What does success look like?
By Kim Deans
I love asking my coaching clients “what is working well for you at the moment?”
There is frequently a lengthy pause while their brain recalibrates itself away from their problems, their unfinished jobs and their lengthy to do list.
Intentionally pausing to reflect and notice what is working well helps overcome our negativity bias. Negativity bias is our tendency to register negative stimuli more readily than positive stimuli. We tend to pay more attention to and focus more on negative events than positive ones. We make decisions based more on negative information than positive. We see everything we haven’t done yet and forget to notice all the things we have done.
Humans have evolved from times where those who were more attuned to danger and paid attention to negative threats were more likely to survive. This survival instinct keeps us on high alert and plays a large role in how our brains operate.
Intentionally shifting our focus to include the positive and managing for what we want is how we move from surviving towards thriving. Our time can easily be consumed by looking for and noticing problems, as well as all the things we haven’t done yet. What we focus on grows. Every problem is an opportunity. Whether we decide to focus on the problem, or the opportunity makes a massive difference. When our mental capacity is taken up with problems there is no time or energy available to use the opportunity to create a better reality.
Take some time to reflect and consider what’s worked well for you this past year.
Considering what’s worked well helps us to notice what success looks like for us.
When we decide to follow a regenerative path in agriculture it becomes essential to reconsider and redefine what success looks like on our own terms. Our old measures of success may not deliver the regenerative outcomes or fulfillment we seek.
Success is defined as the accomplishment of an aim or purpose. We can determine what that aim, or purpose is. Our definition of success is unique to us, based on what is important to us, our goals, our vision, our values, the contribution we want to make to the world.
Our success does not depend on the approval of other people like our friends, family or anyone else. Our version of success does not need to look like anyone else’s, it needs to feel good and be meaningful to us alone. Our unique definition of success is what matters most.
When we don't define our personal version of success, we can find ourselves measuring our success externally by other people’s standards rather than internally by our own standards, vision, and values. Success is often associated with external factors like acquiring money and the accumulation of material possessions, yet once our basic needs are met these things don’t make us feel happy and fulfilled.
When we define success internally for ourselves, we open the door to access a state of fulfillment. Fulfilment is the internal satisfaction we experience from living our life aligned with our unique values, purpose and feeling like we are making a meaningful contribution to the world. Success without fulfillment is not true success, it’s a sign we are focusing externally rather than being guided from within. Our internal unique definition of success can include money as a tool to help us live comfortably and achieve goals that are meaningful to us rather than see acquiring money as the only destination.
Many people think of success in terms of big achievements. Instead of focusing on one end goal, success can also be defined by smaller accomplishments that add up to bigger achievements and keep us working towards our bigger goals.
Defining what success looks like for us helps us to notice when we are succeeding. Without clarity about what success looks like for us we can end up creating success on someone else’s terms other than our own.
“What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
Mary Oliver
Examples to inspire:
“Success is liking yourself, liking what you do and liking how you do it”
Maya Angelou
“Success
To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate the beauty;
To find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson