Describe success in seven letters, but before you do read this …
Throughout August exam results cause stress to millions of young people across the UK. With a dropped grade potentially meaning a missed place in Sixth Form or at university, the wish to do well and fulfill your potential can cloud the lazy summer days with anxious violet streaks as you wait. But is it all worth it? In ten years time will an eighteen year old of today look back on this summer as the pinnacle of his/her success? Or will it have faded behind new successes and further goals reached? Alternatively, will the eighteen year old who fell in love this summer judge themselves more of a success than the person with A*’s if they are still happily with their partner after a decade? Which is the bigger success story?
This got me thinking that perhaps success is more about being the best you can be, for yourself, rather than the number of GCSE’s or A Levels you get. After all, what more can you give of yourself than your best?
‘The man who has done his level best, and who is conscious that he has done his best, is a success, even though the world may write him down as a failure.[1]’ – B.C. Forbes
With this in mind I started to ask family, friends, colleagues and young people what constitutes personal success to them. For some success is measured by the size of their house, TV screen, bank account or car. For others it is finding love or becoming a parent that ticks their personal box marked ‘success’ whilst for those battling disease and sickness staying alive is achievement enough.
Corbett Barr, an influential American blogger, podcaster, independent entrepreneur and co-founder/CEO of Fizzle is adamant that there are no shortcuts to success.
‘If the only way you’re willing to achieve your goal is through miraculous luck (like winning the lottery), then I say your goal isn’t something you really want. If you really wanted the goal, you’d stop fxxxxng around playing the lottery and commit to doing whatever it takes to achieve it.[2]’
In other words if you want success badly enough set a goal, get a plan, work hard, stick to it and it shall be yours. Effort = reward. But is this true? Can everybody be uber successful? Or can ordinary ever be enough to equate to success? Barr’s version seems less about spiritual or emotional fulfillment and more about material wealth, which arguably reflects a society where the concept of success is based on how much money a person has.
I prefer the notion that passion, for whatever you have decided to do, is a deciding factor in whether you are successful at it or not. Whether that is using your creativity to write a book or paint, acting in an amateur dramatics production, volunteering in the community or training for a professional role, it must surely help if you intrinsically believe in what you do and like doing it.
‘Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.’– Albert Schweitzer[3]
To be honest I’m not sure where I expected my research to take me or what I expected to find, but the general consensus seems to be that success looks different to different people. This was not wholly unsurprising, but what did amaze me was the lack of acceptance and understanding people have for each other’s definitions. Some of those I spoke to genuinely could not see past their drive for money to be able to accept that success for someone else could be meeting someone special on Tinder. One man told me, ‘my business doing well and making me money equals success. A relationship is more something that hopefully happens along the way.’
Similarly, some people were scathing about those who find true pleasure and joy in their work, insisting they should ‘get a life’. Others described a stuffed bank account as ‘nice’, but only for the security it offers or the things money can buy, rather than the acquisition of wealth itself denoting a successful life.
My conclusion? I agree with Chin-Ning Chu when she explains, ‘a successful life is one that is lived through understanding and pursuing one’s own path, not chasing after the dreams of others.[4]’ True success is a personal thing, which should not be judged by anyone else, no matter how well intentioned. If you want to be successful, then the first thing you have to do is to take the time to decide exactly what that means to you before you start planning ways to get it. What is it you really want from life and what would change if you had it?
In answering my own question I have decided that success in seven letters = ‘respect’. By that I mean respecting your own definition of success and that of others by developing the empathy to understand that the fire burns differently, but no less brightly in each of us. Success doesn’t have to look the same for everyone, but we do need to be able to respect one person’s version of it as much as the next.
Vanessa Rogers
(August 2015)