Two Kinds of Success

By

Bill Cottringer

“The way you define success determines how much or how little of it you have.” ~The Author.

     There are two basic types of success measures—external and internal. External validations of success can include objective measures such as wealth, power, fame, professional status, achievements and influence, as compared to others. External success can also be short-term or long term. The only way to achieve and sustain long term success is through exceptional efforts in doing the right thing in the right way for all the right reasons.

     This ideal kind of success is reserved to a very few success shadow-makers whom the others try to emulate, and obviously this external type of success is the most popular and sought-after version. The problem is that defining success in this way limits the amount of it that is available to the masses, because the system we live in is designed to keep this level of success carefully reserved for the very few 1% elite shadow-makers.

     On the other hand, internal success is entirely subjective and relatively unpopular, even though it is available to more people than external success. In defining success internally, the person is competing against him or herself, rather than against others for the objective validation that defines their external success. Instead, these people are most concerned about enjoying inner peace of mind by having a sense of making enough progress in fulling their purpose in life and living a good life in their own eyes.

     The only caveat to traveling the road to internal success, is that you must know and be living your purpose, or at least diligently searching for it as life is a journey, rather than a destination. Here again, no one can define that purpose for you, it must be up to you to do that and no one can tell you that you are right or wrong or that one person’s purpose is more noble or better than another one. Doing that crosses over to the external success definition.

     Now while it may be true that there are a few people who have essentially achieved both types of success, part of the externally-driven success-seeker’s drive is the insatiable nature of the drive—enough is never enough and that sense of contentment about progress is forever elusive, just beyond the person’s reach. After all, you can never acquire enough wealth, power, fame, status, achievements and influence. There is always a person who has more.

     The question here is, which definition of success yields more success and how do you measure that reality? I can only surmise that the internal success-seekers feel more contentment and end up with more peace of mind and understanding than the external success-seekers. This is because life is a journey more than a destination and making the effort always seems to end up with more enjoyment, no matter what results you get from those efforts.

     Another reason why the internal definition of success is a valid consideration has to do with motivation. Simply stated, internal motivation is always stronger and lasts longer than its counterpart, external motivation.

     Failures are where all the true , genuine success secrets are found and without being confronted with or acknowledging failures, one cannot really enjoy success fully. The traditional road to success means surviving a series of failures in being externally-drive, so you see the better deal with the internal success measure. At the end of the day, apple pie ala mode is most satisfying and enjoying rainbows means enjoying the rain along with the sunshine. How are you currently defining success?

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” ~Winston Churchill.