Before you even finish high school, you were probably bombarded with people telling you how to achieve “success”. Without your own definition, though, that advice is meaningless.
Photo by Brian Snelson.
Among the people who like to give out advice, there’s often a much heavier emphasis on how to achieve success than there is in defining it. This is partly because only you can define what “success” means. It may mean seeing your name in marquee lights, or it may mean raising a family on modest income. It will take very different strategies to achieve these separate goals. So, before you heed someone else’s advice on how to succeed, think for a moment about what you want to succeed at. As business site Inc. explains:
At the end of the day, success and feeling successful comes down to the measures that you put into place, for yourself. The external will always be there. The nice car, the gold watch, the big flashy title at the big prestigious firm — those rewards will always exist, and can surely act as short-term motivation. But the long idea, the intrinsic motivation for your quest to greatness should come from a deeper sense of satisfaction, and that is something only you can define for yourself.
It’s also important to note that some advice on how to “succeed” could be destructive to your goals if it’s not applied appropriately. For example, we can give out plenty of advice on how to build your resume, but for some creative types, a portfolio, demo reel or audition tape are far more important. Your definition of success has to determine the goals you set before you work on the methods to get there.
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