3 Ways To Know Whether You Are Succeeding in Life.

What do we mean by success?

It can mean different things to different people.

For some it is material wealth - cars, houses, x amount of money in the bank. For others it is peace of mind, a loving family or freedom (whatever that means to them).

But if you are at a point where by all external markers you are successful but it doesn't quite feel right or something feels off, how can you decide whether what you are experiencing is success or something else?

Comfort? Complacency? Contentment? (or the 3 C's, as I like to call them, of modern life)

So if you are wondering whether or not you have succeeded in life and you feel a little niggle of doubt, let me take you through 3 ways you can decide whether you life is indeed successful (for you).

1. Are you still learning?

Now you have reached the holy grail of success, are you still learning?

About your field, other people or indeed yourself?

Or have you just decided that now you have 'made it' (against your subjective markers) that you won't bother learning anything new about others or yourself and will just plow on till retirement or death?

Have you given up on expanding your mind, learning new skills or finding new interests?

If that is the case, then you are not a success. Because someone who embodies success never stops learning.

Let me give you an example: the billionaire investor Warren Buffet, aged 95 stated that he spends a good part of his day reading (5-6 hours in fact), just to keep up with what is going on around him and learn new things. He credits this reading habit and willingness to keep learning for his decades -long success.

So if a 95 year old can do it, why can't you?

So keep interested in life, other people, different topics and watch your mindset grow and expand. It could also open you up to more opportunities in life.

2. What has failure taught you?

Now I am not saying that you must fail tragically to be a success in life or that there must be an earth shattering epiphany, but you will find that 9 times out of 10, those who are successful in life will have failed at something.

It could be...

1. a business idea

2. a relationship

3. a job

Anything whatsoever, but the main thing that makes them successful is what they learnt from that failure in the long run, because failure makes us do a couple things.

1. Reflect on what went wrong and use it to remedy our mistakes or use it to do better next time i.e. improve or adapt.

2. Ruminate over what went wrong and blame it on others, the situations, our position in society or just wallow in self-pity.

Of course, the best course of action is 1, but at times even the best of us resort to no.2. I will give you an example from my life.

Years ago, I landed a job. At the time, I thought it was my dream job with a dream job title to go with it. I thought I had arrived, I had achieved my goal in life.

Then to my utter horror, three months in, I was fired!

Told to leave, do not return, collect your paycheck on the way out.

I was gutted and embarrassed.

I had never before been fired, let alone failed at anything spectacularly in my life.

I thought of myself as a hard worker and that I had done what was necessary within my job role.

I therefore spent the first week mooching around ,feeling sorry for myself and blaming everyone but me .. the economic climate (this was at the beginning of 2009), my bad employer and their lack of appreciation for my talent. The list goes on.

But after a while (on reflection) I came to realise the only person to blame was me and possibly my attitude.

Because, I had taken the job out of an inflated sense of my own abilities and the reality of the job did not match my expectations or skills. It was a complete mismatch.

I only, however, came to realise this after a deep-dive, into why I took the job in the first place and why that led to my poor performance due to a lack of commitment. It turns out I hated the job and this showed up in my work.

This invariably led to my sacking, and with time, I came to agree with their decision.

This failure taught me 2 things.

1. Don't overestimate your abilities or talents. By all means challenge yourself to improve on what you can do, but ultimately don't get too cocky.

2. You are the sum of your own choices. Not what your friend is doing, the company you work for or the city you live in. No - the choices you make frame the results you see.

This has informed a lot of my decisions since then. Not just in the workplace but in my daily life in my interactions with others and the day to day choices I make.

What then, have you learnt from failure that has affected your life?

3. What have you lost ?

Again, loss does not have to be earth-shattering or associated with grief. What I mean here is what have you had to sacrifice, give up or forgo to achieve your goals?

Because in order to gain or achieve something you will lose something. It will happen.

You must be prepared to lose something.

This could be anything from your sleep, time, money, status, titles, etc.

Once again, a lot of successful people (I am not talking about celebrities or billionaire moguls, they are the exception rather than the rule) but ordinary successful people have had to give up something to get to where they are and it has entailed blood, sweat and tears (and sometimes relationships) for that to happen.

Are you prepared to forgo watching TV every evening to start the business you have been talking about for forever?

Are you prepared to go back to school, study, or acquire a new skill to reach your professional goals?

Are you prepared to be frugal, cut out expenses and live a simple life to achieve financial freedom? Even if it means missing out for a while.

You see a lot of people want the success without the grind, the slog and the hard work because lets face it, it is not sexy and can actually take a long time.

However if you really want to think about success, you need to consider this because in the pursuit of excellence or success the loss is usually a lot less than the greater reward from an achieved goal. Think about it.

So those are the 3 ways in my opinion you can determine whether or not you are successful in life and if you find your self wondering whether you are indeed successful consider them;

1. Are you still learning?

2. What has failure taught you?

3. What if anything have you lost?

Thank you for reading and have a good day.