Are you successful? If you can define what success is, have you ever been so? Is success becoming a millionaire or getting 50,0000 followers? Or is it overcoming your weaknesses enough so you no longer focus on them? Or have you already lived most of your life and have come to define it as enriching the lives of others? Is success equal to happiness the way Daniel Kahneman puts it in the video below: Being satisfied if they achieve conventional goals, such as high income and a stable marriage.
Recently, one of my mentors reminded me that to be successful, one must become really good at something, which is a common sense fact we can’t but agree with: The more you practice at something, the better you get at it. After all, as Steven Johnson points out in the video below, great ideas require time and lots of experimentation.
But this means that, regardless of whether you define success as having a healthy marriage or a big bank account, to be successful you must embrace characteristics that are difficult to maintain because life itself happens: Continuity, Dedication, Patience, Persistence, Flexibility and Passion.
And because life happens, the path to success can only take up chaotic shapes, unlike the linear one we dream of. Therefore, in order to succeed at whatever it is we aspire to, we must reinforce the behaviors that strengthen those characteristics and always be continuous, dedicated, patient, persistent, flexible and passionate. That isn’t an easy task and that’s why success is so slippery.
Update: Success = CoDePPFP (Continuity, Dedication, Patience, Persistence, Flexibility and Passion) Thanks everyone for the feedback you gave on this post!
Warning, over 20 minutes long:
Best video clip on ideas I have seen:
*Cartoon via Vision Creation Retreat http://on.fb.me/xaIGTi
Great article..keep up the good work and continue to enlighten us. – Jay
Very nice article! Read it first thing in the morning & felt good. – Preeti
Thank you Preeti. Glad you liked it.