I have been thinking about success and failure a lot, and one of the ideas I’ve had recently is that maybe failing is just delayed success. You fail IN something (like a business idea) but it doesn’t mean you are a failure. If you try again and don’t give up, you will succeed at some point, in something :)

Then again, why do you need success. I think everyone does need success to be happy. But here’s the catch: there is no absolute definition of success. Everyone defines their own success themselves (or should define). Therefore, success doesn’t need to involve money or business, or even your career.

You are perfectly successful when you are living the kind of life you want to be living.

isn’t ‘not doing anything’ also a ‘doing’?
like, i am really doing nothing by writing this response. yet…

why do i need success? if i can live without it?

:)
sorry… was picking a fight.
but really, i wonder, when did we humans become so success-hungry?

@Writer Dad: Yeah, that’s huge! I also believe that there are other things we do in our lives that also contribute to the 10,000 hours of blogging experience… Every piece of writing or marketing we have done before counts towards the experience we need to master this medium.

I’m sure this will be your year, and I’ll keep fighting to make it mine too :)

@Lodewijk: That’s an amazing point you make: success isn’t always about money. Quite often, at least online, we talk and think about financial success and forget the other, equally important ways of measuring success.

Maybe it’s because money is easier to quantify…

And I would add to that the unconscious fear of being successful and having to live up to it. That’s a strong one too. People that have a desire to be successful but won’t work hard to get it, often have this fear to deal with as well.

And then there’s this common aura around being successful that implies it should be of a great magnitude. But people can get really successful as a parent, or as teacher, or as nurse, without getting the wealth or fame that’s often asociated with success. I haven’t read Gladwell’s book just yet, but I feel that this aspect is often overlooked.

The most important thing I guess, is to decide on what area you want to be successful AND decide how you define success in that area.

Lodewijks last blog post..Doing What You Love To Do Consistently

I’m on my way to check out Text is Art. I love the name.

Writer Dads last blog post..Running Dialogue