Fresh Start Monday #050: How do you define success?
I remember landing my first full-time job at a tech startup in NYC. I was 24 years old.
In that period of my life, my definition of success centered around rising up the corporate ladder and making more money.
I think of one executive at that company in particular. He was in his 40's, charismatic, made who knows how many hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, and lived in Manhattan. He became a mentor and someone I looked up to.
After two years of going after "success", and achieving much of it, I was shocked to discover how unhappy it made me.
I didn't understand at that age, but my definition of success was shaped by living in NYC, and my working environment.
When you look up the definition of success, you see three different answers.
1.
2. Success is the achievement of a high position in a particular field, for example in business or politics.
3. Someone or something that is a success achieves a high position, makes a lot of money, or is admired a great deal.
Those are our stereotypical definitions of success. But how about 1?
1. Success is the achievement of something that you have been trying to do.
*You* is the word I want to highlight. What is your definition of success? What are you trying to do?
For young professionals and people in their 20s and 30s, it's critical to continue iterating and defining what success looks like for you.
Otherwise, you'll be chasing a life that someone else dreamt up. Or a life your younger self tried to do.
Journal Prompts
1. How did you define success at age 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40 etc.?
2. When you look at those definitions of success, which parts came from within? Which ones were shaped by your external environment, friends, peers, family, or society?
3. What does success look like for you now?
Local to Boulder, CO?
Join me this Wednesday (8/16) on Meetup to reflect on what success means to you with other like-minded people in their 20s and 30s.
Wine & Words on Wednesdays - 20s and 30s
Wednesday, August 16th at 6pm MT at Eben G. Fine Park