Feel around in the darkness

As you dream of defining what success means to you in a given period of your life, you may be faced with tough decisions.  It may seem as though you feel around in the darkness for a switch to shed light on things.  Rather than be discouraged, remind yourself if everything was clear, the learning process wouldn't be as rewarding.  Your emotional process is a teacher.  Do you listen?

As you self-question about your priorities, you can grow to trust yourself and accept who you are. To begin to understand your personality will empower you to make better decisions for you.  If you get to a stage where you make decisions that ignore your perceived strengths and weaknesses, it would be time to reassess sources of meaning in your life and rethink the basis for your decisions.

1) Focus only on where you desire to change.  What's the point in defining components of success in areas of your life you don't desire to improve?  Learn to discern the key issues based on priorities you're struggling to sort out.  Narrow down your priorities to the most important ones.  Draft lists of tasks at hand, what you can or can't control. Gauges of success relate to what you can influence, in terms of things like your mindset, physical and mental health and well-being. 

2) Stay true to sources of meaning in your life.  If you're unsure of where to focus, tell yourself you're not meant to master everything.  Learn to step back and identify what you desire separate from what other people desire for you.  The guidance of others can be reassuring and useful, but its essential to learn to listen to yourself.  This will separate you from other people's priorities.

3) Recognize the value of short and longer-term.  Your sense of progress will mean different things depending on where you are in health, relationships and job hierarchies, among your perceived options.  To take a job in order to earn money to make the rent is a kind of success, but that may be a means to an end rather than the end you work toward in the bigger picture.

4) Connect with aspirations.  In all likelihood, your evolving concept of success will relate more to your hopes than those things that cause discomfort in your life.  However, if you haven't yet isolated your primary hopes, or they seem to be changing, the root causes of your uneasy feelings is a hint about where to go next.  Facing fears will help you uncover a new route to fulfillment.

5) Give yourself time. It's up to you to determine when to recognize certain things about yourself and your circumstances.  When you're ready to let yourself feel, ready to be patient to see how certain events unfold, ready to recognize options you hadn't considered before, your view of success will change with you.  This doesn't relate to human measurements of time so much as your level of comfort about new kinds of self-discovery.  Success is a state of mind and results.