What does ‘success’ mean to you?

On a podcast I heard, a startup founder asserted he’d be a success once he’d created wealth ten times what he’s worth today.

My 20-something self would have agreed. Back then, I’d have said success is about ticking off my career goals, getting promoted every year, and the accompanying increases in money and status.

But boy did I learn the hard way! That kind of success didn’t bring me joy and fulfilment. So then I started putting emphasis on my quality of life rather than on my spreadsheet.

To me today, ‘success’ means having freedom, which means structuring my days around what I need to feel good. It’s the small stuff, like taking my notepad to my local coffee shop at 11 because I don’t have a jam-packed calendar.

Success for me is about doing work that delivers tangible change to people’s work lives. Seeing the organisational change that comes from delivering a workshop. Or going into a bookstore in another city and finding one of my books on the shelf. And so now as a 50-something who’s seen ‘success’ from all angles, that’s more than enough for me.

We are all different. Your success metric might be earning a six figure salary or making sure you’re around for your kids. Or both. No one metric is better than the other.

What’s key is knowing what success looks like for you. Knowing what’s important will help you reach your goals, and it might just help you reconfigure your life and expectations. It may surprise you.

Rethinking my notion of success was a game-changer. What does success mean to you?