Are you Successful?

Whether you are in the business or the self-help sections of the bookstore, the shelves are filled with books promising success to their readers.  Some books define success as a 6-figure income.  Others define success as a higher education and offer a degree for free. Several will tell you being self-employed is the mark of true success.

So we buy the books and implement some of the ideas.  But, despite our relative achievement of success, crisis inevitably takes away the sweet taste.  When we finally reach that 6-figure income, build the half million dollar home, and drive the Lexus, a divorce, financial reversals, health problems, and family crises seem to pull the plug on our "success."  The question then becomes, when the tangible evidence of success is gone, are we still successful?  Is success tangible?  A set of circumstances?  A state of  feeling?  A belief?  Crisis has a way of making us take a look at how we define success.

Several years ago, my consulting company took a poll of its students and clients as to what they perceived to be success.  Ninety percent responded with answers such as contentment, inner peace, liking yourself, having a purpose in life, and fulfillment.  Note, only ten percent responded with answers like the 6-figure income, big house, and fancy car.

The poll asked participants to rate certain factors as relevant or not to success.  Following are the composite answers:

First, successful people have a sense about who they are.  They can talk about themselves with regard to their strengths, visions, and weaknesses, rather than their accomplishments or the important people with whom they have rubbed elbows.  There is an absence of anger or shame with regard to their race, nationality, parents, brothers and sisters, gender, birth order, physical appearance, mental abilities, and age.  Instead of being bitter about these unchangeable aspects, they spend their energies changing what they can; their attitudes.

Successful people are not defined by their job or career.  Instead, they have a sense of mission, an overarching purpose.  They are living to leave a legacy of some kind.  They are living to make a difference in at least one other person's life.  Their mission might be their career.  More likely, their career is the vehicle that allows them the time and money to accomplish their mission.  Successful people might retire from their careers, but they never retire from their missions.  There is a desire to make at least part of the world a better place.  There is a sense of giving back, rather than taking all they can take.

Successful people know the only thing they can change is their attitude.  They have ever increasing control over their thoughts, words, actions, attitudes, and motives. Successful people know emotions never work independently from thoughts. They use their ability to be self-aware to analyze their thoughts.  They know that once the thought life is under control, the emotions will be manageable, and their actions will be appropriate.  They accept full responsibility for their emotions and actions and, seldom, if ever, blame others.

Successful people have goals that move them toward their mission.  Goals regarding time, money, and relationships are measured against the mission.  Successful people set goals and make themselves accountable to peers and friends for achieving them.  They understand that interdependence with others is a higher calling then being merely independent.  They have come to the point in their lives where they realize they don't know it all; that it's okay to depend on others for information, counsel, and support.

Successful people make choices everyday about what is important and unimportant, urgent and not urgent.  They realize that most circumstances are not fatal or final.  Not every telephone call is important; though most of them have the ring of urgency.  Getting your eyes checked is not urgent, but it is certainly important.  Listening to a grieving resident is not urgent, but it is important.  Successful people know when to say yes or no to demands on their time, money, and affections.  Successful people make choices every day to invest in others' lives; to affirm, encourage, and support.  They give of themselves to their work, families, and communities.

Those polled seemed to agree that being successful had more to do with knowing who you are, why you are here, and where you are going, than the large income figure, big house, and fancy car.

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