What does success mean to you? How will you know you’ve made it? Often times we get so focused on work and managing life that we never stop to ask ourselves these questions.
A little backstory of where this topic comes from.
The concept of success came up this week while leading therapy groups. This led to an open discussion on what it means to be successful. We work so hard in life and sometimes work more than 40 hours a week. What does all this hard work mean to you?
From the group discussion, many people agreed that we automatically connect success to money. This led the discussion to explore this question: What about the people with all the money in the world that are still not happy? Would they consider themselves successful? With such a small scope of what success looks like, there can be added pressure to always make more money, get the newest car, and the biggest home.
Below I want to share 2 ways to evaluate success outside of money:
Expand how you evaluate success
There can be many ways to evaluate your success. You can evaluate areas such as having a peaceful life, a healthy life balance, or a sense of happiness. Friends and family that love and respect you can definitely be included in evaluating success. Having all the money in the world with no one to love or respect the person you are can make it hard to feel like successful.
Enjoy the small victories
We can be so hard on ourselves by not celebrating the small victories we have. This leads to never feeling good enough or accomplished. A consequence of this can be high levels of pressure, stress and anxiety. Take a moment right now and think of one thing you’ve accomplished today, no matter how small. Take this time to congratulate yourself and use positive self-talk to uplift yourself. This type of practice can help you have more positive thoughts, feelings and reduction of anxiety.
I hope this topic and the questions within this blog help you start thinking about what success looks like to you. Also, evaluating success outside of money can help reduce pressure, stress and anxiety around being successful. We at Amy Wine Counseling Center would love to help you work toward success by providing a space for you to improve your mental health. Often an overlooked area of having success.
If you want to learn more about how to make changes in life feel free to give us a call at 832-421-8714 to schedule an appointment today.