What does it mean to be successful? It requires context. Success is subjective and can change depending on who you are, what values you hold, and most importantly, how you measure it.
Our notion of success has always been embedded into a classist, economical context. Success can be measured by what you own, how much money you make, and what luxuries can be afforded to you based on your status. In a capitalist society, success is based on productivity level. Statistics Canada describes this kind of labour productivity output as GDP (Gross Domestic Product) based on each hour worked. This measure of productivity is one of many that are used when calculating a corporation’s success from an economical point of view.
However, even Statistics Canada acknowledges the complex nature of a company’s success and more particularly the success of its workers. This means that success is a subjective notion that considers a number of different factors. Business leaders often emphasize how success often and should mean different things to different people. Success could mean achieving a job promotion or it could mean facing social fears like networking at parties. Whichever outcome success brings to the individual, it may be worth unpacking how different types of success share some common denominators.
Society on a whole is preoccupied with success and how to become successful. These considerations have opened up a more contemporary view of success: personal growth. Many self-help books; for example, books like Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project or Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People; revolve around the concept of self-improvement.
Keeping in mind the diverse and multi-faceted nature of success, my definition of success will include the following dimensions: independence, personal growth, and happiness. These factors will provide a general model for what success can be defined as.
Independence
The concept of independence is critical for anyone wanting to achieve success of their own terms. This dimension is two-fold: economic and social.
Economic independence can be loosely defined as a person’s ability to generate income and wealth by their own means for themselves. The benefits of economic independence for individuals reaching higher success rates are embedded in literature around equity and diversity in a range of topics. Economic independence is key for empowering women, immigrants, LGBTQ+ folk, disabled peoples, and others who face systematic discrimination.
Social independence refers to mobility and accessibility of a person in public and private space. Any barriers to these two kinds of independence can impede a person’s success from a socio-economic framework. Psychology scholarship focuses on autonomy and social mobility as being critical to normal functioning. From this perspective, social independence is critical in not only individuals being able to achieve their own goals of self-improvement but to also to maintain stable mental health, a capacity that is also central to achieving success.
Personal Growth and Goals
The ability to set goals experience personal growth is critical to success. Expanding beyond comfort zones allows a person to have a deeper knowledge of self, be equipped with a new set of skills, and embrace the idea of risk and learning from failure. Forbes magazine advises business leaders that embracing failure means becoming successful—failure, the article points out, is a lesson that teaches responsibility, accountability, and recognizing the only thing you can control is your own reaction to setbacks and changes in circumstances. Becoming comfortable with the idea of stretching your limits is essential to maintaining personal growth.
Setting goals is a strategic way of guaranteeing certain successes. Goal-setting is not new to our collective culture—New Year’s Resolutions, retail companies’ aiming for a certain number of sales, and working to fit into this year’s swim suit are all different types of goal-setting. While goals may be intimidating to uphold, they are a useful way to keep track of your trajectory in both your personal and professional life. Goals indicate direction and, as Gretchen Rubin points out in her book The Happiness Project, they hold you accountable for enacting changes you want to see in your daily life. Goals directly correlate with personal growth in that they encourage reflection and living up to an individual’s potential.
Happiness
Happiness as a measure of success determines a person’s entire outlook on life. It is such an important concept that the question of happiness has, historically, been the center of ethical and philosophical debate. Aristotle wrote that happiness is the central purpose of human life and to achieve happiness was to find the mean—this means to find a balance between the excesses. Achieving balance in life is no light endeavor, especially when facing a multitude of conflict, but it is necessary if we wish to be successful. Leading a happy life is a form of fulfillment and attributes meaning to achievements. Without it, there is hardly reason for one to consider their accomplishments a ‘success’ at all.
These three dimensions are meant to guide your thoughts when thinking about how to define success. Success is dependent on personal values, yet as a definition, it is tangled in a multitude of discourses (socio-economic, institutional, political and cultural to name a few). Since it is abstract, success is also bound up with our progress as a society—we are constantly redefining what success means to our parents, our friends, our partners, our children, and ourselves. Only by recognizing success’s subjective nature can we begin to unpack which definition of success best suits ourselves and best guides purpose in our lives.
By Meagan Gove
Please note that opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views and values of The Blank Page.
