So what does success mean anyway?
How do we measure it and who decides what it is anyway?
We can look it up and find meanings such as the achievement of a desired goal or outcome. This could also be for personal or professional reasons.
Who gets to define success anyway?
With social media it seems to be how many followers you have. That implies that the more followers you have the more successful you are.
Is that really true? How do they measure it?
We all know that followers can be bought and fake anyway. Some may be suppressed by the platform itself or they change the algorithm and you have lost a lot of them. Some may have gained some. How many are bots? How easy it is to lose the account. Yes, genuine people have lost access to their own accounts. How many of the actual humans who follow the person are only doing it for fear of not being in the “in” crowd? They may not even care about the actual person or what they are doing.
Is this the true measure of success?
How about wealth
What is wealth anyway? Can success be down to how many houses and properties someone has? How many cars and luxury items or companies under their name? The amount of money or cash they have?
Do they really have that much money or is it just on paper? They have stocks shares or dividends but not real cash.
It may seem as if they are buying extremely expensive property or luxury items and continuously flying all over the world in private planes. They may have a super yacht or access to one.
Are they really rich and have the money or are they in debt or just giving the facade of pretending to be wealthy and they are in debt or living way beyond their means?
So often we may never really find out which is the case and honestly part of me feels who cares. Someone throwing money around sometimes feels like they are trying too hard to show that they have money. Maybe they are bored and desperate for attention, something like a toddler looking for parental approval.
Someone who owns a huge multinational company
Why do we feel the need to look at them as successful? Is it that they have a large company with thousands of employees, or more.
How do we know how they actually achieved this status. Was it inherited from family or through connections and money and they managed to buy their way to the top. Is that a measure of success? How do we know if the company really is a viable company or just propped up and built on lies and may be on shaky ground.
What about celebrities?
Are they successful? No idea, as it really boils down to what people perceive as successful.
Is it the number of films or TV shows they are in or the number of albums or concert tours they have done? The number of awards they have won?
Why do we look up to them? Do we know how they got into the industry and who helped them along the way. We have no idea how many struggling actors or musicians have more talent but no connections to get them to the top.
Is it the hype that makes them famous and successful. The more drama around them the more they are talked about and so in the eyes of many they perceive them as successful.
Does it matter if people call you successful?
Why do humans strive for the adoration of others and mostly strangers. Is it a lack of self confidence in themselves and they need others to confirm their status?
The real and genuine success stories
There are so many of them and I guarantee you don’t even have to look far to see any.
Someone who has an illness or condition and they have been working on getting back to health or towards a healthier life. Achieving that status for them is success. They feel elated and on top of the world,.
Who cares if millions of people don’t know who you are, you and the people important in your life do and they are celebrating with you.
Struggling to get ahead in your daily life, saving to get a new home or looking for a new job or career. The battle is real and the goal may not seem big for some people.
That does not matter, it is your battle to face no matter how big or small and once you start the momentum and work towards your goal you are on the road to success.
Feeling successful in your life can be different for everyone. Having the family and safe secure home is a wonderful feeling and definitely a successful one. Freeing yourself from a horrible situation and making it out the other end is a success story in itself.
Starting your own business and seeing it work out is amazing. Baking cakes for the local food market and word of mouth spread and you have more customers on your list. That is the first steps to your own success story.
So what is success?
We all lead our own lives and celebrate our own personal wins. Instead of looking at other people who seem to spend most of their time trying to convince us that they are successful and happy we should be looking at the people in our lives and supporting them or encouraging each other to our own victories.
It seems as if they are trying to convince themselves that they are successful or famous. They keep going on and on about it. Is it true if they have to push it so much? What I deem as success is probably different from you and the next person.
Personally I am happy with the success I feel in my ordinary life. Sometimes they are small wins like fixing the leaky tap or harvesting vegetables from my garden. It is time to celebrate the mini wins in your life and feeling grateful for the positives. You have the right to define success and what it means to you.
Maybe we can look at success as the feeling we experience when we have accomplished what we have set out to do and according to the criteria that is important to us.
Acknowledging our own success and feeling the elation ourselves is motivation to focus on our next goal.
Notice the work that the people around you put in to reach their own goals and encourage or support them to achieve theirs. Being a part of a success story no matter how small a part you played is so inspirational.
You can probably think about someone who has been by your side and boosted your confidence or helped you on your journey and how it made you feel. That support was priceless and shows us the importance of helping each other. Success can be something small but powerful or private and personal.