Success Looks Different To Everyone

We just have to stop being so distracted by other people

One of the biggest problems of our world is that comparison has become far too easy to engage in.

Before social media, we only had a smaller pool of people to compare our lives to as the only people we were exposed to were the ones in our environment.

Now we can compare our lives to people we don’t even know, who are halfway around the globe and whose lifestyle is so different from ours.

Then we create an unrealistic expectation of what our lives should look like.

Social media is a highlight reel of people's lives, but we tend to forget this because we believe what we are being sold, however, what we see is not a persons day to day life, just the parts they want others to see.

To be honest, there is nothing wrong with that either, why would we want to show off the mundane and not-so-interesting parts of our lives?

We forget this though.

So when we see people on yachts or on the beach living their best lives we think that they have it all. That these people have reached ultimate success if they can spend every day at the beach or on boats.

So we adopt the mentality that in order to be successful this is what life needs to look like, otherwise, we are inadequate.

We adopt other people’s versions of success.

Success looks different to all of us and we all know this and don’t at the same time.

When there is a certain image or lifestyle being consistently pushed on us, it eventually begins to dig in its claws and influence our way of thinking, even if it is in the most subtle way.

I saw this in my own life. Growing up I thought fame was the ultimate level of success; that fame meant you had officially made it.

As I grew older I realized how unappealing fame and celebrity was. Being in the spotlight under constant scrutiny, and not being able to have any privacy actually would be my worst nightmare. In fact, it sounded horrific.

Celebrities were so glorified as I was growing up (and they still are), so my naïve brain was so influenced by this culture. I really bought into the fact that to be successful was to be well-known and live a flashy lifestyle.

My idea of success has long since changed.

I realized that was not my version of success, but someone else’s I had adopted, and tricked myself into believing was my own.

My idea of success is being happy. Living a life that makes me feel fulfilled and making room for the things that light me up, having incredible relationships and connections, and having lots of adventure.

For others success may look like starting a family, getting a high-status position in their company, or being an entrepreneur.

All our versions of success have different faces. However, this is easy to forget when we have a specific ideal shoved down our throats constantly.

Sometimes when we find ourselves getting so caught up in other people’s dreams, we need to take a step back and turn inwards.

We need to remember what our own version of success looks like and identify if we are stressing ourselves trying to reach the goals of other people.

If we are doing this, we can redirect that energy into the things that we deem as being a success.

“Success is different for everyone; everybody defines it in their own way.” — William Shatner