Successfully Succeeding.

It's a word meaning many things but mostly attached to significant personal achievements. Success in business often refers to bottom line, career advancement and profile awareness. Unfortunately in life, success is often linked to that same business thinking, making it difficult for many to see themselves as successful if the work side of the equation was not adding up. Too often you work in large enterprises with no real influence on the outcome of the company or its products making it difficult to measure success on a personal level which carries over into the most important part of your life outside the work environment.

So maybe you just need to redefine some of the success parameters and give yourself a break. Did I have a successful night's sleep, was it a successful bowl of cereal and did I succeed in putting my shoes on the right feet? Okay you can go overboard and denigrate the definition but the point is success varies so much that we should not be looking at other examples and other people to constantly measure our own success. Is a barrier to your success others with a privileged educational background, having too much money and being special in some way and so succeeding more easily?

If you think that then the trick is finding similar attributes from the success of others and then seeing if any apply to you. Everyone has the capacity and capability to be successful on some level and most people would agree you are successful if you or your work have had a positive influence on others. As a bright guy once said, "try not to become a man of success but rather a man of value", Albert Einstein. So it's less about the money and more holistic in its interpretation. After all, I'm sure you would not classify the corner stoner, successful just because he sells a lot of drugs and drives an expensive car.

Success is measured across many areas from health, spiritual, emotional, career as well as financial. It's a list that needs more categories if work is seen as a barrier for you to find success. Without getting back to the right shoe on the right foot, success can come from what many consider soft areas, such as when you give back, mentor and have a positive effect within your work environment. When people you have helped achieve success, you by virtue of that success are also successful.

So think hard about your success and celebrate the milestones to keep up your enthusiasm for more. Winstone Churchill, a man known for achievements put it succinctly when he said, "Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm".

To laugh often and much;

To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;

To earn the approbation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;

To appreciate beauty;

To find the best in others;

To give of one's self;

To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition;

To have played and laughed with enthusiasm and sung with exultation;

To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived -

This is to have succeeded.

Ralph Waldo Emerson.