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Small Business Articles from Make-it-Fly®
 What
is Success Anyway?
By Victoria Munro
Printable version
Business writers and marketers use
the word ‘success’ frequently, often flippantly.
Much is written about achieving success and succeeding
in business, but little about defining what success
truly means or exactly what it will look like.
It’s easy to confuse success with wealth, fame
or achievement, and to get caught up in the daily
demands of running our businesses and our lives with
only a vague, undefined idea of what success really
means to us.
We may allow the expectations of others,
perhaps family, friends or society, to define success
for us, and fail to stop to think about what matters
most to us – to review our ultimate goal in life.
Yet how you define success
will have a significant impact on how you use your time,
run your business and live your life.
Dictionaries define success as ‘the
achievement of something desired, planned or attempted.’
What does success mean to you? Is it merely to make
a ton of money? Certainly your business should make
money – no one starts a business to break even,
but there’s more to life than money. What are
you working so hard to achieve? It can be scary to define
success – to commit your dream to paper, since
that opens up the possibility of failure.
Failure – A Stepping Stone
to Success
What if you fail? Those in business
and in life who’ve enjoyed great successes have
almost always failed many times in the process. You
will make mistakes. How you respond to them is key.
Choose to learn from them, get back on your feet and
try again. Never beat yourself up or let mistakes stop
you from moving forward. It may take time to reach your
dream, but don’t lose heart along the way. Keep
your eyes on the goal, think about it often and do something
every day to move towards your success.
There is
no one-size-fits-all definition for success.
Everyone has his or her own unique description. Also,
as you learn and gain experience your definition of
success may change. Answer the following questions to
determine what success means to you:
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What
am I truly passionate about? |
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What
gives me the greatest fulfillment in life? |
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What
makes me genuinely happy? |
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What
would my dream lifestyle be like? (Give yourself
permission to dream big dreams!) |
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What
ingredients must be present for me to consider myself
successful? |
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Who
do I consider to be successful? |
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Why
do I regard them as successful? |
Take a few minutes to write out what
success means for you and your business, and what it
will look like when you achieve it. This may take a
little soul-searching but will prove well worth the
effort. Then put a plan in
place to achieve it.
(463 words)
© 2005-2007 Victoria Munro.
Click here
for printable version.
About the Author: Victoria Munro is
co-founder (along with husband Dave Block) of Make-it-Fly®
LLC, a company dedicated to creating success for
small-business owners through creatively designed programs
and tools. Victoria has started and run nine different
businesses. To receive FREE business success articles
with tips to help you with your business, sign up for
their award-winning ezine, “In-Flight Refueling,”
at: www.Make-it-Fly.com,
and receive a free copy of the eBook, Get
More Done in Less Time: 101 Quick and Easy Time Tactics
& Tips.
You’re welcome to “reprint”
this article in your ezine, print publication
or on your website, as long as it remains complete and
unaltered (including the “about the author”
info at the end). Please send a copy of your reprint
to info@make-it-fly.com.
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