Defining Success
What is intrinsic success? How do you define it? Why do we need to?
Everyone seems to always be striving for ‘success’. They often say success is being ‘happy’, but what does being ‘happy’ mean to you?
Whilst most people are striving for success in their careers, the majority haven’t spent time truly defining what ‘success’ actually means to them. There are accepted social definitions around success, which most would vaguely attach to their own measurement – in terms of...
How much money they earn...
How many promotions they get...
How much recognition they get from others...
How big their house is...
How much more ‘successful’ they are compared to their peers...
How popular they are...
How ‘busy’ they are...
How many awards they get... possession, status, power - you get the idea.
And these things are all fantastic things to strive toward... But have you ever called these elements into question and asked yourself what each actually means to you, and for your life?
These factors are what are collectively known as ‘extrinsic’ success factors.
There is nothing wrong with defining success by these extrinsic factors BUT be careful, issues can arise when your feeling of success is too heavily focussed on one or all of these areas. Feelings that can be linked to this include; confusion, unhappiness, unfulfillment, negativity. These feelings can in turn negatively affect your career development.
Extrinsic success factors do not feed the soul.
So much of an individual’s sense of achievement is linked to the classic way of goal setting – e.g. if I reach X I will feel X sense of achievement. But, it may be coming clearer to you that you need to redefine many ways in which you measure progress, achievement, success and happiness.
Milestone X = Feeling X E.g. Promotion = Pride
Desires and How to Leverage Them
Closely linked with defining intrinsic success is getting familiar with another part of you - your desires.
All of your thoughts and feelings about what you want to get, achieve, do, experience is being driven by an innate feeling of how you want to feel.
Knowing how you want to feel is one of the strongest ways to provide you with clarity in a self development process. Being able to generate these feelings yourself through the actions and decisions you make is one of the most powerful and creative things you can do with your life.
We want your desires and intentions to consciously inform the decisions you are going to be making.
Not only the big life decisions but even right down to the day to day decisions and choices you make.
Your thoughts, emotions and feelings all exist within an interdependent relationship. They all impact each other. Here are some examples:
- If you think positively and kindly about yourself, you’ll generate positive emotions and you will make yourself feel good e.g high energy, full of vigour.
- Conversely, if you think negative thoughts about yourself, you will generate negative emotions e.g. shame, guilt, and then this will make you feel bad.
Take a few moments and ask yourself, how do I want to feel when....
I wake up in the morning?
When I arrive at work / when I begin my workday?
When I look at my schedule for the week?
When I start a new project?
When I look at my work colleagues?
When I am on my weekends/ holidays?
When I go to sleep?
Defining Intrinsic Success
So now you understand the concept of desires and its importance for this part of the process, let’s jump back into intrinsic success. How is intrinsic success defined?
In order for you to be able to strive for and achieve intrinsic success (feeling content, congruent with your real self and happy) you first need to understand the concept of what it is ...so here goes.
It is generally accepted that there is no one true definition of intrinsic success because, if you hadn’t realised already, it is dependant on you! However, there are a few people out there who have come up with some great definitions of the concept, here’s a couple of examples;
Intrinsic success is the silent acknowledgment of achievement in an area that aligns with someone’s personal values or goals. It is meaningful improvement or change and is felt as a wave of intense pride / euphoria.
Intrinsic success is:
Knowing that what you are doing means something, even if no one can see it
Moving forward in a personally meaningful way
Seeking internal approval
--Laura Quilter, Athlete
Human beings need 3 basic needs to be met in order to be content ; they need to feel competent at what they do, they need to feel authentic in their lives and they need to feel connected to others. These values are intrinsic to human happiness and far outweigh extrinsic values such as beauty, money and status.
-- From the book ‘Tribe’ by Simon Junger
Now the challenging part (and don’t be surprised if you experience some resistance here), you need to come up with a personal definition of how YOU define intrinsic success. It will serve you to have a clear vision of what success means to you and you alone. There is no value in living your life based on other people's definition of what success is. It is also very easy to say ‘success is being happy’ but as we’ve already mentioned, what does ‘being happy’ mean to you? The answer is inside of you and we can help you find it by asking you a few questions
Defining what intrinsic success is to you is relevant to all areas of your life. This is a gift to you. It’s an insightful task for you to connect with throughout your life, in all areas, to strive for that intrinsic feeling of success and happiness.
The truth is... this is your life, and you get to choose these success markers.
Intrinsic and Extrinsic Success Workbook
It’s time to stop living the way you think you should and start living based on your personal definition, in the truest and most authentic way you can. The best way to ensure you’re doing this is to define success on your own personal parameters, parameters that are unique to you (because you are unique) and to define success in a mindful way that matches your personal values and beliefs.
To help you embed and understand this concept, in your own words write what you believe the definition of intrinsic success to be.
What differentiates intrinsic success from extrinsic success? Can you think of any personal examples of your own current extrinsic factors that you measure success against? What about any examples of intrinsic factors you’re measuring success against?
Why do you think is it important to have intrinsic success in your life?
What are the risks of relying solely on extrinsic success? Can you think of any examples in your current life where this is showing up?
What emotions are you linking to your extrinsic success? Are you relying on these extrinsic factors to make you feel good? Make comments below.
What emotions can you link to intrinsic success?
What specific parameters can you measure your intrinsic success against? (Think about the key areas of your life: career, relationships, health, mental health, spirituality, etc. Your life is interconnected so consider all these areas when defining success. Examples of intrinsic success factors include: having a balanced work and personal life, working with people you connect with, spending enough time each week with loved ones, having time to pursue a personal interest, working in an industry you uniquely feel passionate about etc.)
Bearing in mind all the notes from the previous questions, what is your personal definition of success?
Once defined, what are the metrics for your definition of success? How will you measure your success? Think about each of your ‘success factors’ and how you could measure these.
What are you going to do to maintain your intrinsic success?