Definition of Success

The definition of success varies from person to person, but it can be summed up with this: if you set a goal, and, through effort on your part, you accomplish what you set out to do, you are successful. One cannot determine success by how much money one has, nor by how many people one surrounds him/herself with, but by one’s happiness with where they stand in life.

I am mainly interested in two types of goals: short term goals and long term goals. Short term goals are goals that can be achieved soon after setting them. Examples of short term goals include: painting a picture, going to the movies with your friends, or, if you think really short term, feeding the dog. Examples of long term goals include: learning to speak a foreign language, retirement, and owning one’s own business. Without goals, we have no base to plan our lives around, therefore leading to failure.

The only way to be successful at attaining your goal is to have a plan. The way I learned to plan is to set a goal and work backwards from that goal to figure out what it is going to take to reach that goal. Say, for instance, your goal is to build a house. Building a house costs a lot of money and chances are you don’t have that kind of money in the bank, so you take out a construction loan. Next, you would decide on the floor plans you want built. Then you need to hire a construction company to build it; upon hiring the construction company, you set up a general time line of the work. And voila! When the company is finished building, you have reached your goal.

One of my earliest long term goals was to graduate from high school; I am on the path to meet that goal. All that stands between me and my high school diploma are a few essays and a math course, with which I should be finished within a week. A high school diploma will get you further in life than a GED would, because getting a GED shows that you gave up on the reinforced learning methods of high school and took the easy way out. Soon, I can put “received my high school diploma” on my list of successes.

A second long term goal of mine is to be able to provide for my fiancé and any children we may have. I have a good start to reaching this goal because I joined the Arkansas Army National Guard, which will pay me to go to college, pay for my college, and I get paid $2000 for every person I convince to join the Guard through GRAP (Guard Recruiting Assistant Program). Another step I have taken to reach this goal is to work with my dad, the owner of TCB Construction, on learning how to measure, write estimates for, and inspect roofing jobs. This will help me get the money I need to buy a house and provide for my family. By providing for my household, I would consider myself a great success as a spouse.

To further my career at TCB, I plan to go to college and get a degree in business management. With this degree and the hands on experience I have gained over the years by working with TCB during the summer, I will be able to manage the flow of money, the employees, and the other major aspects of running a company in the best interest of the business. By making sure the company is successful, I will have been successful in my career. And if at any time I decide to leave the company, I would have a job history that would get me a decent job elsewhere. Sometimes being successful calls for having a contingency plan. If you start out with a plan, and plan for the possibility of hiccups in those plans, you are a lot more likely to succeed than someone who has no plan.

Recently, I have taken an apprenticeship with TCB Construction. The job title that best illustrates what I am doing would be “sales representative.” I go out with a salesman and learn how to measure the roof, bid and sell the job to the customer using both words, and competitive pricing. As I type this, we are on the way o Jersey, AR to measure a commercial roof for the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism. This could easily be a $500000 job. By taking the apprenticeship, I have moved myself one step closer to being a success in the career area of my life.

Success, no matter how big or small the goals are, can only be grasped through the attaining of those goals. Success must also be sought after. For anyone to have success, they must fight and strive for it. If a secretary of a large corporation worked her way up the ladder through hard work and sacrifice, she would be a success. On the other hand, if a secretary had a friend who got her a job at the top, she would not be looked upon as a success. There must be a desire for improvement and a commitment to achieve success. It cannot be handed out or paid for. If a student worked hard on homework, read the material, and did well on the test, they would be successful. The desire to work hard and make a good grade produced his success. If he’d been given the answers before the test, and he scored well, he could not be a success. His lack of willingness to work for the grade led to the lack of success. If a football team beat a superior team and then lost the next week to a lesser opponent, the team would not be a success. Success breeds success.

Achievement must be followed by more achievement in order to be considered successful. For example, a successful runner must run hard every race. He must do his best to win every time. If he won his first race and lost the next two, success would not be at hand. Because of his lack of consistency in hard work and desire, he could never be successful. There is one area of success that differs with the others. This area is called “seeming” success. For instance, if a runner strived to be the best–practiced hard, always tried to improve–and never won, he would not be a success. Although he did his best and worked twice as hard, his lack of winning makes him unsuccessful. A student who does all in his power to get A’s and doesn’t, is not successful.

His desire to make A’s is commendable, but his lack of achievement leaves him unsuccessful. It can only be achieved if one accomplishes what he sets out to do. Even though happiness can accompany “seeming” success, the fact that goals are not met makes it an unsuccessful attempt. Another type of “seeming” success is involuntary success. For example, if a civilian gets drafted, against his will, and his unit is very successful, that soldier could not be included in his unit’s success. Even though that soldier helped for the good of the unit, his original plans for life did not include the military. His goals were not the goals of the unit, therefore he is not a success militarily. The reason people are successful is because of their desire, hard work, and achievement.

One of the most complex examples of success is the winning of money. Is the winning of money considered successful? If a person buys a lottery ticket, he is setting his goal on winning. In addition, if the person wins, he is obviously happy. However, this person is not considered successful. Although his goal is to win, he has no control over winning or losing. Achieving goals means working for them and knowing the result. The person is going to be elated about winning but not about achieving goals. Happiness from success results from the achievements accomplished. If a person looks back on his career and feels satisfied and happy with his status, he would be considered a success. However, if he looks back and realizes he could’ve attained much more and feels disappointed, he would not be successful. Success is directly proportionate to happiness. Without it, there cannot be success. Success can also be reached by achievement of goals. In order to accomplish a goal, one must accomplish smaller goals that lead up to the main achievement. For instance, if a football team achieved its aim to win their district and the state championship, they would be successful.

On the other hand, if the team set out to have a winning record, and failed, the season would not be considered successful. Having a successful life does not necessarily mean being rich and famous, but rather being content with the decisions that have made in your life. Prominent people, for example, have a lot of money, big houses, and tons of expensive cars but may not be successful in their life. A real example is Phil, he wasted all his life in accumulating money, and at the end what did he acquire his death. To call ourselves successful: first, we need to have good friends, someone we can trust and often, we need a friend with whom we can speak with no fear of being judged. It is hard to find someone with these characteristics but is not impossible. Friends are like cars, there are a lot of them, but we should find the best ones. Friends are what makes our life different and are always there for us when we need them. Secondly having a happy and understandable family is another key of being successful. Families are said to be “the root of every living soul.” In other words, it helps to have a reliable family. Remember: success in life is all up to you. Set a goal, then work to reach that goal. Never give up. Its all in how you work towards your goals.