What is success?
My first substack article
What is success?
How do we define it?
What are the metrics we use?
Is there a set of defined metrics that is universal?
Is it dependent on the individual?
Goggins would say it's not cookie cutter.
These are the questions that have been running through my mind for a long time. Success is chased because it gives us this feeling like we're moving forward.
Andrew Huberman would be able to tell you how success is felt from a neurobiological perspective. He would tell you which parts of the reward centres of the brain are triggered and why it feels so good when we achieve something.
Is that what we were chasing then?
A feeling?
A sense of satisfaction that we’ve done something worthwhile?
How do we know something is worthwhile?
Is it worthwhile chasing something that is hard to get?
Are we simply going after something that is hard to get with the belief that this will give us a feeling of success?
Joe Rogan and Chris Williamson discuss this in depth in their podcast. They discuss achievement vs success and that often what can happen is that things that are hard to get fall also into the category of being worthwhile achievements. This means things like houses, cars, boats, money and other material assets become the things we chase. It's based on this belief that if I have these things as goals, that because they are hard to get, that when I get them I will feel successful.
I really loved the way this conversation played out and it made me think about it even more.
So now we get back to the big questions.
How do we define success?
I see so many people on social media who would appear to be successful. I say appear because the metric they are displaying is one of material possessions. There is nothing wrong with material possessions if that is how one defines THEIR success. Where it gets dangerous is when people in the public eye with a large following push these metrics as avenues to success. Followers then often fall into a trap of chasing certain goals because these are what they were shown as trophies of success.
In Buddhism desire is seen as the root of all suffering.
How then do we escape this trap?
Can we define success some other way?
The amazing thing about life is that it is a PICK YOUR OWN ADVENTURE.
You get to decide how you define success.
This means you get to define the metrics. All the goals I discussed above are what we call external forms of motivation. We strive towards them in the hope of receiving something outside of us. These rewards are fleeting and soon we move on to the next thing, in an endless race.
However there is another way.
We can create an intrinsic pathway to success. Where our feeling of success and fulfilment comes from within.
This is where I apply Simon Sinek’s ice cream cone analogy. At the centre or base of the cone is our why. In the heart of my why lies my values. My values are my love and connection with the people in my life, my physical and mental health, travel, my commitment to my own personal growth and finally, helping other people grow. These are my big 5. Every decision I make starts with these metrics at the centre of my why. People will know my why when they see what I do. Because the things I do exemplify my why. The how involves the actions I take to live out my why. For example, because I value travel, when I make decisions about how I spend money, travel becomes part of the decision to spend or not spend. Is spending that money enabling me to live out my why, or is it getting in the way of that?
I hope you're starting to get a clearer picture of where I'm going with this.
Let’s go back to the big questions once again.
What is your Why? What do you value most in your world?
If you don’t know this then this is where you need to start. You need to create your own roadmap. A great book which helped me get started was Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
Once you’ve defined your WHY you can then begin to decide WHAT you need to do to live out that WHY.
This is how I define success.
Success for me also means going beyond my own limits.
Alex Hormozi talks about this in his youtube clips, in his 28 rules to not be successful.
Just doing your best is one of the best ways to be poor. He reframes this by simply saying that if your best isn't good enough then you need to BE BETTER. This crosses over directly with Jocko who quotes if you want to be tougher then BE TOUGHER.
As you move through this process you’ll notice that in my own definition of success there is no end goal or prize. Because I don’t define success that way.
To me success is not something that can be achieved and then moved on from.
It’s a state of being. A process that is ongoing.
One that is never finished.