“Too many people measure how successful they are by how much money they make or the people that they associate with. In my opinion, true success should be measured by how happy you are” — Richard Branson
What does it mean to “be a success”? What does it look like? Many of us have a wrong picture of success. Frankly, the majority of people misunderstand it. They wrongly equate it with achievement of some sort, with arriving at a destination or attaining a goal.
The continual search for happiness is one of the main reasons that so many people are miserable. Look around us – Sadly, there is misery everywhere. If you make “happiness” your goal, you are almost certainly destined to fail. You will be on a continual roller coaster, changing from “successful” to “unsuccessful” with every single mood change. Life is uncertain, and emotions aren’t stable. Happiness simply cannot be relied upon as a measure of success.
Think back to when you were a kid. Chances are that there was a time when you wanted something really bad, and you believed that if you possessed that thing, it would make a significant difference in your life. When I was 10 years old, for me it was a red Huffy bike from Kmart. Back then, the thing to do was to ride around on our bikes everywhere! But I was riding an old bike that me and my dad found in the trash and fixed up. I never had a new bike. But I figured that if I had that new bike that I saw every time we went to Kmart, I’d have it made and be “the cool kid”. I’d have the newest, fastest, best-looking bike among all my friends. For my birthday that year, I got my wish. I loved that bike. But about a month after I got it, the son-of-a-gun got stolen from me. Sadly, by a kid I thought was my friend! Did you know that prior to about a year ago when I bought a brand new bike, that was the ONLY new bike I had my whole life. All the others were either garbage finds I fixed up with my dad, or craigslist specials as I got a bit older. What I’m getting at is this. I discovered that it didn’t bring me the success or any type of long-term contentment that I’d hoped for and expected.
That same process has repeated itself over my entire life. I have found that success didn’t come as the result of possessing something I’d wanted. Possessions are simply a temporary fix. Success cannot be attained or measured that way. At any given point, a material item can be taken away. Then what?
As you are working daily to continuously grow yourself, be in the midst of the process. You’ll soon learn that success isn’t a list of goals to be checked off one after another. It’s not reaching a destination. Success is simply a life journey of every day Continuous Improvement. Working today for a better tomorrow! Wake up knowing that you are going to make a difference today to grow yourself, and grow those around you! THAT, my amigos is success!