Success is everything! You must have heard that before, right?
During my last few coaching sessions the question regarding this beautiful word has surfaced again and again. In fact, one coaching session was explicitly about finding the client’s own definition of success. I mean, that’s in my tagline, so it makes sense that I love to work on this theme a lot 😉
Most people have this belief that success must be defined in one sentence. That’s it. Short and sweet. But, when you take a closer look at the topic, you realize that it is far more difficult and complex. At least for me, and as it appears for most of my clients, too.
Some people might think that success has to do with luck. That’s not true at all.
Some people might think that success is synonymous with a steep career. During a study conducted by YouGov, who interviewed approx. 2000 persons online on behalf of LinkedIn in 2017 showed interesting results. LinkedIn wanted to find out how employees defined success for themselves and how this is linked to their job. The results showed that for a fulfilled life, professional performance is still a component, but no longer decisive. In fact, personal well-being, like being happy or healthy was ranked most important (72%). These were the other important success defining statements in percentages: a stable social environment (55 %), having a family (49 %) and spending time with family and friends (48 %), the possibility to travel (44 %) and to have time for hobbies (41 %). A healthy work-life balance was seen by 32 % as the greatest success.
To define what success is, no matter whether at work or/and in our personal life we need to ask ourselves many questions. What are our values? I wrote about this some time ago here on LinkedIn. What do we want to achieve? What lifestyle do we want to have? What do we need to change in the current situation to get there?
For me personally success means
- to lead a self-determined life. This is highly important to me, especially since I grew up in a communistic dictatorship until the revolution in 1989 in Romania. I value independence and freedom; I value that I’m able to do what I want, where I want and how I want, even with the current restrictions in place.
- to set myself goals, but only compare myself again my own standards
- to keep myself challenged by constantly learning and by finding new ways of doing things, no matter if working or at home. My husband likes to say, that I’m a constant retrofitter.
- leave my comfort zone. I don’t always like to get out of my comfort zone, but I do realize that when I take the step, it is so fulfilling and I develop much faster.
- to always know my values and live by my values. This means, that my values are present, and I regularly check in on my behavior and also my relationships with customers and people around me, to find out if I can be true to myself.
- that I’m in the comfort of being able to experience a good lifestyle. This doesn’t involve expensive material things, even though, I do like techy stuff and gadgets. Being able to travel, even if only in Switzerland, enjoying good food, having enough spare time for friends and family, that makes my lifestyle perfect for me, that’s when I feel successful.
- to be my own boss. I enjoy doing the things I love, and I found that what I love, I tend to be good at.
- to feel happy, satisfied and fulfilled. This is a sensation I want to strengthen by doing a gratefulness exercise every day. I realize that when I do take the time to really reflect on what I have managed to pull together in my life, during easy times but also during very difficult times, I am so happy, and grateful.
So here is the question to you. What does success mean to you, for you?
