Everyone in this competitive world wants to be successful. And the ludicrous part is, we often miss the main question- What is success? How do we define Success? Well, these questions are subjective and are different for different people.
For some, success is earning lots of money, for some it is to buy a house, for others it is to get married, for few success is to get fame. An athlete may have one definition of success, and for a mother, success maybe something else. For a musician success might be to top the chart buster’s list, and for a doctor success may be an intimidating surgery that went well. For a student, success is to top in the class. For an employee, success is to get the Best Performer award. Success is subjective. It primarily depends and revolves around on the perspective of life we have and differs from person to person.
Our needs drive our motto in life. To people who do not have much money, success is getting a lot of money. For someone who is not so famous, getting fame could possibly mean becoming successful. Attaining something which they do not have becomes a goal for people and they strive to achieve that goal in order to come to terms with their definition of becoming successful.
But, the question is, are all these valid to be called what we call success?
Defining true success may seem to be complex. However, the concept of success, in actuality is quite uncomplicated. Success is the progressive realization of laudable dreams, goals, and objectives. No one truly arrives at the destination called success, but to a certain extent is either successful or not successful at achieving goals and reaching objectives.
In our steps to success, failure is at times inevitable; but failure is merely the binary option to success, as No is to Yes, or off is to on. Thomas Alva Edison chose to view failure as successfully knowing one way something wouldn’t work. He then tried something else. By viewing failures as successful experiences, Edison was able to get closer to his objective through the positive learning experiences from his failures, along the path. And even today no one has neared to his feat of registering 1,093 patents.
In the process of understanding the meaning of true success, we can actually differentiate between an accomplishment and true success.
If money, fame, respect, and recognition were the only things which were to be called success; Ratan Tata wouldn’t be striving so hard. The Ambanis wouldn’t be so ambitious and work round the clock. Steve Jobs wouldn’t be innovating. All these men have money, power, respect and recognition. But still everyday they get to their work with a busy schedule. Aren’t they successful? According what ours system defines success; they became successful a long time back. Then, why is that they are still working so hard? What are they after?
It is commonly perceived in our society that one is successful if he/she lands up in a good job after studies. This portrays that the very image of being successful is limited to just getting a job. It deprives students of the opportunity to have a broader, more enlightened vision. Recently, the film “3 Idiots” has questioned the educational system of India. It unearthed the latent flaws in the system and seriously questions the very relevance of societal whims which savour on the young brains. The film also quotes an interesting line “kamiyabi ke peeche mat bhago, kaabil bano… kamiyaabi jhak maar ke peeche aayegi” (Do not run after success, strive for excellence; and success will run after you). Success comes in a big way when we strive to become better day by day.
Most of the successful people we look up to, never strived to be successful. Instead they strived to make the country better. They had/have a vision for development of resources, jobs and things like that. In the process there work makes them successful.
Success means attaining self actualization, according to Maslow’s pyramid of hierarchy. Financial freedom, the materialistic things aren’t all that define success. There are things which are intangible, and which define one’s success. It is a sense of satisfaction from our inner self. True success isn’t given in a textbook definition; it is how we define it.
It is driven by a hunger that cannot be stopped.
It is driven by a focus that is unrelenting.
It is driven by actions that will not be contained.
True Success is delivered from a Dream that cannot be denied.
The writer is a correspondent of Youth Ki Awaaz and also an MBA student at IIFT.