What does it
mean to be successful?
Apr 21, 2019
BIG DISCLAIMER: Originally this article wasn’t
to supposed to this personal, detailed, random and rantful. I just wanted to
tackle on a topic of Success and reframe it a bit, but as I continued writing,
and as I am at the moment in a great state of mind (to say the least), this is
what you got. Sooo, good luck to you if you decide to continue. All the filters
are off, just so we’re clear.
NOTE: If you are in a hurry, you can skip to my 3-part
definition, and then the how-to for yourself, but I advise that you read the
entire article, everything will make more sense as the context is essential.
Back
in 2016 when my article about giving up things to be successful went viral, a
friend sent me a screenshot of a front Google page for results when you type in
the world successfully — my article was
first.
That
got me scared.
What
if the only thing people end up knowing me as the guy who wrote the most
successful success article?
So,
for the last 2 years, I ran away from that topic as much as I could, almost to
the point where I rarely used the words success and successful in my writing,
or otherwise when I talked with people.
However,
life is a tricky thing, and somehow it led me back to it.
Not
me succeeding, but me breaking down what being successful means, and not only
because of my obsessive personality, but because countless of readers responded
to that article, questioning it, criticizing it( in a constructive way and
unconstructive)and overall asking me to go further into the topic.
I
always avoided it, thinking who am I to talk about this, but having in mind
that I originally opened the topic, it makes sense to go a bit deeper into it.
Here’s
what I wrote in the initial part of my Success Article:
There
are certain things that are universal, which will make you successful if you
give up on them, even though each one of us could have a different definition
of success.
Even
though each one of us could have a different definition of success.
I’ll
start here.
When
you Google Successful, this is what you get:
Almost
2 billion searches.
I
like the first definition to a certain degree, and with the second one, I have
to disagree.
Why
to a certain degree you ask?
Well,
because if we consider success to be an accomplishable thing, rather than a
state and a continuous process, we will spend our life chasing this vague thing
that we’ve set for ourselves (which is only worth because of what the journey
towards it will help you become — all
about that evolution), and will always feel as if we don’t have it.
Becoming
successful is what most people think how success works.
Once
I do X, Y and Z > then I will be successful.
My
belief that success, pretty much like any other man-made concept, is a
spectrum.
You
don’t become successful once, and you’re done.
It’s
a never-ending process.
You
are always successful. You just have to decide how much more do you plan to be
successful. To what degree do you want to be successful, while accepting the
truth that as you are even more successful, your definition of success will
have to be upgraded so you can continue this path — otherwise
you become stagnant.
Know
that there is no judgment here, at all. Anyone who tells you otherwise is not
the person you want to keep in your life (be it blood or not).
It’s
your life. The only one you got.
YOU
GET TO DECIDE WHAT YOU WANT TO DO WITH IT.
Not
your parents. Not your siblings. Not your spouse or your partner. Not your
boss. Not the society you live in.
Not
even me.
Everything
that comes your way, filter according to your values and principles and see if
it makes sense to YOU. If it does, adapt it to your life. If it doesn’t, say
thank you, and do your thing.
It’s
that simple.
But
you don’t need to do it all at once. You still have time. Just be smart about
it.
Boy,
did I go on a rant!
Well,
I’m pumped up now. How about you?
(I
just hope I didn’t inspire a serial killer or something)
Anyways,
let’s offer you, my dear reader, some CONTEXT, and then one nice HOW-TO.
Now,
let’s focus a bit, and dive into the context first, or to be more specific,
what’s my view on success, or what guides me, and how the how-to came out of
it.
MY IDEA OF WHAT
SUCCESS(FUL) MEANS
I’ll
try to present my own definition, which after years of refinement (probably
will never be fully done), is close to universal as possible.
But
that still doesn’t mean that after you finish this article, you should take my
definition and directly apply it to your life.
Especially,
when in the next section I’ll show you my example, and show you my process on
how to define important life areas for yourself, and what does it mean to be
successful in each one of those.
Now,
before I reveal three parts of my current definition, it’s important to note
that it got drastically changed since my article went viral, and my perception
on how fast can one become successful in various areas.
Here’s
what I mean by that.
Until
December 2016, my assumption was that it will take me anywhere from 3 to 5
years, to achieve the following things:
·
Build a list of couple of hundred thousand subscribers
·
Design an ultra-successful viral article
·
Have tens of millions of readers
·
Get featured & republished in all the biggest media
houses (Forbes, CNBC, New York Observer, Huff Post, and many others)
·
Get offered book contracs (damn, forgot how to spell the
word — obviously if they
knew that my spelling is this bad, they wouldn’t
have offered me those contracts — there
we go)
·
3–5k USD speaking engagements
·
Earning six-figure in a year
All
the fame and fortune each blogger aspires to achieve, and which usually happens
over a span of years.
But
no, I couldn’t wait (Just had to play with fire).
Turns
out, if you hack it the right way, you get to experience all of this in a span
of a couple of months.
But,
there’s a hidden cost to speeding up your success that most people aren’t
familiar. It usually isn’t as plain as previously listed achievements.
It
happens in the back-end.
You
see, becoming successful is a compounded thing, not an instant one. It takes
you years of figuring out things and working on your ideas before they all can
align for you to externally get validated for something that you’ve been doing
in the back-end.
Unfortunately
for me, I was fixed in my belief that I am mentally crisis-proof (due to
experiencing a lot of misfortune in life), and I can honestly tell you that
after spending two years in a quarter-life crisis, I am definitely not.
Turns
out, as much as tragic events in your life can speed up your evolution, so does
experience so much success in such a short time-span.
For
about six months from the publishing date, until about the time I moved to
Belgrade, I was on the constant go, without time to stop and figure out what’s
happening.
Then
finally, I get an apartment, some decent money out of it — thinking dope,
now I can actually do the things that I want to do, and focus on creating and
making (content, programs, products ) that will be most valuable to other
people, without having to worry about bills.
As
much as I enjoyed every one of those individual successes that I listed above,
all they got overshadowed by the aftermath — which
hit me like a truck, as none taught me to expect one.
Few
bankruptcies later, and few Paypal and bank problems, several launch failures,
personal problems in regards to my relationships to the closest people
problems, then my personal health deteriorated, I ended up feeling that for
most of those two years as I was in a downward spiral, feeling anxious, having
panic attacks, getting fat(er) — and
other uplifting things we experience on a daily, weekly monthly basis when our
life isn’t going according to the plan.
Don’t
get me wrong, I continued working through this actively, and reduce the times
between each try, and overall try to pull myself out of it, to break it down
over and over again, to try better, more efficiently, and sometimes it worked,
most times it didn’t.
Until
for some reason, in February, all of it got aligned. Whatever I tried to do for
two years, finally worked.
I
am listing this down in such detail, because I want to impress upon you that
you need to accept that fact that if you plan to aim high, great things can and
will happen but you also need to be prepared for anything that can pop up (like
the unexpected quarter-life-crisis, or a mid-life crisis or what-ever-crisis
happens whether we directly influence it, or it just happens to us, or the
people we love).
That’s
why it’s important that you have some sort of a system for yourself, and to
decide with yourself that no matter how many times it will take you to try to
establish a good behavior, or a bad, you’ll keep on doing it because that’s the
way it goes. That’s only natural for any human being with an ever-growing
hunger for becoming more. If you don’t have that, speed yourself up, because as
people keep on saying, this is the only life we have — as we currently
know it.
NOW, THE
3-PART DEFINITION OF SUCCESS
You
need to define the guiding definition (with as many parts as you want), and how
it reflects on your life areas.
I
kinda see three aspects of it, the first one is your time, the second is your
evolution (ever-encompassing), and the third is the dynamic balance (of all the
areas of your life that you deem important)
1. TIME
The
idea behind the time aspect is to get as much of your 24h under your control.
In
my opinion, up until university, or the first time you separate from your
parents, you won’t have as much control here (that’s normal). And means that
it's up to you how long it will take you to get there.
In
elementary school, you have little-to-no control (fixed classes, in a city you
live — no traveling, no
control over schedule, as the rest of the day is controlled by your parents).
In
high-school, this should increase, and you should be able to have more control
(however, you are still in one city, with a fixed schedule).
University
or college is the place where most people experience more control over their
schedule (no parents, and classes aren’t as fixed, and in most cases can be
skipped).
Until
the first financial independence or JOB, you won’t have the ability to have
certain autonomy at work and almost full control over your schedule before and
after.
For
entrepreneurs (this to a certain degree includes contractors/freelancers), the
main difference is that you have control over those 8 hours (where to put
them), but the risk you have increased, as the stability of being paid every
month is no longer there. Before work and after work control is almost
identical as with career driven people.
My
idea that it’s a preference in choosing if you want to pursue a meaningful
career that targets your skills, passions, interest, and idea of who you want
to become, or you want to take on an extra bit of risk and start your own
thing.
These
are not mutually exclusive, I’ve personally started a company during
university, then worked for someone else, then finished university, then got a
job in Malaysia, then started a blog while going there, and then transitioned
into focusing on my thing (whatever it is, and will become eventually) full
time, and here we are.
In
my opinion (and experience), this is one of the greatest forms of success
having that control over 24 hours (not an absolute one), and it’s the easiest
when you are an entrepreneur, but it can be achieved through a career, to get
so much autonomy that allows you to craft your work-part of the day as you see
fit, and work on projects within companies that you’ve started. Or simply, that
you became so irreplaceable, and thus earned respect, and confidence to have
the freedom to do whatever you want with those 8 hours.
2. EVOLUTION
FLOW
My
best-friend (upgraded one) will laugh now because this is the term we used for
the Facebook Group we used to share realizations and ideas, and for support. At
the time it sounded fancy, but over time those words started meaning more), and
we used it to explain the never-ending pursuit of growth and obsession with
high mental states and continuous progress of all your being.
When
you evolve, so does everything around you.
3.
DYNAMIC BALANCE
The
term WORK-LIFE balance has been thrown around quite a lot, especially in the
western world.
I
believe there’s only LIFE BALANCE.
The
moment you split it into work-life, the work part is the negative aspect of it.
This leads to people hating Mondays and thank-god-it’s-friday.
The
dynamic part of it just means that Balance is a fluid concept.
To
enable your full potential (in my opinion), you have to be mindful of all of
the life areas (you set and deem important for yourself — will go into this
a bit below).
I
personally approach this with few as possible (I feel like separating them into
more areas (which I have tried — up
to 15) only adds unnecessary complexity to the mix.
Thus,
I have only:
HEALTH
(sleep, diet, physical exercise/movement).
GROWTH
(intellectual (skills — crucially tied
with my goals), emotional and I’ve added for some
reason adventure here)
BUSINESS
(I’ve grouped all the fluffy words here with some practical ones — mission/vision/purpose
and then basically what do I want to create and make in the world (including
content, projects, ventures, movements, organizations, events, programs,
possibly a school (a cool one)),
…and
last but definitely not least:
RELATIONSHIPS
(this currently includes family (6 blood-related peeps, and 2 non-blood related
peeps (upgraded friends :)) and then friends (people who I see value
having in my life whet). The important thing here is that I thing relationship
(no matter the nature romantic/friendship/or partnership on projects/ideas can
pop-up out of any of your life areas.
You
can meet someone important to your life in a gym, or through our interests, or
on your way to see your friends. You just have to be open to it here.
Now…
YOUR TURN: What
does it mean to be successful to YOU?
Take
the pulse, and see what’s your current reality.
Look
at successes (well tangible ones as indicators only, and look at what it took
you (sacrifices, mistakes, different treys, time, failures, challenges, skills,
habits, support network) to achieve them, and how you’ve evolved along the way.
But
also take a look at why did you fail, or why for some things it’s still taking
you to try and fail, and for some you did it a bit faster? Maybe sometimes on
the first try?
Once
you start doing this, it kind of spirals, you start seeing connection with how
one skill made a lot of difference, or how one habit made progress a bit
easier, and so on.
The
point is to see the pattern.
THERE
IS ALWAYS A PATTERN.
(something
a crazy person would say, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there).
Now,
once you look back, the next step is to embrace it and then focus on where do
you want to go from here.
Good
way to go about this is to imagine the end. Create the urgency and try to
imagine yourself looking back at your life.
Who’s
the person you ended up becoming in your head? I mean the ideal version of
yourself? And what did that person manage to create and make in the world
around them?
Give
yourself time to think about this. Steal from whatever has made sense in the
past, including this article, but at the end of the day, create your own. Don’t
get stuck on the phrasing, just give your mind a direction.
Then
write it down (still won't be the final one — trust
me), but it’s a great place to start.
After
you have this idea, run it through your most important life areas.
Look at all
the aspects of your life…
·
Health
·
Growth (intellectual and emotional)
·
Business/Career
·
Relationships
·
Creativity
·
Spirituality
·
Contribution
·
Experiences
·
INSERT OTHER(S) YOU FIND VALUABLE ENOUGH TO HAVE IT’S
OWN SLOT:
I
grouped them in 4 for the sake of simplicity, but you don’t have to.
ONCE
YOU DEFINE them, try to think about what would it mean to be successful in each
one of them.
Here
are a few ways to go frame this:
Health:
What does it mean to be healthy and fit for you?
In
diet would it mean to obsessively count calories, or you are okay with learning
more about it, so you can take care of yourself most of the time (and still
enjoy a cheat meal)?
In
fitness, is low body fat percentage your definition and optimizing it a bit
more, or you’re good with going to the gym a few times a week, and walking a
bit more just to know you’re doing enough to remain healthy?
Relationships:
For some, it might be to find and partner up romantically with a great person
or if you already got that special one, then how to upgrade that relationship
into something better? What do you define as success here? Think about
interactions with your family, or a romantic partner, friends, or business
partner-friends…
…and
so on with your other areas. Business, growth, and so on.
You
can take it from here, just be honest with yourself, after all it’s not like
you are creating an idea of what kind of a person you want to become, and what
kind of a life you want to lead…
Final Takeaway
Where
do you go from there?
Well,
if you’re reading this, you probably already have a lot to think about.
After
that, tomorrow, and the next day, that’s up to you how you want to approach
your life.
Know
that you have a lot of options, but in the end, it will all go back to what
system you use to run your days, and make the best out of them, as your average
day is a good indicator of how your life will turn out to be. No matter how
many years you might have (whether it be 20, 40, or 60).
So
if you have good days, great days, or awesome days (days with progress
according to your definition of success), more often than the bad ones (which
are bound to happen once in a while), you’re good to go.
Just
remember that.
https://medium.com/@zdravko/redefining-success-bc13ce2bf454?inf_contact_key=9530235805047817ae095c831e8e47c8680f8914173f9191b1c0223e68310bb1
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