Success is hard to measure, that much is true, but it’s even harder to understand how to measure it especially because it’s such a vague thing in the first place. If you look up the meaning of success, you won’t be greeted by a measurable thing like “success is someone who has earned x amount of money or x amount of followers”, rather, you’ll find yourself getting hit by something vague like “the accomplishment of an aim or purpose. That doesn’t really help does it? So is success immeasurable? Well, no. because here’s the thing, financials aside, your measure of success and the person right next to you’s measurement of success can be not only slightly different but can be wildly different. So to make it easier for you to measure your success, here are a few non-financial metrics that you can use to measure your success.
Health
You can use your health to measure success, did you know that? The logic behind this is quite simple, the more successful you are, the more time you will have to focus on your health because let’s face it, especially right now in the middle of a global pandemic, health is one of the things that we can not buy with money, no matter how much of it we have. The sad part is, we’re only beginning to realize this now. Your health should always be your number one priority because, just like the old saying that says money can’t buy you happiness, it simply cannot buy you your health. And as you’ll see throughout this article, health will have a great impact on how successful you can be.
You can further fortify your health by eating well; yet another metric of success, exercising and getting enough sleep. Doing these things will not only help you maintain your health longer but also if you haven’t been feeling well lately, this might just be one of the things that you need to further improve your health overall.
Happiness
This should be the core of why we go to work every morning and why we do the things we do; to be happy. What most of us don’t understand is that, though it’s true that we need money to sustain ourselves, money is never the be-all and end-all of our lives, and nor should it be! Just go on the internet and see how many lives money has ruined and you’ll get the idea; money is a good servant but a bad master. You should be doing everything you can in pursuit of happiness, not money.
You can start by finding something that you love doing and do it because you love it. If you’re a musician, do it because it makes you happy, not because it makes you money. The same goes if you’re a writer. Write because you enjoy the process, not because you need the money. Eventually, when you keep pursuing the thing that makes you happy, money will follow. If you’re chasing money, you’re chasing the wrong thing.
Freedom
How free are you? Are you constantly tied down to a desk? Are you living from paycheck to paycheck and never have any wiggle room to really do what you want? Freedom is not just financial, it’s a whole spectrum of things that will eventually contribute to how happy you are in life. If you feel like you’re dealing with things you don’t like, tied down to things that bring you misery, then you’re more than likely not that successful yet. The reasoning behind this is that, as a person, your freedom is one of the only things that you truly own, and sometimes we let that go in our pursuit of money and success, but if you never reclaim that freedom, then you’ll never end up being successful, no matter how much money you earn.
Spirituality
Spirituality is important. And yes, though it may sound like something a hippy would say, it is undeniable that your spirituality will be something that plays an important role in how successful you become, as well as how long you can sustain that success.
As human beings, we’ve always been spiritual creatures in addition to being scientific ones. We need something that can give us the strength to keep going when things get rough because most of the time, that’s exactly what we need. Spirituality doesn’t have to be about religion though, it can be anything else that brings you a sense of peace, mental clarity, and just overall things that give you the strength that you need to keep moving forward.
Relationship
Your relationship will reflect your success. That’s why you should never view relationships as a byproduct of your success because, in reality, it’s the other way around. The better your relationships are, the more successful you will become. This is simply because of how relationships tend to give us that extra push that we need to keep going forward or give us a reason to work even harder because we want to give our significant other a better life. Whatever it is, relationships are definitely something you can use to measure your success and even to push you to greater heights in your career.
Success as a concept is intensely vague. So vague, in fact, that everyone will have different opinions on what success is and how to best achieve it. But if you follow the pointers above, you can measure success on your own terms, determine the things that you need to change for yourself to know how successful you are. Success is never about money. To some it can simply be that they have a roof over their head, no debts, and food on the table, to some others, it may be a large mansion with fancy cars. But whatever you think success is, as long as you don’t have the 5 things mentioned above, sorry to break this to you, but you’re not successful yet.