Was Today a Success?

“Oh I can be successful when this happens or when I have this,” people often say.

But why wait for success? What would it change if you were able to feel and truly be successful right now? Each day?

Like I just think about it sometimes, on social media and other mediums or platforms, and everyone is different. I think about the people I follow, some targeted more towards business, some towards fashion or modeling, some towards sports or entertainment. The thing that I’m seeing is that people see success differently.

Nobody really seems to value success in the same way.

Maybe what one person thinks will make them feel successful won’t.

For one person they might feel most successful if they know that their family loves them unconditionally.

For another, maybe attaining their ideal career right after graduation from a university will make them feel most successful.

But what I’ve realized is that no matter what I define success as or what you define success as, why would we want to wait? Maybe we cannot attain our long-term goals quickly, but we can set daily goals and attain them. We can experience success as a result of achieving them.

I think that the question to ask ourselves is not, “How do I become a success?”

but rather,

“What am I doing today that is bringing me success in the short term?”

There is a tremendous value to that. Especially in a situation where we might not be able to see the finish line. Especially at times where we might experience speed bumps and feel unsuccessful or like failures, I believe it’s imperative to continue to persevere and set goals that can bring us success as a result of overcoming challenges in the short term.

Building onto that, what does it mean for people close to you to be successful?

I think of my sister and me, some of her goals like going to med school and graduating with a high GPA from high school next year. For me, my goal is never to attain a high GPA, even in the MBA program now, my goals are to attain the knowledge and skills needed in the professional world. I don’t have the same aspirations as her and therefore, I cannot expect her to define success in the same way that I do.

Along the same lines, looking at marriage, success for one spouse could be dinner at 6:00 every night, with everyone together. Success for the second spouse could be financial stability and freedom to have dinner together anywhere they want. Those are conflicting. If one desires dinner at a set time, when they are having dinner is thus more important than what they are having for dinner. Their spouse may not share that view.

Often it seems as though people get caught up in letting others define success for them. But really, our success is just that, our success.

A struggle is the natural tendency to please or avoid displeasing, those people that are closest to us. As a result, we might spend too much time listening to outside voices. And while those voices might intend to have our best interest, they might not truly understand what it is that we are desiring. They might see us with a high-paying career, a family, and no debt and think that we’ve “made it” while for us, we’ve just begun.

Society often defines success also. The image of success, high fashion, nice cars, a big house. Is that how we define success? As an individual? As a family? As a company?

“I consider the success of my day based on the seeds I sow, not the harvest I reap” — Robert Louis Stevenson