Upjourney / What Is Success?

I think many of us have been taught by society and our loved ones (as they were taught as well), that happiness, success, and fulfillment come from fitting into a certain societal mold. More often than not success meant having a good job and making a good living from it. Be wary of being seduced into prematurely accepting some role that doesn’t have much to do with your nature or values.

I ran my family business for 11 years finally leaving after owning up to the fact that it didn’t truly interest me or feed my creative being. It wasn’t easy at first because I felt like I had the weight of society and my family pushing against me because I wasn’t abiding by its definition of success.

Since then I have come to realize that success isn’t defined by money, job status or keeping up with the Joneses. Success simply means that you are showing up, attempting to move forward and open to the self-growth process. In my book, if you do that you are a success.

Here is something I recently started doing that has helped me reframe my idea of success. All you need to do is get a jar or a can and every time you do something successfully, you write what it was on a slip of paper and put it in your jar. That’s it. I know you are probably asking me why you should have a success jar.

Well, it’s like this. I started doing it to remind me of all of the positive, successful things that I am doing that in the past I had overlooked. If you are anything like me, sometimes we forget and it can feel like we aren’t making much headway. It’s a way to keep my energy up and the positive vibes flowing. I put everything in there.

Showing up for Cross-Fit class, going to an audition, having a successful radio show, a great day of writing, an awareness in my self-growth process, stepping out of my comfort zone or even if I handled a situation well. They are all successes in my book and they go to the jar. What’s really cool is to pull some of the slips out from time to time and remind myself of successful moments that I had.

I have found it to be a really powerful tool and I hope you do as well. It’s an eye-opening exercise that will help you learn the real meaning of what success is!

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