3 Questions To Know If You're Successful

Something that people like us, who are ambitious and deeply invested in their self-growth, are chasing in their life is to be successful. And while society measures success in one way, we’ve learned that the secret to success is defining it for yourself.

Understanding the role that seeking success has played in my life, I’ve gone through a few iterations of it myself. I adopted Darren Hardy’s definition whereby you reflect on how you’re doing in 6 areas of your life to audit your holistic success. I love John Wooden’s definition for success, which is “Peace of mind, which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to become the best of which you are capable".

For whatever reason, last week something came to mind that suggested success is even simpler. Knowing if you're successful comes down to your answer to 3 questions:

1. Are you happy? It’s a hard question to answer, but such an important quality in life. To be happy means that you generally feel positive emotions of contentment and inner peace. While sensations of happiness are informed by experiences, it really is an internal relationship with how you view life around you.
   
   
2. Are you and your loved ones provided for? This is primarily financial but by a different definition. It’s a matter of if your baseline needs are met or not. Most people associate making more money with being more successful, but what if financial success is a game of meeting a quantified minimum standard rather than filling an endless pit of more?
   
   
3. Do you feel like you have a sense of purpose? That doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re making a big difference in the world, it can just be that you have a role to play in your world. To have a purpose means that you have a reason to wake up in the morning, and whether it’s helping people who depend on you, clients in business having a more positive experience, or something else, all you need is some engine that actively fuels your life.

Maybe we look at it from the other side. The opposite of being successful is being a failure. What ultimately means that someone is failing at life? Perhaps they’re not enjoying it, they’re not provided for, and they don’t have a sense of meaning.

For whatever reason, the criteria for feeling like a failure is way more lenient than for being a success. In many ways we’ve set an unreasonable standard, and simplifying it down to these 3 questions helps to see it for what it is. 

Having said that, much of personal development is a process to increase your confidence in responding to the same 3 questions. There’s always more to uncover, create, and become, but don’t mistake that you need all of that to be successful. You already are, and now it’s just a matter of cultivating more goodness so that you can share your success with others.