Certified High-Performance coach, speaker, author, husband, adventurer, former commando-paratrooper, and tsunami survivor.
What would it be if I asked you to describe success in one word? Most of us would associate success with external achievements and material gains. But today, we’re going to dive deeper and explore an often overlooked connection—the profound link between personal fulfillment and success.
In this blog, I offer a fresh perspective on what it means to be successful and provide practical strategies tailored to your unique path. So let’s challenge the conventional definition of success and embark on a thought-provoking journey together.
This article addresses one of the key topics featured in the no-bullshit guide to creating success and fulfillment in life and business, where you’ll uncover the 3-part formula to design and live a more rewarding life. It may sound too good to be true, but it’s a system that actually works. If you haven’t read it yet, I highly recommend that you do so now to gain a better understanding of what it takes to reach excellence. Additionally, you can read the 4 steps to reach excellence and learn a methodology you can apply to any subject to speed up your progress.
Dr. Myles Munroe once said, “The greatest failure in life is to succeed at the wrong assignment.” And we all understand and agree with it. But still, we often get caught up in pursuing the wrong goals or chasing societal expectations. It requires awareness and intentionality not to, because our surrounding pushes us in a direction that is not always ours. Going against means defying the norms and being the weirdo. And you have to be ok with people judging you for it.
I’m 33 years old; I don’t own a house, a car, or fancy clothes. I don’t need those to be successful. True success lies in finding alignment with our authentic selves, our passions, and our purpose. It’s about discovering what fulfills us on a deeper level and channeling our efforts in that direction.
We wait too long before reflecting on what success truly means to us individually. We spend years working on things to realize they are not as meaningful as we thought.
Tony Robbins once stated, “Success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure.” These words hold profound wisdom. Achieving external success may bring temporary satisfaction, but without inner fulfillment, it remains empty. It’s time we shift our focus from solely pursuing achievements to seeking a sense of purpose, joy, and contentment in all aspects of our lives.
In our fast-paced world, we often crave shortcuts to success. We are wired to conserve energy, but there are no shortcuts. We must be willing to put in the hard work, make sustained efforts, and show unwavering commitment to our goals. Whether excelling in our fitness journey, building a thriving business, or building meaningful relationships, success demands intentional, disciplined, and conscious effort. It comes with sweat, doubts, and hardship.
Before we go further, let’s take the time to redefine success. Success means achieving a certain result; it is the positive termination of a goal. Therefore, success is measurable, and you are the one setting the metrics. Well, are you?
What metrics do you set for success? Is it money? Fame? Wealth? Deep relationship? It is up to you, but the reality is that you are highly influenced by your environment. No matter what you or the society set as success metrics, the only thing we truly want is to feel good. We will always be chasing a feeling, or actually, the things that we think will give us that feeling.
In this era where social media Apps rule our days (let’s be honest!), we keep comparing our life with others. We see pictures of people in sports cars, dining at fancy restaurants, flying in a private jet, or videos of couples jumping from a sailboat somewhere in the Caribbean. And you see that while laying on your couch in your sweat pants after 10h working in a job you don’t like, you can’t help to think that your life sucks. That’s the reality of many people.
The problem is that we associate how those people look from the outside with how they feel from the inside. When you look at the photo, you consciously or unconsciously analyze it: you identify people’s feelings (facial expression, body language) and observe their surroundings. Then you make a very biased conclusion: to feel how they feel, I need to have what they have.
You see appealing photos multiple times every day. And the more likes you give, the more the algorithm keeps showing you similar content. So you confirm your belief over and over again. Until you come to the conclusion that you will only feel [happy, joyful, loved, confident,…] when you will have [the car, the house, the partner, the boat, the suit,…]. That is the dangerous moment when you start giving exclusivity to a feeling. And so starts the quest for external success, hoping to feel better inside.
We create this illusion of success and money. We think this is the end goal. And so we take a detour instead of going straight to the only thing we really want: be happy and feel good. People focus all their energy and time and sacrifice their personal life to achieve something just to realize that they got it wrong when they finally have it.
But it doesn’t have to be you!
You don’t need to take a detour to experience those feelings! They are available to you.
The true essence of success lies in living a life that aligns with your values and brings you genuine happiness and well-being. Make sure you create those feelings every day through simple practices, and yes, sure, at the same time, you can pursue those big goals! Play the money game; it is so much fun! But remember that it is not the end goal.
I invite you to work on the following questions before reading further:
Success isn’t handed to us on a silver platter. It requires us to face challenges, overcome obstacles, and persevere through the inevitable struggles. So the most relevant question is:
“What am I willing to struggle for?”
We all want the outcome, but we are not all willing to put in the work to get there. Do you want to be an author? Are you willing to spend days, weeks, and months writing, rewriting, deleting, losing the motivation, being desperate (I know what I’m talking about; I’ve been there!), being lost, almost giving up, persevering, finishing your book, and in the end, selling less than 200 copies (that’s the average for self-publishing authors!). Is that worth it to you?
Do you want 6-pack abs? Are you willing to pay attention to your nutrition, push yourself hard at the gym, say no to social events compromising your health, and do all of that for months in a row (for life!)? Most people don’t, and they are uncomfortable taking off their shirts at the beach!
Defining the areas where you’re willing to invest time, energy, and effort will lead you toward a more purposeful and rewarding path.
Now that you have your definition of success, take a snapshot of it; an Instagrammable picture but with real internal feelings! What do you see? Let’s deconstruct the image into small bites.
I want you to look at the list of everything you see in that mental picture; it might be long and overwhelming. And if not, skip to the last section of this article!
If you have a long list, I ask you to stop lying to yourself. You know, those things you’ve wanted for years but never did anything about? They are causing pain and hurting your self-esteem.
Let’s explore a powerful distinction: wishes versus goals. A wish is merely an imaginary desire that lacks the power to create tangible results. It may inspire you, but it alone cannot transform your life. On the other hand, a goal is a firm declaration to yourself: “This is what I want, and I am willing to do whatever it takes to achieve it.” Goals provide direction and purpose, pushing us to take action in the present.
From that list, choose the ones you are ready to struggle for, strike through the others, and say, not now!
It was so liberating the first time I did that, I realized my mental dashboard was filled with projects that I had never started, every day reminding myself that I should do something about them, but I had no time (or actually, I was not willing to struggle for them and so it was not a priority).
Choose the wishes that will act as leverage to support the achievement of all the others. For example, your health is the foundation that supports all other aspects of your life. That would be a good place to start; just saying.
Now that you have this reduced list of wishes, it’s time to turn them into goals.
Read my other article about how to set goals and achieve them.
Setting goals is only the beginning. We set goals for our future selves, but it is the current version of us that must do the work to make those goals a reality. So yes, now comes the hard part: taking action. Once again, everybody wants to be successful, but only some people are willing to do the work that leads to success.
If you are ready to commit, here is what you can do.
Success and fulfillment in life require a holistic approach encompassing various aspects of our being. It is not simply about achieving external milestones or following societal expectations. True success and fulfillment come from within, and they involve mastering ourselves in different areas.
It is about aligning your actions and mindset with your values and aspirations. Only you can define success in your own terms. Remember the biases of your mind, and don’t forget that you can create the positive emotions you crave today. There are not exclusive to a certain thing, place, or moment.
Take small steps consistently. The changes you make in your life may not bring immediate results, but they add up to a remarkable transformation over time.
The pivotal question remains: Are you ready to commit? Are you ready to turn those wishes into goals and do the work?
Be bold. Play big.
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