Inspirational Quotes, books & articles to empower you

You may be unsure how you would define your sense of success. Perhaps you wonder whether the way you approach the subject now could or should change. As you go through your process of self-reflection, it will help to eliminate what success isn't:

1) Success isn't defined by what you do. The nature of your work isn't an accurate measure of self-worth. Your identity isn't based on the category or label you get in relation to your source of income. Success isn't something you gradually achieve based on your level of responsibility, social status, military rank, position, employer, pension fund or, degree of external approval that evaluates your performance. If you earn a lot of money or a little money, this doesn’t translate into a lot or a little success. Its not allocated based on seniority. Its revealed based on whether you learn to do what you do to the best of your ability.

2) Success isn't guaranteed (or not) by your Alma Matter. The institutions that provide you certain kinds of training or education are no guarantees of a sense of success. Reputation is something you evolve to create for yourself based on your own choices and behavior in "the real world." People who have little or no formal education also create their version of success. It’s not the courses, internships or apprenticeships that bring you success, but how you apply your free will, develop a thirst for knowledge and take advantages of opportunities to learn.

3) Success for you isn't assured by your family, friends or colleagues. The people you choose to form your entourage are not your gauge for success. You choose the treatment you will accept or reject and the people who help you set these guidelines. You evolve to delimit or extend your emotional boundaries. You decide what it takes to inspire you to feel good. You decide when to forge relationships or to strengthen those you already have. You always learn from other people and their life experience. Yet, how your personality unfolds, the skills you choose develop or not are what enable you to savor life your way. Success isn't something you can measure by the quantity or lifestyle of friends and relations. You have nothing to prove. You just are.

In essence, success is defined by how you create your wounds and transform your fears. It grows as you evolve to love and accept everything about you, including all qualities and traits, all your past choices and perceived mistakes or "learning experiences." A sense of success will intensify as you stop judging strengths and weaknesses, stop highlighting what you falsely assume is missing, lacking or rejected about yourself. Success is your awareness of the effective healing process within yourself. You are worthy. You are loved, heard and appreciated as you are. How prepared you are to confront your own issues determines the healing that occurs and how you view and experience success. Learning how to rebalance on a conscious level is part of the process of self-discovery.