One definition of success that webster dictionary gives is “the attainment of fame, wealth, or social status”. In society we tend to look to rich, famous, and influential people to help us determine what success looks like. The definition that they most often give us, is that if we have a big, beautiful house, a couple vacation homes and a private jet, at that point we have reached the pinnacle of success. As nice as some of those things can be they are by no means the only measure of success and although they can be a sign of success in one aspect of life, they may be a warning of the other aspects that may be falling by the wayside.
Life is a journey filled with an array of different experiences, There is no one experience or result that fully embodies success. Stop and think for a moment, no matter where you are in your life, you likely had a number of failures and a number of successes, and perhaps you even have quite a few that may just be something in-between. The point is, no matter who you are and no matter what you’ve achieved, Success should present itself as an ongoing and balanced combination of wins and losses and how you handle them on the other side.
Imagine for a moment that you have worked all of your life trying to create or build a successful business and it never really fully meets the goal you had set before it. Does that mean that you are not successful? Not at all, First of all your initial measure of success was skewed by only seeing what the top of the industry looks like. You came in unaware of the number of different obstacles you would have to overcome. Every time you had a new setback you also had the opportunity to learn from your experience of what it took to overcome, in many cases you became better and more refined through the process. Even every failure can be viewed as a success in this case so long as you take the opportunity to learn from it and be better on the other side.
Another great example of success even in your failures is dieting. Initially when you start a diet you generally set somewhat unrealistic and even unattainable goals, but slowly as you achieve smaller milestones you begin to refine your expectations and have the opportunity to realize all of the successes that got you to that point. Every time you blow your diet it doesn’t have to be seen as a failure but rather an opportunity to realize whether or not that’s a compromise that you feel is worth making and as you progress further along in the weight loss process you begin to realize a greater reward making it easier to see it as outweighing the reward of a brief sensation from eating outside of the diet. One of the biggest reasons people fail at their diet is a result of embracing the feeling of being a failure when they slip up or don’t attain their initial unrealistic expectations, as opposed to using the opportunity to learn and grow from it.
Life cannot be summed up with just one experience, likewise neither can success be so summed up with one experience or result. Your life is a combination of many different lived experiences all requiring an intricate balancing act simultaneously. Some days you may turn out great business results, but had to compromise time with your family to achieve the results, other times you may choose to take a few days off of work to make memories with your family and although the business may fall by the wayside a bit, you made huge gains in another important facet of your life.
There is a reason that often times when you look at many of the richest people in the world, they have lots of cool toys and a very successful carrier but many of them cannot maintain a successful marriage, or their kids are resentful and rebellious right on into adulthood. These people have gained success in the fields that they had focused all their attention on, but failed to maintain any semblance of balance, and as a result only one aspect of their life can they lift up or even taught as a success. That’s not to say that people who are financially well off are always bad at balancing the other facets of their life, but rather that the ones that can do exceptionally well in multiple parts of their life have a mastery in maintaining a more balanced success.
As was mentioned in the opening paragraph, life is an intricate balance of multiple facets and true success should be measured in how well one can maintain that balance. It’s far easier to pour your every waking moment into one aspect of life and neglect every other aspect, but a person that can manage multiple at the same time and manage to allocate time and balance the results relatively equally across all of them should be exceptionally proud of themselves because they have managed to harness an ability that many and perhaps even most, fail at achieving. The ability to juggle one ball, no matter how big, is not at all impressive unless you are an infant. But the more balls you can successfully juggle at the same level simultaneously, the more work and ability it requires. So, it is with life as well, learning how to successfully dedicate enough attention to all of the aspects of your life, such as providing for yourself and your family, spending quality time with those you love, maintaining your body and soul as well as living for causes greater than yourself such as helping those in need and living a life of humility and thankfulness simultaneously. No matter how many material possessions you acquire, it’s not all that impressive because it’s still just juggling one ball unless you keep your focus and attention on the other facets of your life at the same time.