We spend our lives chasing success, money and some imaginary finish line. But what makes a successful life when we strip all of that away? Perhaps the finish line was never the point.
I used to think success was somewhere ahead of me.
Another deal. Another business. More money. More freedom.
First, get through this difficult patch. Then solve that problem. After that, reach the next milestone.
Eventually, presumably, I’d arrive.
The funny thing is, I’m not exactly sure where I thought I was arriving.
Maybe you know the feeling.
Most of us spend an extraordinary amount of our lives climbing towards an invisible podium. We work harder, accumulate more and chase the next thing.
Meanwhile, somewhere in the back of our minds sits this vague promise that eventually we’ll reach a point where we can look around and say:
I made it.
Lately, though, I’ve been asking myself a different question.
What makes a successful life?
Is it really how much we accumulate, how much we achieve or how high we climb?
Or have we spent so long chasing the podium that we’ve forgotten to ask whether the bloody thing even exists?
What Makes a Successful Life?
Think about that question for a moment.
How much money is enough?
How much success?
How much recognition?
At what point do you finally put your feet up and say, “Right. That’s it. I’m successful now.”
I’m not suggesting money doesn’t matter. Of course it does.
Try telling someone who can’t pay the rent that money doesn’t matter.
Financial security gives us choices. It can give us freedom, buy experiences, improve healthcare and create opportunities. Moreover, it can allow us to help the people we care about.
Money is a bloody useful tool.
However, the problem starts when we confuse the tool with the destination.
If we’re trying to understand what makes a successful life, surely the answer has to involve more than what we own or what sits in our bank account.
Yet somewhere along the way, many of us begin believing that if we accumulate enough, achieve enough or become successful enough, something inside us will finally click into place.
Then I’ll be happy.
After that, I’ll relax.
Eventually, I’ll start living.
Except there always seems to be another “then.”
The Dangerous Business of “One Day”
We all have our version of one day.
Maybe one day you’ll travel.
Perhaps you’ll start that business, write the book or finally tell someone how you really feel.
You might leave the situation you know isn’t right.
Eventually, you’ll slow down.
And, of course, one day you’ll start enjoying yourself.
One day.
Two innocent little words.
However, “one day” has an extraordinary ability to become ten years.
Meanwhile, we continue doing what responsible adults are supposed to do. We work, pay bills, solve problems and worry about things that may never happen.
Along the way, we accumulate stuff.
Then we replace that stuff with slightly better stuff.
Sometimes we become so busy making a living that we forget we were supposed to be making a life.
Perhaps that’s our first clue to what makes a successful life.
It isn’t about abandoning responsibility and disappearing into the sunset. Instead, it’s about remembering why you’re doing all of this in the first place.
I’ve written before about making the most out of your life and living on your own terms. The more I think about it, however, the more I believe there is one resource sitting underneath everything else.
Time.
While we’re busy accumulating money, possessions and achievements, we’re spending something far more valuable.
And unlike money, nobody has figured out how to make more of it.
Dream Bigger Than Your Circumstances
So should we stop striving?
Absolutely not.
In fact, I still believe in dreaming big. Probably more than ever.
Not because every dream comes true. It doesn’t.
Nor do I believe positive thinking magically rearranges the universe in our favour.
Life doesn’t work like that.
Instead, I believe in dreaming big because a sufficiently large dream demands something from you.
It asks:
Who will I have to become to make this possible?
That’s very different from asking:
What can I realistically do with what I have today?
One question keeps you within the boundaries of your present circumstances. The other asks you to grow beyond them.
As a result, you have to learn, risk, change and become uncomfortable.
Sometimes you fail.
Then you get back up.
Most importantly, the greatest value of a dream isn’t always getting the thing you dreamed about.
Sometimes it’s discovering the person you had to become while pursuing it.
That’s another part of what makes a successful life that I think we overlook.
Success isn’t only about what the pursuit eventually gives you.
It’s also about what the pursuit pulls out of you.
Maybe you never reach the mountain you originally chose. Nevertheless, perhaps you climb high enough to see an entirely different landscape.
That matters too.
Belief Is Easy Until You Need It
We talk a lot about believing in ourselves.
It sounds wonderful when things are going well.
Business is growing. Money is coming in. People believe in you. Your plans are working and the phone is ringing.
Of course you believe in yourself.
The evidence is everywhere.
But what happens when the evidence disappears?
What about those periods when life seems to be heading in completely the wrong direction?
Money gets tight.
Your health reminds you that you’re not indestructible.
Somebody disappoints you.
The plan you were certain would work doesn’t.
Eventually, you wake up one morning and quietly wonder:
What the hell am I doing?
That’s when belief becomes interesting.
After all, belief is easy when the evidence agrees with you.
It becomes belief when the evidence doesn’t.
That doesn’t mean pretending everything is wonderful when it clearly isn’t. Sometimes things are genuinely shit.
Instead, it means believing that this particular moment doesn’t necessarily get to write the ending.
So perhaps the question isn’t:
Will everything work out exactly as I planned?
Maybe it’s simply:
Do I believe there is another chapter?
I do.
What Makes a Successful Life When Things Fall Apart?
Adversity does something success rarely does.
It strips things away.
Certainty disappears first. Comfort can follow. Sometimes money goes with it. At other times, relationships change too.
Eventually, you can even lose the version of yourself you thought you were.
That can be frightening.
However, it can also be revealing.
Underneath all the titles, achievements and carefully constructed versions of ourselves, we’re complicated creatures.
We have strengths we’re proud of alongside weaknesses we’d rather nobody noticed.
We’ve made good decisions and spectacularly stupid ones.
At times we’ve loved people well. At other times, not so well.
We’ve trusted people we shouldn’t have trusted, missed opportunities, hurt people, hurt ourselves and failed.
Every one of us probably has moments we’d rewrite if somebody handed us the pen.
But nobody does.
So what do we do with them?
Forgive the Person You Used to Be
I think one of the hardest forms of forgiveness is self-forgiveness.
We can carry old versions of ourselves around for decades.
Maybe it’s the relationship.
Perhaps it’s the business decision.
It could be something we said, something we should have said, an opportunity we let disappear or years we think we wasted.
However, here’s something I’ve come to understand.
You made yesterday’s decisions with yesterday’s knowledge.
That doesn’t absolve us of responsibility. Nor does it mean pretending we didn’t hurt somebody or get something badly wrong.
Take responsibility.
Then learn from it.
Apologise when necessary and change what needs changing.
But eventually, put the bloody stick down.
You cannot build the next version of yourself while constantly beating the previous one.
Perhaps self-forgiveness belongs somewhere near the centre of what makes a successful life.
Because what use is achieving everything you wanted if you still can’t live comfortably inside your own skin?
Self-love isn’t necessarily standing in front of a mirror telling yourself how wonderful you are.
Perhaps it’s something far more difficult.
It’s looking honestly at the whole complicated mess: the strengths and weaknesses, the victories and failures, the person you’re proud of and the person you sometimes wish you’d been.
Then being able to say:
That was me too.
And moving forward.
Life Is a Forge
There’s an old image I’ve always liked.
A sword being forged.
Heat, pressure and blow after blow.
It’s a beautiful metaphor. However, there’s something important we often leave out.
Suffering doesn’t automatically make us stronger.
Sometimes suffering just hurts.
Life can knock the wind out of you, and there isn’t always some profound lesson conveniently waiting underneath.
Eventually, though, we get to decide what we do with what happened.
We can become bitter or wiser.
We might close ourselves off or become more compassionate.
Fear can consume us, or courage can gradually return.
In reality, we’re often a little of all of them.
The blows don’t automatically determine what we become.
What we do afterwards matters more.
That’s one of the reasons personal growth matters so much. I explored this further in 10 Radical Ideas for Personal Growth, particularly the role failure can play in growth.
Maybe that’s one of life’s great opportunities.
We can’t avoid every difficult experience.
But we can refuse to waste every difficult experience.
Who Is Standing Beside You?
Hard times reveal something else.
People.
Success can make your phone very busy because everyone likes being around momentum.
Life, however, has its own filtering system.
Eventually something goes wrong, and you notice who calls.
You also notice who doesn’t.
That isn’t necessarily a reason to become cynical. After all, people have their own lives, fears, problems and struggles.
Still, it teaches you something about the difference between acquaintances, convenience and genuine connection.
As I get older, I’m becoming less interested in how many people are around me.
Instead, I’m far more interested in who they are.
If we’re talking seriously about what makes a successful life, surely the quality of the relationships we build has to count for more than the size of the audience watching us.
Ten thousand people can know your name.
Yet not one of them may truly know you.
Therefore, perhaps the number of people surrounding us matters far less than the depth of the relationships we have with a handful of them.
Which brings me to something I’ve been thinking about more lately.
What Makes a Successful Life in the Final Minute?
This isn’t meant to be morbid.
Quite the opposite.
Sometimes thinking about the end makes the middle considerably clearer.
Imagine you’re fortunate enough to know your life is coming to an end.
One minute remains.
What matters?
Your car?
The house?
Your website traffic?
Your bank balance?
That argument you won twenty-three years ago?
Your job title?
Probably not.
Suddenly, the ego that spent decades keeping score has very little left to count.
So what’s left?
People.
Memories.
Love.
The lives you touched and the people who touched yours.
There are the adventures, the ridiculous moments nobody else would understand and the risks you took.
Then, perhaps, there are the risks you wish you’d taken.
Finally, there’s the knowledge that this strange, beautiful, frustrating, confusing experience called your life actually happened.
Maybe this is where the question of what makes a successful life becomes easier to answer.
Once you remove everything that cannot come with you, you’re left with the things that were probably important all along.
That brings me to a question I find both uncomfortable and incredibly motivating.
How close did I come to becoming the person I was capable of becoming?
Not the richest person.
Not the most important.
Certainly not the person other people expected me to become.
Me.
Did I explore what was possible?
Was I curious enough?
Did I love and allow myself to be loved?
Did I create something?
Did I help somebody?
Was I prepared to take chances?
Could I forgive?
When life knocked me down, did I eventually get back up?
And, above everything else:
Did I actually live?
I’ve previously written about the key to sustainable success and why lasting achievement needs purpose, balance and growth. Yet perhaps even sustainable success is only part of a much larger question.
There Is No Podium
Maybe that’s the mistake we’ve been making.
We imagine life as something we can eventually win.
Reach the number. Get the house. Build the business. Achieve the status. Cross the line.
Finally, climb onto the podium.
Except there isn’t one.
Strangely, I don’t find that depressing.
I find it incredibly liberating.
Because if there is no podium, I don’t have to wait until I reach it before giving myself permission to live.
Neither do you.
Make money and build something extraordinary.
Dream ridiculously big.
Fall in love.
If necessary, start again.
Take the trip you’ve been talking about.
Write the bloody book.
Make mistakes, change your mind and forgive yourself.
Most importantly, tell people you love them while they’re still here to hear it.
And don’t stop wanting more from yourself simply because somebody else thinks you should have enough.
Just remember what the whole bloody thing is for.
Eventually, the meetings stop.
The possessions change hands.
Someone else lives in the house.
The numbers cease to matter.
And the race we were so desperately trying to win turns out never to have been a race at all.
So, what makes a successful life?
I don’t pretend to have the definitive answer.
However, perhaps that’s a better question than asking how much we’ve accumulated.
Maybe it’s:
Did I dream big enough?
Did I love deeply enough?
Did I become more because of what I went through?
Could I forgive myself for being human?
Did I become the person I knew, somewhere deep inside, I could become?
And perhaps most importantly:
Did I make a life, or did I spend my entire life making a living?
Because there was never a podium.
There was only ever the life.
