If we are going to tell a story we want to live, we need to know what we want to experience, we have to know our likes and dislikes, our values, and our ultimate goals.  Life is about pushing boundaries and creating an environment where the things we want have room and reason to arrive.  It’s also about knowing our limits, not in regard to what we can do, but in regard to what we want to do.  It’s about knowing what is enough for us.  Some people have an idea that they need to attain a certain amount of money or have a certain size house, a certain size family, take specific vacations, drive specific cars, wear the right clothes, eat the right foods etc. in order to be happy or deemed successful.  We have the ability to make the decision on what success means to us.

I heard a story about a recruiter offering a position to an employee that would be a promotional opportunity and include better benefits.  The employee continually refused the offer.  When asked why, he stated that he is already successful where he is at.  He has a salary that allows him to live the life he wants, he is able to spend time with his family, he has the flexibility he needed in his role, and there wasn’t anything else to check off the list.  This man created his own definition of success.  On the outside, most people would consider passing a promotion foolish, but this man knew that he didn’t want to be tied to different hours and miss out on the thing she valued in life.  He had enough in his life to mark himself successful in his own eyes.

Success looks different for everyone.  For some, it does mean exactly what I listed in the first paragraph: it’s the material things and achievements that matter.  For others, it’s letting go of all that and taking in life around them.  For most of us, if we get really honest, I think it’s in the middle.  We want nice things, maybe decent things, but we want the time to experience them as well.  The key is knowing what success means for you.  If you want freedom but take a job that requires you to be in an office longer hours and you have less opportunity to experience life, then that isn’t aligning with your values.  Knowing what you want out of life makes those decisions easier.  The story we want to live becomes clearer the more we know what is important to us.