The Real Meaning of Success in Life — What Is It and How to Achieve It?
Last Updated on July 7, 2022
Success is like a train that has many compartments, everybody wants to be on the train but only a few manage to board on it. The real meaning of success in life is more than some old oxford dictionary meaning.
So, what success really is in life?
Without finding out the answer to this important question one can not achieve it.
Tighten your seat belts and read this article till the end because in this article I have not only shared the real meaning of success but also what it takes to achieve it. The article is surely going to be long but trust me it will be worth your time.
Without any further ado, let’s get started.
What Is The Real Meaning Of Success In life?
Making goals and objectives for oneself and making efforts with honesty, hard work, and devotion, in order to transform the goals into reality. Then, making difference in other’s life who are not so fortunate, is the real meaning of success in life.
Everyone achieves success but in order to be really successful one should make a difference in others’ life as that’s what brings happiness.
Although the definition of success is different for everyone as some want happiness, some define success as having luxuries or more money. But the outer core remains the same which is making goals and achieving them with every ounce of energy and effort one can make to live his/her dream life.
There are many successful people who defines success by keeping its real meaning intact.
Success Definitions By Remarkably Successful People
Barack Obama defines success as: “Success isn’t about how much money you make. It’s about the difference you make in people’s lives.”
Maya Angelou: “Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.”
Richard Branson: “Don’t just sit around waiting for it. Work hard, take your chances, and seize opportunities when they present themselves.”
Bill Gates defines success as: “It is also nice to feel like you made a difference – inventing something or raising kids or helping people in need.”
Okay, so now you might have understood the meaning of success in life, now we will understand what it takes to be successful and how one can achieve success in life. Also, I will share what is success according to me.
What is The Real Meaning Of Success According To Me?
As I said earlier, success is like a train with many compartments, like hard work, effort, honesty, devotion, never-give-up attitude, etc. A train is incomplete without its compartments and that’s how success is incomplete for me without effort and without me giving my best.
Success for me is giving my best, no matter if I win or lose. If I know that am giving my 110% it doesn’t matter if someone acknowledges my achievements or not. As deep within, I know I am true to the process.
For many of you, success would have luxury, or money or fame, which is great. To have such goals is not bad; but to revolve around these things and think that achieving this is a success is not how I define accomplishment.
Success for me is happiness, gratefulness, and my 100% honesty to the process. Believe me, if you are giving everything to achieve your goals then no force in this world can stop you from becoming the greatest of all time.
Efforts are what really matter.
Sharing my victories with others, knowing that my loved ones are with me and the joy of giving my life in the service of others with a goal of making a difference in a few people’s lives is a success for me.
In short, success according to me is:
- Giving my 1000%
- Being grateful
- Realizing that my close ones love me
- To be honest to the process of achieving my goals
- Remembering God
If you’ll ask me what motivates me to be successful then my answer would be, to become the best version of myself is my sole motivation to be successful, I don’t just want material success but mental success too.
3 Tips To Achieve Success in Life Faster
Want to achieve success in life? Practice these ways of achieving success and you’ll see your dreams transforming into reality.
1. Be Clear About Your Goals
In order to succeed in something, be clear about your goals in life. It is better to be clear about what you really want in life because without being clear about your desires, you cannot pick the right path and execute in the right way.
So how can you be clear about your goals?
In order to define your goals in life, make a list of all the things you want to achieve in life, now filter that list by the top 5 goals you want to achieve no matter what. After being clear about those 5 goals, do deep research on which path will be good enough to pick in order to succeed.
Also, don’t choose to do something with only one criterion. In my circle, I have seen people choosing their career, goals, and everything in order to earn more or prove to their parents and friends that they can be rich.
This is nonsense. It is not bad, but it should not be the sole motive to achieve anything in life.
Choose the goal, profession, or anything only if you can do it for the rest of your life and will be happy doing it because they all require commitment, motivation, and hard work.
Pro Tip: Make short-term goals rather than making long-term goals. Make few short terms goals because it will be easy for you to achieve them and also it will prepare you and give you the confidence to achieve the bigger ones.
2. Be Committed To Achieve Success in Life
Commitment can win many battles which even talent cannot, this is something I personally believe and try to apply in my life. Being consistent, committed, and devoted are the important tools you need to shape the stone of success in your life in order to make it the greatest sculpture.
What I mean is, consistency and commitment to your goal will shape you as a human being as it will discipline you and also it will guarantee you the success you want in life. The real meaning of success lies in commitment and devotion to the process. This can only be possible if one is happy doing what he does.
3. Don’t Doubt Your Potential
Self-doubt is a threat to your potential, and this is something strongly consider. Studies prove it too. In a study done by Anthony D. Hermann on the impact of self-doubt on self-esteem, it was found that the participants, when put in difficult situations, due to self-doubt their difficulty increased and self-esteem decreased. Resulting in self-handicapping.
This is what doubting does. It handicaps you and pushes you to think that you are incapable of achieving anything in life, and that’s why it becomes hard to achieve success for so many people.
At last, repeat this to yourself whenever you find yourself in a self-doubting situation, “I can do anything which life brings to me, as I believe in myself and the divine which gives me strength.”
Even Wikipedia cannot answer how one can achieve success, but I am sure you can, by working hard enough and being devoted to your dreams. This quality is what may successful people possess if you want to learn more qualities of successful people then read the secret habits of successful people.
Why Success Takes Time?
From defining the real meaning of success to understanding how one can achieve it, we have covered all the important aspects of it, but this is still unanswered, why being successful take time? why achieving success often takes so long?
In order to understand this, we must understand nature. Yes, you heard it right.
If you observe nature, everything takes time. Take a caterpillar, for instance, it takes days, weeks, or even years for a caterpillar to become a beautiful butterfly. Take a bamboo tree. Do you know why it takes such a long time? It takes a long time to grow because for months it deepens its roots first in order to become a long strong bamboo tree.
In the same way, life works for us. It takes such a long time to achieve success in life because there are no shortcuts in life. Everything uncovers itself after a certain period. Understand that if you want to achieve something greater in life, you must not lose patience.
Life always demands something in return, be it your time or your loved ones it demands something for sure, so give it your time in order to achieve greater heights without losing your hope.
What Does Success Looks Like?
Recently I saw an image on Reddit which talked about how success looks like and it was something that I personally found to be the reality.
This is exactly what success in life looks like. It is never a straight line. There are trials. For a few years, you would be unbeatable for a few, you will face failures. The graph of success never remains the same, and that’s why only a few succeed.
The problem with all of us is ‘EXPECTATION’, we expect so much. Even now, if you are reading this article, you might expect millions of dollars by becoming successful. But the reality is, the people who earn so much also sometimes lose so much and this cycle goes on. People give up on the ladder of success when they face failures and hardships.
See the big picture and understand that not every day will remain the same. Some will be prosperous and some disastrous, and that’s what life really is. Accept them all.
So in order to achieve that straight line at the end, prepare yourself to face all that downfalls and hardships.
Final Thoughts
The real meaning of success remains the same. Make goals and then work harder to achieve them, with every motivation you have and that’s what success is. Want to be the greatest of all time? Work like them.
I hope this article helps you in finding out what real meaning of success is in life, and what it takes to be successful. Thanks for reading. Feel free to comment down below.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is success everything in life?
The definition of success is different for every individual. Life is not just about success, it is about living it to the fullest. Happiness defines success. If being successful makes you happy, then yes, success is everything in life. For others like me, travelling, making new friends, and being creative makes me happy. At last, it all depends on what’s your meaning of success is.
Which type of people are successful?
People who are passionate, hardworking, consistent, and kind are the most successful people. They not only think about themselves but also think about making a difference in other’s lives. Selfish people can never become successful in life.
Why are happier people more successful?
Yes, people who remain happy no matter what achieve more success than others. This is because their minds focus on the positives, which improves their cognitive functions. Helping them to achieve their best.