Recognizing Success

The word "success" has many, many shades of meaning, but ultimately, it's subjective. How you would define success for your life or your business, home, etc., will have a different shade of meaning than my definition or another person's. But we would all agree that in every industry, every home, every field of business or government, we are looking for, and seeking success. We want to know what's working and what we can count on. We strive for the examples to follow. Good examples will inspire and fuel future successes, so we want to follow successful leaders and decision makers. But how do we know success when we see it? I believe there are two questions that can help us in this and two questions that we must ask repeatedly of those who are claiming to be successful.

First, ask the question, "If this situation played out again, would you handle it the same way?" By asking this question, you are able to look at success from the end result. The process of getting to the result may or may not have been perfect, but if in the end, you wouldn't change the methods, then the process was successful by nature of the outcome. Along the way there may have been missteps, but success doesn't mean perfection. That's another word. Success can be measured by the degree to which we would do it the same way all over again. Sometimes, some of the missteps lead us to the perfect solutions. If we hadn't had the misstep, we would have missed out on a learning experience that changed our history. So again, based on the end result, success would be recognized by saying that you would do it the same way if given the choice.

Second, success should be inspirational and encouraging, so ask the question, "Does this person or thing inspire others to do the same?" Since so many are seeking to know success in their daily lives, success itself is a motivator, but we all know that we look to others to encourage us. That's true for success as well. If a person possesses endless cash but doesn't inspire others, then their "success" is worthless. It becomes Scrooge-like, and not success. Likewise if a person does fantastically well in their career but has no one to share their joys with, then they are not successful at all. They are lonely. Success must inspire others to seek the same hobbies, skills, talents, or ideas. It should be capable of imitating in similar fashion, or it's not success.

Recognizing success requires thought and application of these two questions. But we must remember that success and perfection are not the same thing. Seeking perfection is common, but far more unattainable than seeking success. But if we are going to seek success, we must know it when we see it in order to change our behavior to mimic it. Ask these two questions of those persons or events that seem successful to you, and see if your evaluation would change.

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