"What's your definition of success"? – a question I was asked recently by someone who claimed that "no one I know has a satisfactory answer". Curious how others would answer this. Anyone?
There is a tendency to regard this as an entirely personal matter, as if by simply defining what you want means that therefore if you get it, then you have been successful; this is a dangerous approach, and actually about as far from the truth as it's possible to be. Success, then, is is not simply subjective, no matter how many people brainwash themselves into believing it is. What large numbers of people have considered over a long period of time has a weight and compelling power, and we ignore it at our peril.
One useful thing to do to establish what success may be is to ask a room full of colleagues or friends what they think it is. You will find that most people have at most 3 concepts. But take somebody who says, ‘It’s achieving goals’ and you write that down. Another says, ‘It’s about family’. When you then ask the person who said ‘goals’, so family is not important to you (or the other way, ask the ‘family’ person why goals are not important to them) they invariably concede, ‘Why, yes, family is important to success as well’. It’s just that most people never fully think through what success means, or – more cruelly – haven’t got the memory to remember more than either two or one thing!
Success, then, is not a smorgasbord of one or two things, but seven areas in which we need to achieve a result; and each of these seven things are interdependent. At different points in our life one or more might be highlighted and become critical for us. What are these seven areas? They are: self-esteem, energy, loving relationships, wealth, meaning, growth and self-awareness.
To avoid misunderstandings let's briefly provide a little more detail about each one of these. Self esteem has three core components to reflect upon: our peace of mind, confidence and communication. Energy has a two-fold aspect: our literal energy or zest on a daily basis, as well as our physical and psychological health. Loving relationships – long term relationships are foundational: how may do we have and what is their quality? Quality relationships are a key indicator of success. We are fed this story all the time – because it is true – in all Hollywood (Citizen Kane) and fiction: to gain the world and not have love and friendship is a sad and tragic place to be.
We also need wealth; by wealth I do not mean being rich: I mean having enough money to stop worrying about money! And here we see very clearly how the 7 areas are interdependent: for lack of money causes worry, which affects peace of mind and our self-esteem, just as it can affect loving relationships – it is estimated that something like 50% of marriages breakdown over financial matters. And, too, we need meaning in our lives, as Victor Frankl's book, Man's Search for Meaning, makes clear: meaning, purpose, direction are all vital to our well being. In fact immunises us against stress: people without purpose or direction quickly find themselves depressed and ill when they aimlessly drift into difficulties and problems.
Finally, we have growth and self-awareness. Growth is about the Maslow Hierarchy: the need to become all that we can become, to realise our potential, and not to die with all the music still inside of us. That is a terrible fate: I could have been … – but I never did, never committed or seized the opportunity. Self-awareness is different from the other six areas in that it is the guarantor that they are 'real'. Human beings have a huge capacity for self-deception: for imagining that they are one thing – cool, hot, handsome, beautiful, attractive, skilful, intelligent, powerful, acute, reasonable, trustworthy, generous and so on – when asking the six people who know them best would immediately confirm that their 'virtues' are entirely delusional. In short, we need to examine ourselves scrupulously in order to become more self-aware, so that we can genuinely grow.
Thus, if we look at these seven areas and ask ourselves how are we doing in each of them we should be able to spot our weakest link: where do we have a problem in our success chain? Is our self-esteem weak? Do we lack energy? How are our quality relationships? Are we becoming more financially secure? What about our purpose, is it clear, is it being lived? Are we growing as a person – learning new stuff, for example? And finally, how self-aware are we really – and what mechanisms do we have in place to make us more self-aware?
The key thing here is to see success for what it really is and then identify your weakest link and go to work on creating a plan to improve it. If you work on your weakest link for 18 months or so, you will find that all the other areas improve too.
The Mapping Motivation Series 