Success.
How do you define it?
Webster’s says the word means “a degree or measure of succeeding” (“to succeed” being defined as “to turn out well” or “to attain a desired object or end”.)
Dictionary.com includes “the accomplishment of one’s goals” in their definition.
A quick search online delivers plenty of other opinions.
Google answers with “approximately 1,350,000,000” results, and Yahoo comes up with 157,000,000.
Most of the opinions as to what constitutes success includes words like “wealth”, “motivation”, “goal-setting”, “achievement”. The usual. The world-words. Stuff-words.
Specifically, the getting-of-stuff words.
Because this seems to be how we think these days.
Success = stuff.
But not just any stuff. Valuable stuff. And frankly if we’re honest and read right between all of the lines, success means getting more stuff than other people.
So after I decided I wanted to write about success and started doing some research, I have to tell you that I got a little bummed out.
Until, that is, I remembered grad school. And Erik Erikson’s psychosocial stages.
Specifically, the seventh.
For those of you who aren’t psychology nerds, nodding your heads right now, I’ll fill you in.
Erikson’s theory of human psychosocial development has eight stages, five of them from birth to age 18 and three more throughout adulthood. In each stage, according to Erikson, a person faces a crisis which involves resolving a conflict between their own psychological needs and the needs of society. (Hence the term “psychosocial”.)
Successfully resolving the crisis in Erikson’s 7th stage – termed “Generativity vs. Stagnation” – involves finding meaning in work and, importantly, being able to contribute something meaningful to society.
Which kind of flips the whole getting-more-stuff idea on its head.
This is what I think, based on nothing more than living for lots of years and talking to lots of people (i.e. I am not a researcher, nor do I pretend to be one) – I think that being successful isn’t about climbing any ladders, earning the biggest salary, or having the most toys. I think it’s about being kind, grateful, and generous. Showing compassion and mercy. Sharing your gifts with the world because you want to share them.
“Contributing something meaningful”, for me, means this. This is how I define success. It may not be how society defines it, but that’s totally okay with me. Because the truth is that your life is yours, and you absolutely get to define success on your own terms.
No matter what the dictionary, or the world, says.
~xo,
LuAnne
