Meaningful Success

If you measure success by how much money you earn then you have a very distorted view of success. Yes, we would all like to have a lot of money, but if this is what you judge success by, and what you are setting your goals by, when you achieve the wealth you want it can still leave you feeling unfulfilled, lonely, unhappy and wanting more of of life. In other words, the pursuit of money in itself will not bring true success.

Living a life that matters would be a better measure of success. A life that matters to you, and a life that matters to other people. This is what makes life worth living and what makes your life a success. This is usually the missing piece in people's lives when they realise that they're not really happy or fulfilled but don't know why. This is often the time that depression creeps in. 

If your success is not on your own terms, if it looks good to the world but does not feel good in your heart, it is not success at all. - Anna Quindlen

Creating a life that matters is the best way to bring meaning into your life, in both your business life and personal life. Both of these are linked together, both are necessary for true happiness, and both are for you to determine yourself. Nobody can tell you how to add meaning to your life because the answer is different for everybody, and to add to the confusion the answer to creating a life that matters will change throughout your own life.

Successful people are the ones who have meaning in their lives. They are the ones who have managed to follow their passion and love their work. They are the ones who have brought together their health (body), happiness (heart) and success (mind) and have combined these in such a way as to create meaning in their life, and it is only though meaning that everything else becomes really alive.

The meaning in your life is how you will be remembered. It is your contribution, your legacy to the world. So life is all about living, loving, learning and leaving a legacy. Which is another way of saying health, happiness, success and meaning. 

Every day you exchange your life for the things that you do. What is worth exchanging your life for? It's up to you to choose weather to exchange your time for a mediocre life, or to exchange it for a great one. To exchange your time taking the easy path, or the harder one that will leave a legacy and inspire others. To exchange your time for having a good day, or having a great day.

We are all unique and each of us has own own set of interests, ideas, skills and passions. Each of us has something unique to contribute, even though it may take some time to find our particular niche in life. The ideal job satisfies our vision of life, creates a working environment who's discipline we share, inspires our passion to achieve and gives us an easy conscience that we are doing something worthwhile. Exactly the same applies to our life outside work.

Serving others can add tremendously to the meaning in your life. As Zig Zigler said "You can have everything in life that you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want." Forget the old British idea about serving others meaning that you are a servant. Helping others to get what they want is key to making a lot of people successful, and at the same time adding meaning to their lives.