What is success? How do you know you have attained it–personally or professionally? If you had to assign success a color, what color might you choose? You see, there are as many definitions of success as there are individuals. And it all depends on your priorities. A passing grade in a course is one person’s success while achieving an A+ is another’s. It’s all relative. While you might be prone to thinking of success in terms of it’s likely polar opposite–failure–stretch a little. See success as varying shades of a color. See it in terms of the learnings from some of the mistakes we must make along the way.
I gave this some thought and came up with my definition: “Completing a task to the best of my abilities, based on my commitment to a goal, and then reflecting upon what I have learned and how I will apply that learning in the future.” Then I thought about it some more and distilled it to: “Success is achieving my goals” even if it takes longer because I have encountered some bumps along the road.
The color of my success would be yellow, a bright sunny yellow representing that feeling of sheer happiness resulting from my achievement. In fact, I think of a yellow brick road, paved with good intentions, and leading to what I love. For me, so long as the intentions are good, then so are the mistakes made along the way. This is how we learn.
When creating your definition of success, keep it all about you. You cannot borrow from someone else when fashioning your success statement. While imitation is the highest form of flattery, you must define success in terms of your own life and goals. Give it a color that reflects your passion. Go ahead…define and color your success. I’d love to hear about it.