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What is your definition of personal success?
There is tremenduous need in today's world to "be successful." But what does that really mean? And who is really successful? How does failure affect our sucess? And how a failure can be a milestone in your personal life?
Topics:
failure inspiration success
Utku Mun
Thomas Jones 100+
Hi Mary,
Thanks for your comment.
I could probably be the "poster boy" for people who do what they really, really want to do.
Unless I have too, I never do anything for money that I wouldn't do for free.
What that means is if I HAVE TO take a job to earn money to support myself and my family, I might take a job doing something that I wouldn't otherwise do.
Fortunately, I have been in a position that I have not HAD TO work for money for about 30 years.
That does not mean I do not work for money.
I do.
Sometimes.
When I want to.
QUOTE: "Your thoughts of success (on this page) don't mimick your idea of success in words."
I'm not sure what this means.
PS What I really, really want to do I can do whether I am making money or not. So I can do what I want (no matter what is going on in my life financially) and I do not have to do anything I do not want to do (simply to make an income.) It's a good gig, if you can get it.
Thomas Hotz
For most people, what you want to "do" is reach some goal, and the goal can really be anything. To add to Bob Dylan, I would say success is being conscious of your goal, being conscious of the steps to reach that goal, and applying focus and attention to each one of those steps.
Now, I see a trend upon the comments that success is happiness, but how do we achieve happiness? And the answer is focus. Your life is the sum of what you focus on. If you can skillfully manage your attention toward your goal, you will find happiness and fulfillment. That is my definition of personal success.
Live the focused life.
Marciano Sanchezbreton
Thomas Jones 100+
You say, "It is difficult to achieve happiness."
I would have to agree with you. Not because that conforms to my personal experience but because I have heard it from so many people.
Apparently, some of us are predisposed to experience happiness more readily than others. That is, some of our brains are wired in such a way that they tend to generate feelings of happiness more than other brains do. And some brains, seem to be wired so that happiness is an unlikely experience (we call that "mental illness.")
Regardless of our individual base-state, I think our ability to feel happy is affected by our expectations. I also think it is affected by our ability to make distinctions.
For example, we can make distinctions between success in life and success in business; or success in love and success in math. And so on.
One of my foundational definitions of success is: "breathing." (I am not kidding.)
As long as I am breathing, I am a success.
Everything else is "extra."
Now, I have found that I can be breathing and happy; and I can be breathing and sad.
I prefer the former so I usually offer "happiness" as my definition of success. It's easy to understand and most people "get it."
However, if I had to choose between being sad and breathing and being happy and NOT breathing (if that were possible), I would pick sad and breathing - every time.
There is a 1975 French movie called "Cousin Cousine," in 1989, it was remade, in English, and called "Cousins."
In the English version, the lead character's father is talking about his son; his son, played by Ted Danson, is a dance instructor and has never amounted to anything, meaning he has never had a successful career or made much money but he is happy - his dad says something like: "My son is a failure at everything, except life."
That sounds like a success to me.
Comment deleted
Thomas Jones 100+
I don't remember all the details of the movie so I am not sure if he loved his profession or not. I think the point was, he loved life and so it didn't really matter what he was doing as a profession. He would have "loved" anything.
QUOTE: "So if we find our true passion will we be happy? no matter what happens ... What do you think of this?"
I think there is some truth to this. But it depends how you define "true passion."
If you have read any of my posts, maybe here or in other threads, you will notice a "theme" - I do not think the secret to success lies on the outside. I think it is an internal affair.
"Loving life" sums it up as well as lots of other phrases might.
Emma Suttie
Jonas Verhellen
In another way succes is achieving the goals you set for yourself. Although when I finally reach one of my goals I only feel relieved or ecstatic for a couple of minutes. Other people talk about a succes but I'm just focused on the next goal (or finding one). So I would say that a succesful person is focused on the tasks at hand and not (or less) at how big the feat was.
As a concusion I daresay that at your succesful moments you are simply too focused (or relieved) to notice the scale of the succes. The only moments you can really feel succesful is afterwards. So you either achieve personal succes or you remember being succesful.
Dain Brammage
Salim Solaiman 50+
For me being able to engaged in bring positive outcome from things or acts I am passionate about.
Ed Schulte 50+
Dr D. R. Hawkins
June 30................
"Success in any venture is simply the automatic consequence of being the best that one can be as a lifestyle, without looking for gain."
Syncs with ...Wooden ..( or "The Coach")
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/john_wooden_on_the_difference_between_winning_and_success.html
Lauren Smith
What a wonderful way to heal the world.
Thomas Jones 100+
Subu Nagasubramony
David Rodrigues 30+
Allan McNicol
Bob Van Oosterhout 20+
Without balance we will neither see nor realize personal success.
When we restore and maintain mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual balance, we are more able to see gifts, limitations, opportunities, and obstacles in order to discern and navigate a path to personal success.
Thomas Jones 100+
Just to "play the other side of the argument" - I am a BIG fan of imbalance.
I think we should should live a completely imbalanced life and embrace happiness while we eschew sadness.
Enjoy, appreciate and feel gratitude and not balance them with sorrow, criticism, or diminution.
Of course, if balance helps us reach imbalance ... I'm all for it!
Bob Van Oosterhout 20+
All of these aspects of balance allow us to more fully embrace happiness. Eschewing sadness tends to build emotional tension which, in my experience, leads to depression.
Please clarify what you mean by "imbalance." I look forward to continuing the discussion.
Thomas Jones 100+
Of course, I am playing a bit of a word game and surreptitiously "shifting contexts." And, as you point out, "balance" can be applied and practiced in many arenas or contexts in our lives.
And I do agree that, in many contexts, balance is important. However, I do not think there is a "formula" or "equation" for success (which I define as happiness.)
That is, we cannot, say, balance our social responsibilities with our "heart's desire" and expect to find success as a result.
Many people who we call "successful" have been anything but balanced. Many have been obsessed. Think of successful people from any field and I do not think we would call many of them balanced. Newton? Einstein? Gandhi? Bill Gates? Christ? Buddha? Beethoven? Dylan? C.S Lewis? Da Vinci? Zheng He? Arjun? Bob Van Oosterhout? [I'm not sure about that last one.]
Children do not practice nor do they seek "balance" and yet they are, by my definition, successful. They are happy. Unless, of course, they are not and then they embrace their unhappiness, experience it fully, and thereby "eschew" it. They embrace it, consume it, and spit it out. Why? - So they can get back to the serious business of having fun. [And I don't actually think there is a "why" floating around within their lovely, undeveloped little brains. That's just what they "do."]
Adults, on the other hand, [well some adults I have known, at any rate] often embrace sadness as a badge. They define themselves by their unhappiness.
So, yes, I agree balance is a good thing - particularly within many of the contexts you have identified -but I do not agree that balance should be seen as a formula for happiness or success.
Bob Van Oosterhout 20+
Your “shifting context” for balance threw me off balance. If I extend your definition, I would have to balance being in balance with being out of balance. But then, I would not be in balance while I was out of balance in my attempt to balance balance.
This is starting to make me crazy (does that mean I’m mentally unbalanced?)
I give up, you win!
Seriously, I appreciate your challenge to my use of the term, balance. It is such an integral part of my work that I don’t stop to think about other ways the word could be applied.
Thomas Jones 100+
My pleasure. Thanks for the opportunity of the exchange.
I play little thought experiments. One of them is asking myself "What would I like the 'outcome' of _____ to be?" [Fill in the blank.]
Then I ask myself if I could, would I like to achieve the outcome without the "_____." (For example, living a "balanced" life.)
If the answer is, "Yes," I place the "outcome" before "_____." [Fill in the blank.]
I do the same thing when I read other people's ideas. (That's how I "secretly" shift contexts.)
Mary Hull
Your thoughts of success (on this page) don't mimick your idea of success in words.
Not saying, just saying......
Thomas Jones 100+
I think you'll like this talk [mentioned above]:
http://www.ted.com/talks/alain_de_botton_a_kinder_gentler_philosophy_of_success.html
Have you watched it yet?
Kyle Eppard
Heart Disk
Xinyi Wang
Onic Palandjian
And it's relevant to anyone in crisis... http://bit.ly/iBaBCa
Thomas Jones 100+
(I had to look it up.)
Can Vo
Gord G 30+
Josh S
Professional goals to me would include building wealth, gaining a position at a company you've always wanted to work at, marching up the "ladder" of the company you are currently at, etc.
Success in one's interactions with the wider world, to me, includes things like philanthropic pursuits or simply giving your time and personal labor towards helping people or the natural world around you.
I think failure affects our success greatly. For some, failure is unfortunately a hurdle that they prefer not to jump over. They hit a barrier and prefer to stay on the "safe" side of that barrier rather than risk further failure. However, for others failure represents a chance to step back and evaluate themselves in order to push past the barrier on to bigger and better things.
Vicente Saraco
But there is another kind of success, which I think it is the real success, which is to get to the realization that no matter how frustrating and painful your experiences may be, you will still working and living, doing whatsoever you have to do, knowing that sooner or later you will be successful, and if not you, someone after you. For example: an art student tries to master a certain skill, and he tries a few times, with no result, and then he quits. Another art student does the same, but he tries a million times until he achieves. He (the latter) is successful not because he has aquired the skill, but because he knew from the very beginning that he was capable of doing it, and he knows that he is capable of much more. And to extend this thought to humanity is being even more successful, because you know that is not your personal affaire to get the thing done, is not only your desire, is the desire of many, many people trough many generations, so you may not reach your personal success, but you will help the process, specially if your share your findings with others. Some other artist in the future will continue the work of the previous one, and so on, and art will not die with the artist. In this sense, each success contains a million failures behind.
And the phony success that is being sold to us, with the facade of money, power, and personal reward is no more than a ghost. How can you be successful on your own when you depend so much on others?
Vivek Trivedi 10+
Helen Hupe 30+
Alexander Shand
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Amani Khalil 50+
Thank you for sharing.
Vivek Trivedi 10+
Thanks!
Prashant Sawant
To find a common denominator & define is an arduous task. Different people equate success differently.Some equate it with enhanced wealth, some with enhanced power/influence, some in accomplishing of goals,etc....the list can go on ,but to generalize it is accomplishment of the desire taking you to a higher level. It keeps on evolving/changing as your desires change and with changed priorities your definitions change.Look back and you will realize what success for you as a five year old was may not be of any relevance today...so we all are successful if we are happy and at peace with self.
It is said Failure is the stepping stone to success, and it right. It teaches us not what to do if we want to succeed.its a learning and at times,puts us back to the starting point but then it gives the opportunity to reflect and move ahead. We should not give too much importance to failure. It is only an event which leaves a bad taste,but we have the ability to respond the way we want to keep on thinking about the bad taste or move ahead and work for the future.
One cannot do anything to what has happened but can work for the future.
Having stated all I want to say that very few think success is conquering one self.....ability to be thoughtless and be a peace with one self away from the whirlpool of emotions, and being happy.
So let us enjoy and be happy !!!! Happiness brings success rather than success happiness.
Joe Delsen 20+
The journey to success is success itself and with our ignited passion and vision, it can be a great adventure. http://bit.ly/IgnitePassion
Among many great people, I for example would look at Bill Gates as a successful person not only because of his idea to expound the power of information through computers but also because he is matching his wealth and influence to better our world. An example of impeccable humanism!
Bob Van Oosterhout 20+
V K Madhavan 200+