It was 5 am and I was feeding my six-month-old daughter. To make use of the time, I was listening to the Jay Shetty podcast episode on insecurity and it made me ask the question of what is success and what is failure?
Many people look for results to define success. They get the money they are successful. They get a job, they are successful. They find a partner, they have kids, they are “successful”. But they don’t feel it. No matter what comes to them, regardless of the efforts and the work to get there, there is always more to achieve and there are others who achieved more.
A success that feels like success is more than setting goals and getting to them but also about the process. It is not about what you do but setting for yourself how you do something. For instance, it is not about doing a job but deciding that you will do it with excellence. It is not about leading a team but about deciding that you will lead it in such a way as to empower, inspire and improve every member of the team. It is not about creating revenue or profits but doing it in a way that creates value without causing harm. It is not about having a partner and kids, but having a partner and kids who feel loved, supported, and fulfilled.
For instance, when I coach wrestling, my goal isn’t kids who win, but wrestlers who win more. It isn’t about kids who lose, but wrestlers who don’t give up. The goal isn’t about kids who have a perfect record, but wrestlers who were challenged to overcome the hard losses and make those losses wins.
If you seek improvement, rather than the result, you will find success, because improvement is always possible. Just as not giving up is always possible. In essence, if success is derived from others and from things out of our control, it doesn’t feel like it is ours, we don’t own it. But success based on improvement and not giving up is 100% based on things in our control, and that’s when success feels like success.
