How You Define Success Could Be the Key to Your Happiness
And also your unhappiness…
As humans, we spend a lot of time wanting to be successful, but what exactly is success?
Success relates to an achievement.
Winning…being the best…reaching a goal…
If you look up the definition of success in the Merriam Webster Dictionary, you get two definitions. The first is:
“A favoured or desired outcome”
This sounds like a good definition. I think we can all agree that we generally define success this way and have a good grasp of what success means.
The problem is not with the definition itself, but how we then measure that outcome of achievement. It is this measure that is so inbuilt, and arguably flawed.
When it comes to overall life successes, I’m willing to bet that most people gauge their success and that of others on what job they do, and how much money they make.
Am I right?
In fact, the second definition in the Marriam Webster Dictionary under success is:
“ The attainment of wealth, favour, or eminence.”
The money = success equation
We’ve been conditioned to believe that money means success. From an early age, we are taught to work hard so we can get a good job. We believe that people who live in big houses, drive fancy cars, and work in shiny offices are successful.
Even if money isn’t your focus, it’s such an inbuilt part of society that we make these assumptions about success without even realising it. If I was to ask you:
“Who is more successful?
- The banker, driving his Tessler?
or
2. The Supermarket worker, taking the bus?”
What is your answer?
For most it will be the banker, even though we know nothing about these peoples’ goals, levels of happiness, job satisfaction, wellbeing, health, or free time. We assume that the banker has worked harder, earned this success, and is reaping the benefits.
The illusion of success
This is a dangerous assumption that keeps us trapped in a life of grind, trying to move up in our careers to earn more money, gain more status, all to chase the version of success that we have been taught is so important.
I’m not saying there is anything wrong in wanting to have a successful career, earn well, and be the best in your field. But, this mentality can keep us stuck on this treadmill even if it is making us unhappy.
As a careers coach, I’ve worked with many people at the pinnacle of their careers, and people earning a ton of money who feel unhappy and unfulfilled. They believed that reaching the top level, and earning big money would bring a happiness that has actually eluded them in the end. It’s at this point that we work on reevaluating what exactly success means to them.
Reevaluating success
When I ask clients in this position what success is, they usually give me the money and status answer. They are so deep into this way of thinking that they can’t see anything else, even though they are disillusioned with it. When we do some work and drill down into what makes them happy, we begin to unravel what they actually want from their lives.
What they want is different depending on the person, but common themes are to be happy in their jobs, to have less stress, to have more time with family. Money and career aspirations are often in there too, but rarely the sole driver.
Redefining success
When my clients have defined what they want from their lives, we do some work on redefining what the word “success” actually means. If it is about goals and achievement, can we reposition these so the outcome is not money or status?
For example, for someone who wants time with family as a priority, we redefine success to mean the achievement of securing a role that allows for more time off. For someone who is stressed and worried about health, we redefine success as living a healthy long life. This is often at odds with the way they are working and allows for a process of rediscovery of priorities and ultimately fulfilment.
In redefining success, money and achieving career goals still feature highly, but they are part of a bigger picture. Earning lots of money is no longer the sole goal if it comes at the cost of health, family, and happiness.
A hard habit to break
It’s a difficult process, because even if we decide that money isn’t as important as health for example and take a step back, the model of wealth = success is so engrained in society that we are concerned with how others see us and this can quickly skew our thinking back to believing that if we aren’t climbing, we aren’t successful.
This takes time and some inner work (maybe a topic for a future article).
My trigger for redefining success
Years previous, success for me was climbing in my career. I wasn’t unhappy. I found it fulfilling and exciting. However, when I had my first child, my views instantly changed. Success was no longer only about my career, it was about being a good mum, and finding a way to earn a good income while having more free time for family.
I spent a period of time feeling unsuccessful and comparing myself to others, even though that model of success absolutely didn’t suit me. It was only when I spent time thinking about what I wanted from life that I realised success for me was working on my own timetable, my own terms. I wanted a career, but I wanted to be flexible. Money was of course a factor, but not the only factor.
It took time but now that I have achieved my version of success, I have that sense of fulfillment I was chasing. I have my own business, work on my terms, and I have time to spend with my family.
To sum up
Success can mean whatever you want it to mean. Don’t get caught up in societies view that success is about working your arse off for money and status if that isn’t for you. You can define success as whatever is important to you.
As Lewis Carroll so wisely said through one of his characters:
“When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”
I’d love to hear how you define success. Leave me a comment below and feel free to ask any questions.
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