Are You Seeking Success? Do You Know What It Is?
If you are seeking success you probably have a good idea of what you think it is, or maybe you don’t. How do you acquire and maintain greater success in your life? What is success? As you read this article, you may think that I take a unique approach on what success is, as compared to a lot of information that is out there. I feel like success is much broader in scope than simply looking at how much I acquire, or thinking that if I acquire more material things then
that makes me successful. What is your definition of success? Is it the more that you reach certain goals and only when you reach those goals, or do you see it in a broader scope? How about looking at whether success just pertains to your work? Does success just have to do with your career choice or job; your goals that you set pertaining to your profession? I believe that you can take a much broader perspective than that, and success in life can show itself in a lot of different ways. It can show itself in small steps. Really the invention of anything starts with one little step at a time, and each “failed” attempt is not really a failure along the way. They are learning experiences and challenges that present themselves in which you are able to learn about whatever it is you put your time into. So is success the act of continuing on in the face of those challenges?
Rather than get frustrated, angry, worrisome or fearful when something does not turn out the way you want on your path to success, I encourage you to see your progress. You need to see the many little successes along the way; see how they can come together towards one of your goals (or several of your goals). Little successes lead up to greater successes as you move forward in life. But you have to see the little successes and not ignore them or become frustrated, resentful or angry, which will prolong the amount of time until you succeed at achieving the larger goals.
Striving towards your goals provides so much opportunity for learning along the way. You just need to be mindful and pay attention to what you can learn in each situation leading up to success. Then you can tweak the knowledge you learned, apply it and tweak it over and over again until you eventually have something like the snowball that just keeps getting bigger. You will accumulate knowledge and better understanding and get more and more clarity about what you want and what you are creating.
As I have mentioned in other articles, I believe clarity, balance and energy are necessary to acquiring and maintaining success. People tend to place so much focus on materialism and work success, that they very often miss a huge opportunity to focus on all of what makes them successful. That is where balance comes in to achieving success.
In my many years working with clients and elite athletes, I’ve helped them in their pursuit of greater and greater success, even though they have already had some successes before I came into the picture. I have seen them be so surprised when they realize that if they are struggling in any way, let’s say in their marriage, that it has an effect on their sport performance and ultimately their success. Now there is much learning that needs to take place in order to recognize how your mindsets in your personal life affect your performance in other areas, and those mindsets do not have to overlap (although for most of us they do, because we don’t know any other way). But overall, as human beings, you will achieve greater success if you have balance in your life.
When you feel that you know within you that you are taking care of business in all important aspects of your life, then you have balance. With that piece of mind you will actually be able to perform better in each segment of your life, and achieve greater success. Performing better at work has a lot to do with performance and success at taking care of yourself, which then has a lot to do with your ability and success in taking care of relationships and other areas of your life; whether it is with your parent, children or significant other. So you have the ability to achieve success in all areas of your life, and it will catapult you in your ability to be successful in your career, or whichever area is important to you.
So balance is extremely important to success! Without it, let’s say you do not take good care of yourself mentally, emotionally and physically, you will decrease in your ability to perform well and have a deficit in your energy. That will show itself 100% of the time in everything you try to do. So if it is important to you that you become more and more successful in your career, you need to do whatever you can to be successful in taking care of yourself. Another example: if you have a disagreement with a significant other and are then looking to perform well at work, you will find some difficulty there if you have not taken the opportunity to clear things up in your relationship first.
Then down the road, you will find that you need to be fully present in whatever it is you are spending time doing as you work towards success. If you are working, to be fully present in your work is a skill you can learn over time that will increase your feelings of success. I will provide more information on that in future articles, but you must first start with the realization that clarity, balance & energy are extremely important to your success – in whatever you choose to pursue.
Clarity is a matter of answering the questions: “Who am I? What is important in my life? What are my priorities and do I need to shift them? What are my preferences in all aspects of my life? Are they in balance? Do I have an ability to check and balance in all areas that are important to me?” Some areas you probably do well in. But for some, you probably have not even taken the time to get to know yourself to know if they are important to you. Then there are other areas you probably know very well you could be doing better at, and you know you want to do better at, but you have not taken the time to prioritize them in order to achieve success. You must be clear about these things in order to define what success is in your own life.
I encourage you to look at all of these areas, starting today. Ask yourself: “Who am I? What are my priorities and do I need to shift them? Do I have the level of clarity I need, or do I know myself well enough to say I really know who I am? Or have I been spending too much time taking care of everyone else and external things that I have not stopped long enough to say: Who am I?” If you are dating or in a relationship with another person, think of all those questions you ask that you feel are so important when you want to know: “Who is this person? What are his/her interests? What are his/her preferences? How does he/she like to spend his/her time? What is his/her favorite food? What are his/her values and does he/she live up to them? Do his/her actions follow his/her stated values?” All of these things that you look for in others…have you ever stopped to look for them in yourself? That is the level of clarity I am talking about, that will be extremely important in contributing to your success.
In order to achieve success, you must have clarity, balance and energy
Now you know a little about balance and clarity, but energy definitely comes from a lot of different areas. You need to have physical energy to put into things you have now prioritized and decided are important to spend your valuable and precious time on. So energy comes physically from how you eat, sleep, hydrate, and exercise, and it also comes from your mindsets. How do you choose to think about things and focus your mental time? Your emotional state affects your energy. As you will see, if you put your time towards things that are not compatible with who you are, you will have an energy deficit. If you put your time and energy towards things that are compatible with who you are, your energy will increase and the energy will actually inspire you and help you to be ready to take the actions that are necessary for your success.
So, this week, look at having clarity, balance and energy as a means of helping you answer the question: “What is success?” Take at least one tiny step towards your greater success by using the information I gave you in this article. Feel free to share this with friends, family or others you feel could benefit, and please contact me for further assistance or to ask me any questions. Now that you know what success is, I look forward to helping you seek and achieve greater success in your life. Have an amazing day!
