A new measure of success

How do you quantify success? What is it you actually
measure?

Should it be statistics, figures, numbers? Or how about the
effort put in to achieving it?

Maybe it could be a combination of these, rather like those
school reports where you get a grade for achievement and a score
for effort.

Or should we more concerned with experiences rather than
numbers?

Statistics are certainly the easiest and most obvious way to
measure success. With money wealth, income being one of most
popular ways for people to measure their own or others’
success.

But it’s all relative. What constitutes a measure of success in
monetary terms fluctuates according to age, the circles you move
in, geographical location and your time in history.

Money can be measure in it’s own right or as an indication or
measure of success. It’s not necessarily the money per se
that’s important to measure, but it’s rather the way some people
choose to quantify their success. The success is what drives them,
not the money, but income is a useful indicator and measure of
that.

That’s all very well and yes numbers and effort are a good way
to measure anything, but let’s not ignore the role of feelings and
the experience itself. Otherwise we run the danger of seeing
success as one-dimensional and we’re not one-dimensional beings, so
if we do this we fail to capture the true meanings of success.

So how are we measuring success?

During my reflection time recently (a part of my Changeability
mind-work where I write whatever comes to mind during meditation or
visualisation) I came to a realisation as I was musing on this very
subject.

I realised that for much of my life I’ve equated success with
validation. Validation for what I’m not sure, but it’s something to
do with feeling valued and wanting to be seen to be good enough or
for people to think I’m good at doing what I’m doing.

This was quite a revelation! I was interested in what it meant.
Did I see my self-worth wrapped up in other people’s idea of my
worthiness? I don’t think of myself as someone who worries too much
about what others think of me, or let it stop me doing things. But
maybe it’s not so much about what others think, but more that I
want to be seen as good enough so I think I’m good enough
myself. 

There’s a lot more to be said about this and how it shows up in
what I do and don’t do. You can hear all of this in much more
detail in episode 91 of The Changeability
Podcast. 

A new measure of success

If you haven’t got time to listen to the episode now (and it’s
quite a short episode for us) here’s a flavour of what I wrote in
my Changeability Daily Journal:

I am going to have a new measure of success from now
on. 

My new measure of success is around enjoying every day.  So
essentially I will measure my daily success in terms of whether I
enjoyed the day and found it fulfilling in some way.

Now of course what constitutes an enjoyable day or a fulfilling
day will change from day to day depending on what I’m doing – but
in many ways that is the point. 

There is no real single measure of success, but many different
measures depending on what we’re trying to achieve at any
time.  Therefore, I’m using this as an overarching catchall
that can encompass any other measure within it.

After all, what I (and I think most people) want to achieve in
life and business is to be happy and fulfilled and enjoy this
amazing experience of being alive. 

What makes each of us happy and fulfilled will be different and
that doesn’t matter, because my new measure of success allows me to
capture this for me.

Listen to the podcast to hear me read the full extract from my
Changeability Planner and Journal.

“A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed
at night, and in between he does what he wants to do.” Bob
Dylan

Getting to know you

If you listen to our podcast or come to this website regularly
then you know a bit about us – and we’d love to reciprocate and get
to know more about you. So we’ve come up with a quick questionnaire
to help do this. We recorded a short
video to explains why – or you can skip straight to our
Getting to
Know You Questionnaire.

There’s just a few questions which only take a couple of minutes
to complete. It would be fantastic to hear from you as the more we
know about you the more we can talk about things and create things
you’re interested in and will help you. Thank you.