Standards of success

Few days before the end of this year, I want you friends to reflect on success, on your standards of success. What is success for you? Do you feel yourself successful? What are your standards of your success? This reflection below is from the guru of leadership Robin Sharma. Hope it will help you reflect on your standards, and make you feel successful in spite of your little achievements and your non-achievements of the past. Now, let's read the text below:


So many of us don't feel successful. Despite our accomplishments at work, the love in our families or our health we don't feel that we have made it. And, it's just not true. Many of us, are in fact, quite successful. Yet we don't appreciate our success because we make two mistakes when it comes to thinking about success. The first is that we are measuring against the wrong standards. The second is that our definition of success is too narrow.

The wrong standards for success are simple to identify. Any standards but your own are wrong. The most accurate and relevant way to measure success is against your own results. How far have you come in a year? How much deeper are your relationships? How much fitter are you? What did you get done this year? When you compare your current results with your past results you get the right data about your success.

The second trap is that people only measure success in terms of accomplishments. Did I get a raise? Did I win the marathon? Did I get married? Don't get me wrong--accomplishments are important. However, there are two other dimensions I want you to think about; joy and impact. Just working for accomplishments will leave you empty at the end of the day. However, if you have experienced joy and made an impact on those around you, you are truly successful.

Now that the end of the year is approaching I respectfully suggest that you look back a year (or three years or five years) at the results you were realizing and how you are experiencing more accomplishment, joy and impact now.

In Leadership,