What is success for you?

Is it the idea that one day you’ll be achieving you calling? Or is it the idea that one day you’ll be in the top 2% or 5% of a category you defined for yourself?

While I think that both can be achieved, I also learned that sometimes we take up images of success which only serve to put us under great pressure.

Take for example the idea of achieving your calling one day. It comes with the question “what is my calling?” and then “how can I be sure that this is my calling?”. These questions put us under pressure of finding an answer now for something that requires time to be experienced. Take for example someone who’s calling is to be a public speaker. It is very rare, that someone loves to be on stage the first time he does. It takes time to get used to it and then it again takes time and hard work to become good at it. For a lot of us, this would be the first time, that we’d start to believe that public speaking could be our calling.

Take the idea of being among the top 2% or 5% of whatever you’ve defined. What happens if it takes you 30 years or more to reach this goal? What will you do with all the daily successes while working towards this big idea? How will you feel while on the way, will you balance pressure to reach the bigger goal and seeing your own progress?

Success is something we need to be able to reach and experience. We can set ourselves huge goals, that’s ok. But we need to be able to see our progress on the way towards that goal. Otherwise, we will find ourselves only running towards a goal and never see our progress. I’m guessing that this makes the goal unreachable.

Find a way to move towards something you want. Make sure you see and appreciate your progress.

When there is no satisfaction on the way to success, success will remain meaningless.