Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
Key Takeaways
- Success often aligns with personal aims rather than traditional markers like job titles or wealth.
- Key aspects of success discovered through research include happiness, freedom, relationships, and personal growth.
- Obstacles to success include mindset issues, lack of clarity, and pursuing borrowed ambitions.
- Defining success requires introspection and understanding what truly matters to you, not what society dictates.
- Focusing on individual values can lead to a fulfilling life and a clearer path to achieving true success.
I’m sometimes asked why I’m always talking about success. Why not ‘fulfilment’ or ‘happiness’?
It’s not that I’m obsessed with success. It’s that we’re all obsessed with success.
Traditionally the image of success that so many of us have been striving for has been the prestigious job title, a comfortable salary, the big house, a snazzy car and, more and more, lots of exotic travels around the world. These days we have a new image of success emerging – the thought leaders and entrepreneurs who are bestselling authors, impactful speakers and all-round gurus in hustling and making money while they sleep.
We’re bombarded with these images on social media, where people are inevitably presenting their absolute shiniest self, sharing only their successes along with a bit of moaning now and then.
So I talk about success because it’s what we’re all talking about. But more than that, I talk about success because, when it comes down to it, success means ‘the accomplishment of an aim or a purpose’ – and this opens up to your own personal definition of success in a way that is meaningful to you and that will bring you that happiness and fulfilment we’re talking about more and more.
Why we’re all obsessed with success
The problem isn’t ambition. Ambition is good. The problem is borrowed ambition – pursuing a definition of success that was handed to us by our upbringing, our culture, our first employers, or the loudest voices on the internet. Most of us have never stopped to ask whether the success we’re chasing is actually the success we want.
That question is at the heart of everything I do. And the answers, when people actually sit with it, are often surprising.
What success actually means to people
In my research – through surveys and conversations with hundreds of people in my community – the most common themes that come up when people define success on their own terms are:
happiness, freedom, independence, flexibility, balance, having time, feeling inspired, feeling fulfilled, feeling appreciated, being able to do what you want, wanting what you have, personal satisfaction, financial security, stability
One of my favourite responses: “When you get out of bed looking forward to the day ahead and later, go to bed with satisfaction on the day’s achievements and have a good night’s sleep.”
Sounds good to me.
Beyond these general ideas, people consistently point to five specific areas of life:
Health and wellbeing – good health, simplicity, living without unnecessary stress, being close to nature, being in harmony with yourself.
Family and friends – loving relationships, close friendships, people you love, bringing joy to others.
Learning and challenge – keeping learning, achieving meaningful goals, using your strengths and your potential, being good at what you do.
Work and contribution – having an impact, enjoying what you do, belief in what you’re working on, making a positive difference, being engaged.
Fun and enjoyment – having the time to enjoy the world, being able to make spontaneous decisions, having enough money to do the extras.
What’s striking is how rarely ‘prestigious job title’ or ‘luxury car’ appears in this list when people are given the space to answer honestly.
The biggest contributors to success
When asked what has contributed most to their success, people pointed to:
Relationships – a supportive partner, close friends, family who believe in them, being connected to the right people.
Purpose – passion and love for what they do, having discovered what they’re good at and what they enjoy.
Financial freedom – not wealth exactly, but having enough to live comfortably without being tied to material things or places.
Character – courage, determination, resilience, tenacity, perseverance, patience, being true to yourself.
One response that stayed with me: “I am now exploring how to be successful according to the standard set by myself.”
That sentence is everything.
The biggest obstacles to success
The obstacles people name are equally revealing – and honest.
Mindset and beliefs – self-doubt, lack of confidence, fear of jumping, fear of letting go, not knowing the essence of yourself, being brought up to be career-driven with the assumption that personal life would fall into place.
Work – doing work that isn’t meaningful, work that negatively affects personal life and wellbeing, feeling frustrated or unchallenged.
Money – not making enough, lack of financial stability, putting off what you want because you think you need the security of a day job.
Lack of clarity – not knowing what you want, feeling directionless, being at a crossroads without being able to determine the next step.
Some of the responses in this category were the most honest of all:
“I’m struggling with my own fears around stepping away from conventional ‘success’ and finding what I really want.”
“Something is missing. And the scary part is – I don’t know what.”
“I need a change, but don’t know what kind of change.”
“I’m not sure if I’m on the right path.”
The one thing that matters most
In my experience, the biggest barrier to achieving your goals – whether we’re talking about a career change, setting up a business, or some other version of success you’re working towards – is not knowing what your goals actually are.
Not knowing what you want makes you dilute your efforts across different ideas. It means you’re not completely committed because you’re not sure it’s the right thing for you. And it means you’re unlikely to end up where you want to be, because you don’t know where that is.
Once you work out what it is that you want – and I’m afraid this is often the hardest part – the rest starts to fall into place. It will still be hard work. But the focus and determination that comes from getting clear on your goals makes everything that follows significantly easier.
The question ‘what does success mean to you?’ isn’t a soft, philosophical one. It’s the most practical question you can ask. It’s the foundation that everything else is built on.
What next?
Start by broadening your idea of success beyond work and career. Consider all the dimensions of your life – health, relationships, learning, contribution, fun – and ask honestly which ones you’ve been neglecting in pursuit of a definition of success that may not even be yours.
If you’re questioning what success really looks like for you, my book Outside of the 9 to 5 works through the five dimensions of a life well lived – and how to build a business that genuinely fits all of them.
And if you’re already working for yourself and questioning whether your current model reflects what you actually want, the free Solopreneur Diagnostic shows you in five minutes where your business is strong and where it’s quietly pulling you off course.
When given the space to answer honestly, most people define success through health and wellbeing, close relationships, meaningful work, personal growth, and the freedom to enjoy their lives – rather than job titles, salaries, or material possessions.
Most of us inherit a definition of success from our upbringing, education, and culture without realising it. We spend years chasing a version of success that was never really ours. Stopping to question it – especially when that version of success has been working by conventional standards – takes real courage.
Start by separating what you genuinely want from what you’ve been told you should want. Look at the five key areas of life – health, relationships, learning, work, and enjoyment – and ask how much attention you’re giving to each. Then ask: what would your ideal day, week, and year actually look like, if you designed it entirely for yourself?
In my experience working with hundreds of clients, the biggest obstacle isn’t a lack of skills, money, or opportunity. It’s a lack of clarity about what you actually want. Without that clarity, effort gets diluted, commitment wavers, and it’s easy to end up building something that looks successful but doesn’t feel it.
Success is often defined externally – by titles, income, recognition. Fulfilment is internal – it’s the feeling that comes from living in alignment with what genuinely matters to you. The two overlap when your definition of success is truly your own. They diverge sharply when you’re chasing someone else’s.
6 responses
What a great post with a lot of really useful definitions which I wish I had read many months ago when soul searching and trying to define who I am. As part of this process I also needed to try and come up with my own definition of what success meant for me and this led to me creating something I am calling Life Nomad – kind of an extension to the standard Digital Nomad definitions:
“A person who has given themselves the freedom to make full use of their skills to live the life of their choosing wherever this may be with integrity.”
Maybe the above might help others in some way.
Thanks again
Thanks Andy, I love it! There are a few really powerful parts to that definition: FREEDOM, which a lot of us strive for; making full use of our SKILLS – something that I’m a big believer in, as a win-win for the individual and the business/the world; living a life of your choosing – intentionality; and integrity. Very nice! I look forward to following you as you continue your journey 🙂
Thanks! I’m really looking forward to following your journey too.
Thank you
I’m looking for a survey to use with my teenager and teenage niece to help them see what success means to them, then I can work with them to see goals and prioritize. Do u have a survey that will guide them through this? Or know where I can access one for free?
Hi Lynette! I love the sound of this! I have done presentations to teenagers at schools but I don’t have a questionnaire as such that I can give you. What you can do is use my success audit and then tweak it for a younger audience. The point for me is to consider these different areas: health and fitness, relationships, learning new skills, having an impactful career and having fun! You can find the audit here: https://onestepoutside.com/successaudit. In conjunction with this, they can also listen to my podcast episode on setting goals for the year: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/rs58-a-review-of-2019-and-a-plan-for-2020/id1444846932?i=1000461337985.
Let me know your thoughts!