Success: How to Measure It
Success: How to Measure It Success for everyone is a purely individual notion, and that is why there are no universal criteria or attributes based on which one could define what success is. However, one can distinguish these types of success: professional, social, and personal success.
Professional success is very often mixed with financial issues. After all, it happens often enough that an absolutely financially successful man can be deeply unhappy in personal life. Professional success is associated with human relations in career and personal success. In this light, the criteria for measurement of success can be viewed as the effectiveness of a person’s professional and personal life.
Other side of the issue is that the understanding of thriving career and family relations are different in various countries and societies and are dependent on age, gender, status, religion, and other characteristics. There is also a belief that success is closely connected with happiness. However, happy life cannot be associated only with success, and to be successful does not mean to be happy.
Personal success is changeable and can be even mixed with some temporal goals. However, true success comes when a person works hard and in an organized manner. That can be applied not only to career but to family relations too. Success is measured by personal and professional triumph. Success is a combination of different factors. It can be measured by the degree of personal satisfaction with life and the percentage of the set and made goals. Success can be measured by the time a person spends to achieve it. Success in business is not a guarantee of success in personal life. I find success in relation with people more important, because the material is temporal, while the spiritual is universal and continuing.
A person must not just do things in a perfect way to feel success. God is the one who lifts people up and deserves all the glory. Success is when a person believes that he/she lives righteous life, is in this place and at this time.
However, people still understand success as wealth, glory. Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers: the Story of Success underlines that people usually have personal expectations about success, which do not work. People who are more likely to achieve success have special opportunities. In this case success can be measured as luck to be born in a wealthy family, with great mental ability, without disabilities, etc. Success is also closely connected with satisfaction. Success can be measured as a hard work.
To sum up the discussed issue, one should underline that success is a very personal thing for everyone, and it is determined on the basis of vital goals. The solution how to measure it consists in identifying five main values in life and moving to their implementation. The solution will work well if a person puts essential values that will guide his/her in a process of achieving long- and short-term goals in life.
