Most people want to be successful, but not everyone knows what success looks like. Very often, I get challenged about my use of the concept of "success." So, today, let's try to understand the meaning of success. 

What does it mean to be successful? Do you consider yourself a success? If so, why? If not, what will success look like when you have finally achieved it? 

These are important questions to ask yourself, because your happiness in life may depend upon your answers. Some people seem to believe that success means a wardrobe full of designer clothes, a fancy car and a beautiful house in a nice part of town. Other people think that success means not having to work at all after they win a few million in the lottery. Still others think that success is giving up everything they own and devoting their lives to helping others.

I think, to a certain extent anyway, that all of these folks are right. To me, success means getting to do what you really want to do in your work life and in your love life, doing it very well, and feeling good about the fact that you're doing it. It's finding your true purpose, and a way to live it out for the time that you have here.

By this I mean that it's perfectly fine to choose a purpose for yourself that doesn't mean much to the rest of the world. Failure comes only in having no purpose at all. I don't believe it is "failure" to perform poorly at things that don't have any value to you, as long as it doesn't intentionally hurt anyone. To me, failure is performing poorly or haphazardly at that which you have chosen to be important.

In the final analysis, I think you are a success when you are actively engaged in becoming the person you most want to be.