Do you consider yourself successful? It all depends on what pieces of your life you measure. It can seem easier to find success at work but forget other areas of our lives. Regardless of what your position is in the company, there are clear goals that you are trying to achieve. But it can be hard to define and even feel successful in other areas of life, especially with how busy we all are.
Redefine Success:
Maybe it’s time we redefine what success is and stop applying it mainly to our work. Perhaps we should call it by another name, instead of “success”, because that indicates that we are either winning or losing. Success might be achieved in other areas of your life and you may not even know it!
Dan Miller, the author of “48 Days to the Work You Love, gives these 3 points when you don’t feel successful.
– If you feel like a failure, you might be a success by standards you have not yet honored.”
– Maybe you don’t have a mansion on a hill but people recognize your home as “a haven of peace.”
– You don’t have a 401k but have been told: “if I had only one friend in the world, you would be enough.”
Do you need to redefine success? What areas of your life can you find success? You can’t control what happens to you but you can control your attitude and reaction. So look for areas of your life that you can control the success, rather than looking at things influencing you. Take back control.
Take a step back:
What’s the typical response when you ask someone how they’re doing? Everyone says, “I’m busy!”. But what if we take a step back and instead of picking up our phones to check social media, we spend 1 minute appreciating what’s around us? What if we think about things that make us happy instead of dwelling on what’s frustrating us? Maybe one of the reasons we don’t see success in our lives is because we are not appreciating each little moment that we’re given.
Tony Robbins recommends taking a few minutes every day to express gratitude. Tony thinks of three things he is grateful for and thinks for one minute on each. It could be a loved one, a fond memory you from your past or something as simple as enjoying your morning coffee and feeling appreciative about it. I have found that taking the time to be thankful every day has been one of the best strategies to start off my day right.
Measure it:
Do you set goals in all areas of your life including your fitness, family, relationships, and even happiness? That’s right, you can set “happiness goals”. You don’t have to be rigid in these goals. Based on your personality you might not have thought about measuring success in other areas of your life besides your work. I have found the task to be challenging but something that is very rewarding. Make it fun and see how your brain starts striving to achieve success in these areas.
Leverage Technology:
There are several smartphone apps that help you with track and measure habits. I recommend apps like HabitBull (iOS and Android), Productive (iOS only) and Coach.me. You can create habits, the regularity you want them to occur (daily, weekly, etc) and they will remind you when you should do the habit. So you can create a daily habit to play with your kids, dwell on 3 things that made you happy, do 10 pushups or eat a healthy breakfast. One of my favorite parts of many of these apps is that they make a game out of your habits by showing you how many times in a row you have accomplished the habit and award you points. It is fun to look back and see your progress. For added motivation, you can even challenge your friends to see who can maintain the longest streak in a given habit.
10 simple things you can do to find success in unexpected places:
- Put your phone down at dinner and talk with your family or friends to listen and encourage them
- Tell a loved one something you appreciate about them
- Compliment a different co-worker each day on something other than their appearance
- Pay for someone behind you in the drive-through
- Spend 5 minutes each day being grateful
- Eat something healthy once per day instead of fast food or pre-packaged food
- Share favorite memories with your parents or siblings, even if you have a broken relationship
- Donate a weekend afternoon to your favorite charity
- Have your neighbors over for dinner
Once you take control of your gratitude and attitude, you will get in the habit of finding success in all areas of your life. And it might be more simple than you think.