Am I Successful?

Society tends to evaluate how successful someone is with material wealth and possessions. While those things can be an outward sign of your success it reflects only a small piece of the bigger picture that is your life.A successful life should include far more than your work or finances.  A successful life is a life that is fulfilling in all areas. I believe you're responsibly to make your life successful it's your responsibility. Certainly others can help you, just as others can provide obstacles, but in the end you make your own success and your own failure.

"Success isn't a result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire." - Arnold H. Glasow

Relationships
In society today, people that are considered successful tend to work long hours as they focus the majority of their time and energy on building their careers or businesses. In many cases their relationships between their personal and family lives suffer. No matter how much financial success someone enjoys, it's an empty feeling if you don't have anyone to share it with. If on the other hand you leave early everyday you can pursue a rich and varied personal life yet you're unhappy on a material level. This lifestyle you've chosen and the way you've chosen to pursue it will not make you wealthy. Personal satisfaction is nice, but it's not enough.That's because your work, your family and friends, can never be separated from the others. Each is part of your life. Putting more focus on one area automatically reduces the focus on another area. Its very simple logic. If you want to make more money you can but something else has to give. If you want more time with family or friends or maybe you want to pursue a hobby, you can, but something else has to give. Remember the Scrooge was very financially successful but, he had no one to share his life with. His success was empty.

Happiness
You have to think about what motivates you. Think about what you want to achieve. What do you value most on a spiritual, material, or emotional level? Those are the things that will make you happy and if you aren't focusing on all of them you won't be happy. Sounds very simple but think about all the people who complain about their lives and the paths they chose to follow. For example, teachers who complain about their salaries. When they're in college and make that decision to become a teacher, you can assume they know what the average teacher makes when making that decision. I believe if you feel underpaid, maybe you don't enjoy teaching enough. If a teacher loves teaching they could accept the inevitable financial trade off. If you aren't happy it's time to rethink how you define success and its time to start making changes to your professional and personal life that align with that definition. What you're doing now isn't working for you.

Peace of mind
How can you be successful if you cannot have mental peace. Peace of mind consists of freedom from fear, anger, worry and guilt. Let it be through religion, faith, money, work or relationships, everyone is always searching for peace of mind. Unfortunately some attempt to achieve peace of mind through gambling in an attempt to gain money or drugs in an attempt to relieve themselves of fear. It seems the majority find their peace of mind through religion and faith and no matter how you define it, success must have peace of mind otherwise your success will be empty just like the Scrooge. 

Financial Freedom

As much as we've made finances seem worthless so far they truly do have some value in success. You don’t have to be incredibly wealthy in order to be successful, just have enough money to not have to worry about any financial burdens. Financial freedom is having enough to pay your bills, feed your family and pay for all your basic necessities. For some people fifty thousand dollars is plenty but for others five million isn’t nearly enough. It’s entirely dependent on how you wish to live your life.  

Goals and Personal Fufilment
Many people are concerned with their financial freedoms when they think about success, but once you have that big pile of cash, then what? This question is why you’ll constantly see many wealthy people giving back to the community or pursuing something else. Many perceive these moves as business plans in disguise but once you’re already financially fit, all that’s left to achieve are your unfinished goals and achieving what Maslow calls Self Actualization.  Humans, by nature, seek to improve themselves or something on a daily basis. This concept of self actualization is the idea of “being all you can be” or feeling like you’re making a difference in this world. For example, Bill Gates will never again have to worry about a thing in his life. He is happy, rich and has a wife and family, what’s left? Bill and his wife have created The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This final step is what makes Gates successful. 

 

What Makes Me Successful? 
Following my guidelines of what makes someone successful, I've determined i'm not quite there yet. When I think about relationships I'm happy to say I have many very treasured relationships. Let it be with my friends or my family or my girlfriend, they're all in good standing. Speaking of happiness, I've identified what I want to achieve in life and I consider myself a happy person. When I speak of peace of mind, I can't say I ever live in fear nor do I feel I need to further myself on a religious level. I cannot say that I'm in a financially driven peace of mind though, that still poses a threat to me. With that said we can assume my financial freedom is non-existent. As for goals and personal fulfillment, i'm still striving towards that everyday, but i'm not quite there.