As your knowledge and experience expands, your rational and definitions of how things are changes expands with it. My current definition is below. What are your thoughts?

“Success is not about getting so good challenges cease to exist, it is about getting so good you welcome all challenges.” – Todd Saperstein, Graphic Design Department Chair, Virginia Marti College of Art and Design, August 2011

Jay August 9, 2011 at 7:33 pm

Hey Todd! Thanks for sharing your thoughts here. That’s a good point about how our definition changes and evolves through the years. I imagine, for example, that my definition of “success” will probably change and/or expand when I one day become a father.

I love the quote. It’s a great perspective to have; instead of trying to avoid or minimize challenges, we should realize that the challenges help us to grow, develop our abilities, and put our talents to work.

Great stuff!

Todd Saperstein August 10, 2011 at 8:17 am

Thanks Jay! In my opinion, “SUCCESS” is one big challenge, either you accept it or you don’t. There is no half way!

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