BLOG #25
How do we define success? Often success is based upon what we expect our lives to look like. Graduate college and get a bachelor’s degree. Get hired at a prestigious company. Work 40 hours a week and make a six-figure salary. Get married. Take out a mortgage on a two story home. Buy a luxurious car. Have children and raise a family. Mainstream success is just a list of check-boxes. It is based on the expectations of others and is the benchmark of what others determine as success. Mainstream success is built upon self-worth, material goods, money, and how others perceive you. For many years I have adopted this mentality of more, better, faster, get ahead, climb the social ladder of success to achieve financial stability. You drive a BMW and live in a wealthy neighborhood, you must be successful. Why is everything based on a person’s self-worth?
The age old question does money equal happiness? Sure money can buy you a fancy home and luxurious car, or can afford tropical vacations. Those are crutches. Luxuries that mask the reality of your 9 to 5 job. Those luxuries don’t mean as much if you hate going to work everyday.
We often focus our work on getting approval and getting the things to prove to others that we are successful. This is a destructive mindset, that will enslave you to seeking constant approval from others. Your job and work should not be focused on the outcome.
Shift your mindset from hustling to get a ahead to coming alive. Getting ahead is competitive. Coming alive is collaborative. Focus your energy on the process, the day-to-day tasks that service what kind of work you want to be doing. The work that fuels your passion and creative muse.
Forgot about what you are “supposed to do” or what society wants you to do. Question the traditional path to success. Putting your head down and working hard no matter what may not be the right path. Instead explore your entrepreneurial curiosity. Create a path for yourself. Enabling more opportunity in your life for self discovery and improvement as a human being will add more value to you than the traditional path.
Granted an entrepreneurial lifestyle will still require hustling and working even harder to achieve your goals, but ultimately, you have the control and power to work in your own creative space. Your own creative space that drives you and gives you energy, vocation, and purpose. This space is a source for self expression rather than proving self-worth. The most genuine and meaningful work comes from this state of self-expression.
When you work through self-expression you work both internally and externally. You have a connection between yourself and the world. The hard part is finding your passion. Finding what internally speaks to your true self. What are your gifts? What were you born to do? These are tough questions that I struggle to answer. Don’t sweat it. Use that uncertainty to fuel your self-discovery. At a young age you have the flexibility to try new and exciting things. Challenge yourself to write everyday. During this 30-day writing challenge I have become more reflective and self-aware. Writing challenges you to think differently and deliberately. Blogging becomes an inner monologue with yourself.
When it comes to success, we want it immediately and a lot of it. Don’t materialize success, because you will never achieve it. Think of success as being small acts of kindness. When you do something nice for someone you feel satisfied. Success is similar. It’s all about heart and dignity. If you have an understanding of you who are and who you want to become, work deliberately everyday to make that vision a reality.