Define Your OWN Version Of Success

Steve Jobs has a famous quote:

“For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: 'If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today? ' And whenever the answer has been 'No' for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.”

This quote gives such a powerful awareness that we need to align what we really want in life, with what we work on daily.  We’ve said it so many times — “There is never enough time”.  There’s not enough time in our lifespan to spend our minutes, hours and days doing things that don’t bring us Joy. 

When we compare ourselves to others, we typically end up losing out and feeling inadequate. Social media is a construct that puts looks over truth. If we constantly bombard ourselves with social media, we end up comparing our REAL selves to postured fake people posing for a photo that is likely not based in reality. We cannot measure ourselves by comparison.

We also should not fall in to the trap of measuring ourselves by our bank account. In our culture there is a tendency to measure success by how rich we are. When we see someone getting wealthy we assume they are better or smarter than we are; perhaps we're not as smart or as deserving as they are because they have so much more money than we do. We must stop this kind of thinking.

We should strive to measure ourselves by our own metrics. We need to measure ourselves with core values that account for how much joy, peace and happiness we have. Are we doing a job we love to do? Are we finding meaning and purpose in our daily routine? Do we have ample time off to spend with family, friends and loved ones?

Let's measure our success by these more advanced metrics:

1)  OUR JOY

We have had business endeavors that paid well, but we were miserable doing the job.  We discuss this frequently on the Married Business Partners Podcast.  There’s an episode where we talk about a trip to Saudi Arabia where we come to the hard realization that we are miserable and need a major change in our career path.  We had lost the joy of what we were doing. We absolutely must measure our endeavors with joy being a key indicator of success.  If we don’t have joy, we are missing a major ingredient in success. 

2)  OUR TIME

We value our time more than our money.  It’s impossible to work all of the time.  We want to enjoy life, and experience people and places that bring us happiness, excitement and joy. If we are doing a job that makes us feel that our time is being wasted, we’re not in the right spot.  We want our time to be our most valuable commodity.  Time is both an asset to invest, and a dividend to enjoy. The freedom to use your time how you please, is possibly the biggest indicator of success.

3)  OUR MONEY

It’s very debatable if money can buy happiness or not.  In some ways we disagree with the ol’ adage of “money can’t buy happiness”.  Without money, we struggle.  Everything gets harder when there is not enough money.  Money alleviates stress.  Money gets us more help, feeds growth and propels us closer to our dream.   It’s important that we reinforce the fact that Money isn’t everything.  We do not measure success merely in dollars, but dollars are really helpful.

4)  OUR HEALTH

We absolutely must keep our health a priority. There is a reason we have REST as part of our Core Mindset in this curriculum — rest and sleep are so vital, and must be planned for, accommodated, and enjoyed.  Our health is also an extremely effective indicator that something is not right; when we can’t sleep, or we find ourselves ruminating over problems, we need to listen to that as an indication something’s not right.  Our health is an amazing gift, and we must protect it.  We must constantly monitor how we are feeling as we tackle our duties. If we have taken the time to take care of our health, we can feel successful.

5)  OUR RELATIONSHIP

It’s important to monitor a spike in disagreements, arguments and tension.  Sure, every couple has a fight here and there; some more than others.  But we need to monitor the “norms” and pay attention when those norms change.  Are disagreements creeping up more often than normal? Are one of you experiencing a higher frustration level than you typically feel? These are alarms going off that need to be acknowledged, talked about, and remedied. If we do not have harmony - something is wrong and must be addressed ASAP. Feeling that our relationships are healthy, brings joy and means we are succeeding at an element of balance.

6)  OUR SUSTAINABILITY

Do we still love what we do?  There’s a common phrase we have seen in various email signatures that say “Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life”.  This may sound a bit trite, but there’s truth to it.  If you do what you love, and it’s bringing benefit to your joy, and contributing to the health of your overall existence - then you can do that for a while. This is the very definition of sustainability, and a huge factor in feeling successful.

Let's focus our efforts on building genuine success — not just chasing dollars! Money is a means to accomplish success, not the destination of success. We hopefully can look at ourselves in the mirror each morning and know that we are spending our valuable time building a life that has true dividends — and it's definitely more than just money!