What Does Success Mean to You?

The answer to this question can change during your life, if you take the time to ask it every once in a while. Sometimes clinging to your original concept can make you feel defeated if it never comes fully to fruition. There could be a lot of reasons that success as you first defined it eludes you, or even no longer interests you. It may not have actually been your idea in the first place, since social pressures, family expectations, and necessity can play a big part in early career decisions. Or just plain confusion and random events. 

---

What makes you happy can also change as you age, if you pay attention to how you feel and acknowledge it. I’ve always been jealous of those who seem to be born knowing what they were meant to do and pursue it all their lives to great advantage. But we can’t all be Mozart, and for most of us life is pretty much an experiment with pre-conceived notions of how it should be, which usually isn’t the way it seems to be going.

Values can change as you make your way through your journey, but it can be hard to recognize that they have, living in the crazy 24/7 world we live in now, and working most of your waking hours. Somehow you need to find a quiet space to listen to yourself instead of everybody else, and think about what you’d like to change about your life. Of course you also have to believe you can change your life, and most of us resist that with all our strength because it scares us, but the first step is to contemplate the possibility.

Step away from your computer, your television, and your iphone and think about what matters to you now. Make a list and put it in priority order. This is not easy, and the results could surprise you. Once you have your list, you can give some thought to what would need to change in your life for you to be able to honor your current true values. We never know how much time is left to do it.