Don’t Shelf Your Dreams: The New Way to Measure Success

What if your current definition of success is backward?

The commonly accepted definition of success is rooted in the idea that achieving specific milestones will make you happy.

Some of those milestones look like, but certainly not limited to:

• The right school.
• A promising corporate career.
• A lifestyle that effectively communicates to others you’ve “made it.”

It’s a model of external achievements to create inner happiness that’s been passed through generations, leading us to chase the idea of what we believe success means.

It creates a life where we live from the outside -> in.

But what if it was backward?

What if, instead of living from the outside -> in, we learned to live from the inside -> out?

What if our sense of happiness, and its deeper cousin joy, came from within and wasn’t dependent on externals?

What if we choose to feel how we want to feel now, not if we achieve a particular milestone?

What if we redefined success as a connection, creation, and contribution model, not a chase?