How Do You Define Success?
My wife and I recently watched a Netflix documentary on “minimalism” and decided to “take the challenge” … and it was much more challenging than what I thought it would be! Whatever day of the week it was, our goal was to discard this many items. For example, day 1, we would each discard one item, on day 5, we discarded five items, day 30, we discarded thirty items. As you can see – the farther you go – the more effort was required to discard items. The challenge is set up so that you can create momentum to get to the difficult weeks. Did you know the average home has more than 300,000 household items? At the end of the challenge, we were successful discarding more than 1,000 personal items together over 31 days - and what a difference it made!
One thing I have learned over time is that success is defined in many different ways. In fact, when you search the word success on google, you will receive 6,090,000,000 responses. Webster defines success as “a degree of measuring something”. In many ways, this is easy to define – building wealth, winning or losing a game, trying to break a record running a race, or taking a 31-day challenge… However, it can seem more challenging when it comes to measuring a successful career.
Early in my career, I wanted to be a professional bowler, a teacher and high school coach, and later chose to go on a career journey in business to help people coordinate their relocation across the US and abroad. I worked in many different departments from operations to customer service to sales and found success in the sales / consulting role. But what made this successful? Early on I was often focused on big numbers and developed some great partnerships over the years that allowed me to be part of elite sales groups including Presidents Club awards. But what’s interesting is that success for me wasn’t really ever defined in the sales numbers, it was defined in the growth. You see, the more I grew, the more I was able to help others. The more I grew, the more I wanted to learn from others, the more I grew the more curious I became and the more I wanted to grow.
I remember hearing leadership expert John Maxwell once share his definition of success was “the difference between your potential and who you become”. I like that because he is not saying how we measure up to someone else, or how we compare to business or people’s standards – but it’s about how we compare to our potential.
Think about the areas that have helped your career growth. What areas have you grown in your career and what areas can help you continue. Here are a few areas that help me stay focused in my everyday… serve, values, recognition, expectations, networking, failure, accountability, belief, energy, perspective, influence, consistency, presence, inspiration, significance, purpose, and more.
As you can see, it’s hard to measure service or being values driven, or recognizing others, or believing in yourself – but these are the things that make the difference in your career. So, the next time you think about measuring success – focus on the things that matter most and keep growing to become more, because ultimately – success will be measured most by how we impacted others. and the more we grow in these areas – the more success we will enjoy in our career and every area of our life!
So how do you define success? Focus on what matters most to move your career and your organization forward every day!
Quote of the day: “If we want more, we must become more.” -Jim Rohn
This is “Move to Inspire” with Bruce Waller! For more information, call 972-389-5673, or email bwaller@goarmstrong.com or check out my social media Facebook and Twitter page. Also, check out www.BruceWaller.com to review my leadership books “Life in the Leadership Lane”, “Find Your Lane” or pick up a copy of my journal “Milemarkers” to start recording your everyday. All books are available on amazon. Be sure to subscribe to my YOUTUBE channel to watch the video podcasts and other messages to help you lead in the workplace! “Life in the Leadership Lane podcast is available on your favorite podcast platform including APPLE, GOOGLE, and SPOTIFY. Interested in a book club? Join our book club “CLIMB” on Facebook.