How To Define Success
Table of Contents
First you should be asking: "How do I define success?"
Success is subjective, it’s defined by your own terms. Is happiness success? Is it wealth? Is it a perfect balance of everything?
These are all questions you need to ask, to figure out how you define success yourself.
Your goals and success criteria need to be specific, too. Vague ambitions give vague results.
For me it’s independence, in the absolute sense, and being able to support others in their personal growth, no matter the pillar of life someone finds themselves needing help in.
You need to know yourself, to know what you want out of life.
Some people who work really hard, over 70 hours a week, will notice other parts of their life suffer. Be it friends, family, intimate relationships, or even health.
Every life on earth has been through a different struggle, but the human mind tends to cling to the limitations and boundaries we set for ourselves.
Knowing and taking notes of your limitations, strengths, and key experiences is key to planning and developing the future life you want to have.
To reach a goal, you must first define it.
Between you, right now, and the life you want with the goals you want to achieve, is not lightyears away.
All desires and needs are measurable and attainable.
You need to quantify, to a very specific degree — "What do I want out of life?".
"I want a nice house", should be elaborated into:
"I want a 5,000sq single family, 2 story home, with a pool, garden, 3 bedroom & bathrooms, and garage space for 4 cars".
"I want to be financially independent", should be elaborated into:
"I want to earn 100,000$ per year; have 1,000,000$ invested; have passive monthly income of 2,500$".
Set specific goals, reverse engineer and make a plan going backwards towards your present life, which will show a workable path you can take to achieve them.
Define what you want, what interests you, and what you would want to achieve throughout your lifetime.
Now you will refine your aspirations, to create a list of aspirations and achievements that will lead you to them.
List down at least 20 ideas, in any order. Mark down any and all ideas that come to mind.
Now that you have your list of aspirations and achievements, we want to create goals (AKA milestones) which will get you what you want.
If you’ve studied project management, this process will come second nature to you. As refining and planning out a project can be transferable to your own personal life.
Create generalized goals that would help you achieve your aspirations or achievements. Do this for the top 10 goals you would most want to achieve.
What do you want to achieve this week, this month, and this year. All of these questions need to be a part of your goal-planning process.
To be aware that, by accomplishing this goal, your life will be incrementally better.
Here’s a general template for defining goals:
What do I want to achieve today
Next week
This month
This year
Include your achievements in these categories. Now we’ll create a plan to achieve these goals.
For example, if you want a net worth of 1 million dollars, your goals can include:
Achieve a 50,000$ net worth
Purchase a business or asset with a 50,000$ down payment
Reach 100,000$ in net revenue per year
Pay off all debts
Reach 1,000,000$ in net assets
Now that you’ve defined and selected your goals, it’s time to narrow down your options into manageable pieces and craft an achievable timeline.
As you can’t do everything at once, you need to prioritize your goals.
What would you want to achieve this week, month, and year.
Create and incorporate your goals and timelines to your life, in an order of priority.
For example:
I need to save 20,000$ to be able to buy a home.
I need to buy a home to be able to rent it to tenants.
Each achievement requires a set of goals to be met. How you achieve your goal is what you’d have already outlined.
After creating an elaborate timeline for each achievement, it will give you a clear path to your defined metrics for success.
Now that you have a timeline, as well as a list of goals and achievements, you can now refine your plan to achieve everything as quickly as possible.
Combining everything together, or completing multiple goals at the same time can drastically increase the rate at which you can accomplish your goals and reach your success metrics.
Refining your process is to make your plan more efficiently. Ask yourself:
How can I achieve this, but faster?
What lesser important goals can I remove from my plan?
Who can I hire to do certain types of work for me?
Reduce the amount of unnecessary work you need to achieve your goals and find creative solutions to make the process faster. Whether that’s raising capital, changing jobs, asking for a raise, or taking a new course and learning new skills.