What is success and how to become successful?

How many times have you seen others doing better than you and you secretly want to be there? If you want to be truly successful, if you want to connect to yourself on a deeper level, get to know yourself better, and live an abundant life, keep reading. 

What is success?

To answer this, I looked up in a dictionary. It says this: “the accomplishment of an aim or purpose.” It also says ‘the good or bad outcome of an undertaking. The last one made me think. Does this mean you can be successful at doing something bad? And the answer came in the question. You can be successful in having a bad relationship, not loving yourself, paying no respect to others, or doing a lousy job. You can be successful at having an average business/blog/product. Sounds weird, doesn’t it? The thing is ‘success’ doesn’t necessarily mean something ‘good’, neither does it mean it will bring you what you desire. Having this in mind, the first thing that pops in my mind is this question: what is it that you want?

Not so long ago, I started feeling successful. I started noticing how much I have grown, how much I have learned, how strong yet flexible I have become. Instead of comparing myself to others, I looked at my old self of a few years back, and compared to myself now. The difference was drastic. And no, this is not my ego speaking. I became successful at what and how I do, not on the terms and in the eyes of someone else, but from my own perspective. And here’s how the story goes. 

Before I started my entrepreneurial journey, I followed quite some interesting people on Instagram, and each and every single one of them had a different story around their brand, a different vibe around their following, different background, and level of knowledge related to business (and everything else). I saw some of them being successful at what they do, or at least it was what I perceived as successful, and I wanted to taste how it felt. 

So, how to become successful?

It was all up until one day when I was listening to a podcast by beautiful Kylie Camps, where she was talking about what it means to be successful. She said that in order to be successful, you need to DEFINE what success means to you in the first place. At that point, the pieces have just come together for me. She also mentioned how success changes from one period of life to another, and it even can alter from day to day. 

Let me give you an example that Kylie brought up. If you were a new mother with a fresh little baby by your side, success to you, besides keeping your little one fed, clean, nurtured, and taken care of, could be taking a shower without disturbance every day. Knowing this, to make yourself feel good, happy, and able to ‘survive’ the first challenging days, you should organise yourself that way to make that one shower a day possible. If you are a mother, you know how this can be almost impossible on some days. But making it happen would bring you a sense of success. And this is exactly what blew my mind. 

Start by defining success

Comparing yourself to others is the worst thing you can do. This gives you the victim mentality and takes away your power of creating your own reality. To overcome this, you need to figure out what you want to achieve longterm. To get to that place eventually, you will need to set goals. Goals are projects that need actions to be accomplished. Now listen to this – completing an action you have defined will make you successful. You see the analogy? It is actually pretty simple. Start by defining success. What does success mean to you at this level? As I mentioned before, when you look at the bigger picture, you can see the milestones you need to reach. When you define the milestones, you can set projects that will get you there. When you know your projects or goals, you know what actions you need to take to get there. 

And this principle applies to ANY aspect of your life, no matter the level you are on. 

Set small goals

Here is a short table of possible situations, goals, milestones to achieve, projects that will help you get there and actions that need to be taken. It is general and approximate, but it might help you understand better. 

Anyhow, completing any of actions mentioned above will bring you a sense of success. Therefore, the only questions you need to ask yourself is what is it that you want and what does success mean to you at this moment. 

When you start small, when you are able to feel successful in your daily life, this emotion of success will attract opportunities that will help you feel more successful. Success is not for the wealthy, healthy, educated, beautiful, and happy ones. It is a matter of you being clear with yourself about what you want your life to be. If that is an average salary, that is great. If that is an empire, that is great. Go for what you want. Just know that having it all won’t make you successful if it is coming from fear, insecurities and traumas you haven’t dealt with. 

So think about it thoughtfully. What would make you feel good today? What would make you feel successful today or by the end of the week? Have your vision in mind, know your goal, and set small projects that will get you there. Waiting to get a certain following or earn a certain amount of money or just to ‘get there’ will make you exhausted, burnt out, and missing life and enjoying in this beautiful process and journey that it truly is.

Becoming successful is a state of mind

It really doesn’t matter where you are at in your life right now, there is no need to wait for things to happen so you can be successful. You already are successful, if you choose to see it that way. It is up to you. Set small goals, take actions, and notice when you do. Remember to praise yourself and celebrate every single action you have completed. Joy is your reward and becoming successful is a state of mind.

I hope this article was helpful to you, if so please leave a comment and share it with your friends.

If you don’t follow me on Instagram, I’d be glad to connect with you over there. Also, I just started my YouTube channel so make sure to check it out and hit Subscribe for more insights on branding, soulful business, and growth.

Until next time, 

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