How do you measure success?

I measure success by how much closer I have come to achieving my goals in life. Any kind of progress towards those goals is considered a success in my book.
 
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Ben_ said:
I measure success by how much closer I have come to achieving my goals in life. Any kind of progress towards those goals is considered a success in my book.
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Pretty much.

Lookit: here's the the formula I've used to achieve amazing results in my life:

1) As best as you can, define where you want to go (in terms of money, relationships, career, health, blah blah blah)
2) Do something --anything-- to start you moving towards those goals
3) Never compare where you are currently to where you want to be (as outlined in the first point) or where others are
4)Always compare yourself to where you were yesterday. If you are further along, you're succeeding. If not, step it up a bit

In other words: if you are moving towards your dreams and making measurable progress, that's all you need to know. You're on the right path. Know this. Everything else (especially what everyone else is doing) is bullshit.

You only ever need to compete against yourself. That is, the 'you' from yesterday.
 
The dictionary defines success as the act of obtaining personal or professional goals; nothing more, nothing less; simply an aspect of living life. I feel if I do what I love and love what I do I'll be happy, and if I'm happy I'm successful. I used to think success would lead to happiness but it's really happiness that leads to success :wink:. Successes and failures come and go throughout life. Not all successful people are happy, but all happy people are successful, at least in my eyes :wink:. Somewhere along the road to success I lost sight of this.
 
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Defining success is too complicated to limit to a single person's view of success. There is academic success, professional success, financial, social, and personal success. Success will never just be how I define it. My success in my profession is not something I can define simply by what I think is successful. I can work hard and believe I have been successful and someone else whether a supervisor, manager, client, customer, etc. may say or think otherwise which can affect any personal feeling of accomplishment since it conflicts with how I defined success. I can be professionally very successful and oddly enough not be financially successful. I can be financially successful but yet still not feel like a personal success because I still may not have everything I want. I can be a social success but not be a financial success. I can feel like a personal success and not be financially successful which may later affect my personal success if I can't have the freedom to have the things I want or do what I want to do without depending on someone else (job, family, etc.) for financial or social assistance. Academic success is often defined by how well you do in a class on the class, instructor, and college requirements. I can achieve success academically but yet not be a professional success e.g. career, business, etc. You can be an academic success and not be a social success which later affects your professional success. On the other hand, I may be seen as a social success but not feel like a personal success, having not achieved or accomplished what I want to do for myself. And I can be a personal success and still not be considered a social access. So, as much as I'd like to think (in an ideal world) that only personal success matters, that is obviously not true. Fact is, standards of judgment for success are relative. Limiting it to individual measurements of success ignores the interdependence of the various systems of evaluations used to determine success in our various cultures and social environments. If our society was accepting and supportive of personal determinants of success as having the same value as more common and popular definitions of success, then our world would be quite different.
 
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i define success as the act of following through, seeing something to its completion, regardless of what that is.
professional or financial success is an illusion to me - it's not ever going to feed my spirit.
 
For a given propensity n, success is proportional to the magnitude of n.

Let n be the quantity of sparkling confetti that I throw around.
 
Maven said:
Defining success is too complicated to limit to a single person's view of success. There is academic success, professional success, financial, social, and personal success. Success will never just be how I define it. My success in my profession is not something I can define simply by what I think is successful. I can work hard and believe I have been successful and someone else whether a supervisor, manager, client, customer, etc. may say or think otherwise which can affect any personal feeling of accomplishment since it conflicts with how I defined success. I can be professionally very successful and oddly enough not be financially successful. I can be financially successful but yet still not feel like a personal success because I still may not have everything I want. I can be a social success but not be a financial success. I can feel like a personal success and not be financially successful which may later affect my personal success if I can't have the freedom to have the things I want or do what I want to do without depending on someone else (job, family, etc.) for financial or social assistance. Academic success is often defined by how well you do in a class on the class, instructor, and college requirements. I can achieve success academically but yet not be a professional success e.g. career, business, etc. You can be an academic success and not be a social success which later affects your professional success. On the other hand, I may be seen as a social success but not feel like a personal success, having not achieved or accomplished what I want to do for myself. And I can be a personal success and still not be considered a social access. So, as much as I'd like to think (in an ideal world) that only personal success matters, that is obviously not true. Fact is, standards of judgment for success are relative. Limiting it to individual measurements of success ignores the interdependence of the various systems of evaluations used to determine success in our various cultures and social environments. If our society was accepting and supportive of personal determinants of success as having the same value as more common and popular definitions of success, then our world would be quite different.
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It's taken me a few days to digest all of this. I actually read it a few times. I feel like some blinding light was just shined on some dark recess of my brain :becky:. You're right, defining success is a complex paradox. A person can simultaneously succeed and fail in the same area. I had never thought about it to this extent before or from this perspective. Thanks for taking the time to write that.
 
Yes. Success at the office can cause failure in the home.
 
Money, Fame, Girls, it really isn't that complicated.

What things are meaningful? Now that's a different question altogether.
 
Success is when:

1. You are at your best, at any given moment.
2. You are on the path to reaching your highest potential -- whatever is now or ever was in your heart to accomplish (during the Imperfect Life or in Paradise).
 
I don't think that success in a general sense is a real thing; it is only constructed for us socially.

Tomorrow I may feel that today's success was a mistake. Maybe it ended up backfiring, or maybe it was a temporary state.

I don't think it exists at all.
 
I see success as being healthy and happy. I don't necessarily mean physical health but more mental health

But only if this is achieved through genuine open eyed awareness rather than through clinging to illusion or by using artifical means; i think it is to do with balance between extremes

I think when people cling to illusions they are setting themselves up for a fall as the reality train comes steaming in

I think the success of an individual and society can be measured through their/its health and happiness

Under this veiw a person with little material wealth can be far more successful than a materially wealthy person

This view runs completely contrary to the current ideology of materialism (not in a philosophical sense)/consumerism/capitalism and is likely to be strongly hated by anyone living by that ideology....by anyone who has formed an attachment to that way of thinking. In fact it seems to rouse anger in them which suggests that on some level they doubt their own ideology
 
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