The New Meaning of Success

The People of Myanmar need to find a new meaning of “Success” to get through each day under the attack of both Coup & COVID-19. In this episode, I explore this new meaning of “Success” based on my personal experiences. If you agree with it, you can apply it in your daily life — cooking, studying, or even fighting for democracy, whatever matters the most to you.

Hello everyone!

This is your host Sayar Henry and thank you for downloading and listening to another episode of my podcast. 

In today’s episode, I’m going to share my definition of being successful so that you can take a look at your life with a new perspective and redefine what you want to do with each and every day of your life even if that means studying for an exam or fighting for democracy.   

We are also going to figure out what is keeping us from feeling successful and what we can do about it.

But before diving into the details, I need to clear out any confusion that may arise from using the word “success”.

Usually, when people use the word “success”, they tend to associate it with vivid images in their head such as being a rich CEO, founding a well-known company, or getting a dream job. 

This illusion is making the word “success” appear almost exclusively to the world of business, career and wealth.

But in reality, it’s not sufficient to measure success only through the lens of corporate world and entrepreneurship.

Here are some examples to think about.

If a man is an average worker at his job but a great father and husband at home, can we not say that he is a successful family man? 

If a woman who writes fiction books has a large audience on the internet but doesn’t earn as much from book sales as another writer who writes self-help books, is it fair to label this woman as not a successful writer?  

If a student has just earned a scholarship at one of the top universities, can we not describe him as a successful student? 

Or do we really have to wait until he gets a good job after his graduation?  

So, in that sense, the word “success” is not categorical and therefore very subjective. 

Then how do we define “success” if it is very subjective and personal?

Well, here is my definition of being successful.

If what you are doing is bringing you closer to what you want to become, then you are successful. 

Okay, I’m going to repeat this so that it sticks better in your head.

If what you are doing is bringing you closer to what you want to become, then you are successful. 

In another word, I don’t see success as a state. 

I see it as a process.

It’s the process of putting your head in the game and getting closer and closer to the results you want whatever that game is.

If you say you want to become a better parent and you are setting priorities right to spend more quality time with your child every day, then you are a successful person. 

If you say you want to improve your social skills and you are always looking for opportunities to engage in conversations or connect with other people, then you, my friend, are going to be successful in that department too.   

Conversely, if you say you want to become a healthier person but you’re not mindful about nutrition, exercise, and sleep, then you are definitely not successful in that game.

And if you say you want to be fluent in English but you are spending too little time with the language every day, then you are not a successful language learner either.

It is as simple as that.

But how did I come up with this definition of “success”?

Well, here is a little bit of background that led me to this definition.

As a person who is very much into productivity, experimentation, and personal development, I have this habit of reviewing how many tasks I can complete out of everything I put on my to-do list. 

One day, I decided to review my to-do lists from the past two weeks to see if I had a successful run for that month.

And what I found was quite interesting.

Traditionally, a successful day for me would be a day on which I complete most of the tasks that I intend to achieve. 

And by that same old definition, it would also mean that I would feel like a failure on the days I complete next to nothing. 

Right?

Well… that didn’t turn out as expected.

I found out that there were some days that I feel unhappy about … even though I completed 90 % of the tasks I intend to complete.

And there were also those days on which I feel satisfied just by completing one task from my to-do list.

So that got me thinking about what went wrong with my ‘traditional’ definition of a successful day. 

And after taking a closer look at my records, I noticed something critical.

Whenever I got most from the to-do list done but none of these tasks were the top priority ones for that day, I did not feel satisfied despite completing most of the tasks.

And similarly, whenever I got the top priority tasks done, even if I couldn’t manage to touch other tasks, I still felt great at the end of the day.

For example, let’s imagine that there are five tasks for me to complete today.

The first one is to record my voice for this podcast.

The second one is to create a video for my YouTube channel.

The third one is to write something for my Facebook page.

The fourth one is to check homework submitted by my students.

The fifth one is to recover the files to review my android application project.

All of these tasks are not related to each other, and they all demand significant amount of time and energy. 

So in real life, there’s no way a person can complete all these tasks in just one day. 

But we are talking about a hypothetical situation here.

So, let’s say, on that hypothetical day, my top priority is to record voice for the podcast.

But instead of achieving that, I completed creating a video, writing something, checking students’ homework, and recovering files from my laptop.  

Now, despite knowing that these four tasks are quite heavy, I still feel guilty for not being able to touch the podcast project.  

It’s like I somehow betrayed myself.

On the other hand, if I completed only the task of recording my voice on that day, even if that carries just 20 % of my to-do list, I don’t feel guilty at all. 

Why is that?

Well, the answer lies in that definition of success that I told you earlier.

“What you are doing must bring you closer to what you want to become.” 

Remember? 

In my example, by having voice recording as a priority, I subconsciously visualized myself as someone who has completed recording my voice when the day is over. 

Then, by actually doing the action of recording my voice, I’m bringing myself closer to what I want to become by the end of the day.

So, in the end, my vision of the day and my actions are aligned in the same direction. 

As a result, it felt like a successful day to me. 

In contrast, when I focus on other tasks instead for whatever reason, my actions are not in line with what I subconsciously want to become by the end of that day. 

So, no matter how many other things I got done, I still don’t feel successful.

In a nutshell, success is the process of getting your actions in line with your priorities.

This discovery of the new meaning of “success” also taught me an important lesson – that life is all about setting priorities right and moving forward in favor of these priorities.

If we don’t have priorities, we will unknowingly waste our life by working on things that don’t really matter to us and we will never feel successful. 

And even when we have priorities, if our actions are not in line with these priorities, we will never ever feel successful enough, no matter what else we have achieved.

Now, with this new meaning of success, I want you to think about two questions.

What do you want to become?

And what do you want your country to become?

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so … so much for listening to my podcast. 

I hope you stay safe and have a great week ahead.

And remember.

What you are doing must bring you closer to what you want to become. Not further.