Defining Success

We all want to be successful, right? The dictionary has only positive entries: the accomplishment of an aim or purpose, the attainment of popularity or profit, a person or thing that achieves desired aims or attains prosperity. Sign me up! Except… what am I signing up for? How do I define success?

Consider what gives you meaning/purpose

In my humble opinion, you define success for yourself based on what gives you meaning or purpose. The good news is that makes success different for each of us. The bad news is that it makes success different for each of us, meaning it’s easy to judge someone else for not achieving what you would call success.

So what gives you meaning? Yes you should think of many aspects of success including monetary, familial, and reputational. I believe meaning comes from all of those and finding that meaning will keep you content day to day. It will keep you feeling successful once you’ve reached what you first defined as success.

Consider the negative case

I didn’t like statistics one bit. I recognize that it’s really important for our world but it didn’t sit well with me. That being said, I learned an extremely valuable lesson from it (besides that I’m terrible at statistics). That lesson was testing a negative case.

For defining your success, testing a negative case means defining what success isn’t. Sometimes this is easier than defining what success is.

For instance, for a lot of people, including me, success isn’t working a 9-5 job until I’m 65 and then slowly fading away into retirement. There are a TON of awesome things I could do during that time that I wouldn’t be able to do without the steady job. I could raise an awesome family, travel the world or make a meaningful difference in my community on evenings and weekends. None of those are bad things and I’d love to do all of them. However, by knowing that success for me isn’t the 9-5 grind I know I have to find another way to achieve all of those things that I do consider success. It really, really helps me frame decisions.

How does it help my stream?

The best way to get from one place to another is to know where you’re starting and where you intend to go. Those are the only two things your GPS needs to give you a route and you’re no different. There are a lot of things you can do to take stock of where you are today including checking in on your business stats or making an income statement and personal balance sheet. When you define success you define where it is you intend to go.

So how does it help your stream? If you read our recommended books you’ll know that The E-Myth Revisited recommends you work on your business, not just in your business. That means planning for the future and defining your company’s vision. Your definition of success should be the vision for your company. You are the head of your business and you need to be guiding it, not just letting it drift aimlessly.

Remember, it’s possible to reach your definition of success and then redefine it. Defining success doesn’t forever pigeonhole you to one goal. It may make sense to set yearly, monthly, and even weekly goals that all roll up into your bigger purpose. You make your decision making easier when you know what success looks like.

How does it help me personally?

For the same reason it helps your business! If you know where you are today and where you want to go then you’ll be able to be much more purposeful when you make decisions. As a small business owner your personal and business lives are more tied in to each other but it’s still good to consider them separately. What’s your non-work success?

For instance, several years ago I realized that I’d let my lifestyle slip and I’d gained a ton of weight. I was unhappy about it and I experienced a bunch of physical, gross symptoms of my increased weight. When I sat down and decided that for the next year my personal success would be at least partially defined by weight loss I was able to be much more intentional in my decision making. I started tracking my eating and exercise, set short term goals that matched my long term focus, and ultimately lost almost everything I’d gained. By defining what I would consider a successful year I was able to achieve it with much more focus. It was a lens through which I could run my decisions.

 

More Examples? More Examples!

The most interesting example I’ve seen of finding meaning came from some people I worked with at American Family Insurance. They had jobs that paid decently but I found the work dull. I was surprised that my colleagues, who were much older than me, were happy with their work. Through talking with them I found out it was because their jobs provided them tons of safety and predictability. That gave them the flexibility to lead the rest of their life how they wanted. Some spent a ton of time with family. Some had community groups they loved. Others had hobbies that they adored. It was an eye opening experience for me and helped broaden my horizon. It helped me understand other ways to define meaning besides career goals.

I find a lot of meaning in helping people with their student loans and personal finances. Why? Because it gives me a chance to help people. I can watch clients physically relax as we go through their planning. What used to be a big, undefined, and scary mess is now fairly organized. You can literally see their shoulders drop and their sigh of relief. That makes my day.

Similarly, I find meaning in working with people my age. I know I have the chance to make such a huge difference over the course of their lives that it really sticks out to me as meaningful. Do I wish I made more money? You bet. Am I planning to go work with rich, old people to make that happen? Nope. I don’t get the same meaning from it.

Conclusion

I highly recommend taking some time to sit and think through what you would find meaningful. For some broadcasters it’s their community. They have this group of people they love that love them back. For some it may be reaching the pinnacle of what they do. You do you. Let others do what drives them towards their success.

A big part of what I do is helping clients define their success. I’m not your father’s financial planner where I assume you only care about retirement and investing. We need to figure out how to make money truly work for you, and not the other way around. If that’s something that sounds interesting to you reach out me or schedule some time for a free consult.