How to Define Success in Life: My Definition of Success

Success has been defined, describes, and explained from many angles and it depends on where the individual is coming from. For instance, it can be based on an individual’s social status, wealth, achievement, goals, or purpose in life. In my opinion and how I see success can be defined as an achievement of the desired vision and a planned goal, being focused and being persistent whereby living your right purpose and having a positive impact on other people around you and inspiring them to think in a positive way that they have not to think before.

In defining what success is and how I see it, the quote which I consider best to summarize my definition of success states that ‘take up one idea, make that one idea your life, think of it, a dream of it and live on that idea. Let the brain, muscle, nerves, and every part of your body, be full of that idea and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success.

It is important that one knows exactly how to define success in life and how he or she sees it. An individual might see or define success as having luxurious cars or huge mansions; others also see success as a life full of joy and happiness with their families. On this note, the above quote by swami Vivekananda can best summarize my definition and how I see success to be. This is because success as an achievement of desired visions and planned goals leads to taking up an idea. So once you have the desired visions and planned goals, you take up an idea to accomplish or achieve success. In addition, being focused and being persistent in achieving success is by making that one idea your life; you think of it and live on that idea in achieving success.

To consider people or an individual being successful can vary depending on how one defines success and how they see it. Notwithstanding, I consider people or individual who believes in what they do and going after it and having a positive impact on others no matter how small it is compared to how society sees success. To throw more light on this, I consider successful people as an individual or groups of people who have done something on their own initiative thereby having a positive impact on their lives and others or society. Therefore, being successful without any positive impact on others or society cannot be considered successful. For example, one individual that I consider as being successful is Warren Buffett and not because of his billionaire status but if you listen to or hear him speak; you will notice his vast knowledge of his chosen business domain and his happiness which has a positive impact on people and the globe as a whole. This is the kind of person I consider as being successful because his speeches alone have a positive impact on others, especially in people’s lives.

Depending on the individual, there are many ways through which success is achieved. On my part and to achieve success, setting daily goals and planning for myself is the way to go. Doing this is a clear indication for me to achieve success. This is because if I set a daily goal, I will make sure to reach that goal or a target by way of planning on a daily basis. With this, I can fill out a weekly calendar indicating what to do each day and making sure to follow my schedule appropriately.

Furthermore, being focused on my goals and making my life goal-oriented is a major factor for me to achieve success. Through this, I need and must do away with meaningless things and distractions. Those things will surely come on my way but it is incumbent on me to be focused on achieving my ultimate success. For instance, to be focused and do away with distractions, I will make a list of time-wasters and hold myself accountable for not doing them. With this, I will not engage myself in things that will not be beneficial to my life.

In addition to the above, to achieve success, avoidance of procrastination in my life and in everything I do is also a major factor. “Who you are tomorrow begins with what you do today” Fargo, T. (n.d). Learning about procrastination from a success perspective, I have come to terms that procrastination is the real killer of success. Instead of putting things on hold for another day, I need to take immediate action today in order to avoid procrastination. Procrastination is difficult but it is also avoidable. The most effective way for me to overcome procrastination is to put up preventive measures. For example, I need to schedule and complete tasks ahead of time. By doing this, I will avoid procrastination which will eventually lead to achieving my success.

Moreover, success is a result of persistence, hard work and also learning from failures. Success takes time to develop which simply means I will go through trials and errors along the way. Instead of giving up due to the mistakes, I might make along the way, I will rather learn from those mistakes and improve on them. I can achieve this by having a culture of persistence because success comes as a result of being persistent in life. It is said that ‘Ambition is the path to success. Persistence is the vehicle you arrive in’ Bradly, B. (n.d.).

Change is very important in every individual’s life and I need a change in order to be successful at NXU. The biggest change I need to be successful at NXU is my learning style. Even though I am a virtual learner type, I need to adapt a learning style or strategies to fit that of NXU since NXU is purely online. As a virtual learner who learns by reading and seeing pictures, it can be quite difficult to learn with NXU. However, NXU has a very good system and provides a platform that can aid me be successful. By this, I can reach out to my success advisor for any assistance furthermore, NXU has a writing lab where I can book an appointment for any writing assistance and also my professors are available with open arms to assist and answer any questions of mine. All this and taking this change to my advantage will enable me to be successful at Nexford University.

Based on what I will do to achieve success, it is equally important to know I have achieved success. Therefore, one such way is the management of my time. Time management is a sign of success and if I am able to use my time on any given day to be very productive and effective, it is a sign of achieving success. Therefore time management comes into the equation.

Last but not least, I will know I have achieved success by not blaming others. This implies that at a point in my life I have to understand what it means to take ownership of my actions and not to target others for my frustrations or failures. Through this, am being active rather than passive and this is a clear sign of achieved success.