How Do You Define Success?

The other day I heard Oprah Winfrey ask:
“How do you define success?”

I don’t know about you but the word success has been an emotionally fraught, super-charged word practically all my life.

I’d always been a hard-driving, achievement oriented person – chasing all the culturally defined, external “success milestones”. I did it because I had come to believe the idea that success was a precursor to happiness. I thought that if I put my head down and worked hard enough, that I’d be happy when ________ (fill in the blank). 

The reality was somewhat different than the fairytale dream.

I found that once I achieved an external, material goal the jubilation didn’t last long because there was always a new, bigger goal to achieve. So after a brief celebration, I put my head back down, assumed the no-pain no-gain mantra, and plowed ahead more determined than ever to get to that happy place. 

It wasn’t until I did a great deal of soul searching, got still, and started revisiting all the “should” messages in my life that I reconnected to my inner voice. The authentic one telling me what was important to me. The one that already knew what gave me meaning and purpose. The one that gave me the permission to define success on my own terms. 

That was the most liberating thing I could do and opened me up to access the joy in my life that had always there and had been always available to me – that was just hidden from view. Which is why I just LOVED Oprah’s answer to her own question: 
"Success is getting to the point where you are absolutely comfortable with yourself."

Wow. Simple, yet powerful. 

For me that's an achievable milestone worth pursuing.

How about you? How comfortable are you with yourself? How much meaning and purpose do you feel in what you are doing? How often are you accessing the joy available to us everyday? 

​How can I help?