Defining Success

Success doesn’t have to be this grand thing. It’s as simple as waking up in the morning and deciding to shower and brush your teeth and set your daily goal. There, you succeeded to wake up and make a few choices that could possibly lead on to better choices.

Success seems to be only acceptable if it’s shown off on your Instagram feed and if you didn’t take a picture of it then you did not achieve a goal because thousands of people couldn’t congratulate or scold or secretly visit your image to later feel bad about not having the same type of success as you.

Success however, is a process. The process starts with removing fear and alleviating the constant voices in your head that say you can’t do something because- you don’t have enough money, you’re unqualified in some way, you’ll never find love again or altogether being afraid of the unknown.

Overcoming Fear

Being fearful never brought positive change to my life. It bounds us with worry and suffering that takes time to heal, hence, setting yourself back when you already have an idea to move forward. Fear has a way of letting us know that anything we ever want for ourselves is wrong because it doesn’t want to have its power taken away; the power of control.

If you’re like me, 22 and/or making a lot of decisions for your future, then control attracts you more than being a week away from spring break. We have to hold ourselves accountable, breathe when we feel fear, and realize that the opposite of success does not mean failure. It’s important to not compare your success to others. For me, our individual accomplishments are unmeasurable because we are all just people constantly trying to figure life out and what it will ultimately mean to us.

Until recently, my life would get so overwhelming more often than I felt that many people around were experiencing, and yet another thought to create a barrier that blocks the world out because we are all experiencing it. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t keep up with making sure my life always looked like vibrant colors and collages of flawless foods and life changing getaways. I couldn’t block out the constant media and advertisement pushed on me telling me that I need another new thing. I couldn’t deal with not being able to make it all work. I couldn’t be perfect.

These things blurred the lines of success for me, and the goals that I use to set for myself often revolved around ‘how can I make this look amazing for other people’.

This is not supposed to be a preachy article you’ve found on your Facebook when it’s 2 a.m. and you’re feeling low. I think it’s beautiful that we all find communities to share parts of our lives with in cyberworld, but I do feel that transparency and really being honest with ourselves is more important. Yes, your dinner looked amazing last night, but what about the night before when you forgot to eat because the responsibilities of the day took over?

I am right in the heart of fearing, controlling and worrying with you and I haven’t always been aware of it and I’m at the beginning of the learning stage. But what I am sure of is that people are universally putting off their passions and not expanding their ideas in different mediums and are hurting from things that are just a part of our imaginations without ever putting in the effort to ask yourself ‘what is it that you want for your life?’

So, when you’re faced with a friend who feels that it’s all going downhill because their success doesn’t seem to be coming fast enough, ensure them that the idea of success may never come. Changing the perspective of success by eliminating fear already makes you a successful person.