Now, if you just stumbled upon this and weren’t looking for “How to live a successful life”, I can guess what you’re thinking. It’s either “Great, another person trying to sell me something”, or “I can’t wait to hear about this person thinks I should give up everything I’ve earned to find true happiness”. Those are normally the two things that come to my head at least.

The definition for how to live a successful life is going to be different for everybody. However, I’d argue that the answer for anybody will never just be “have loads of money”.

Sure, money is useful as a utility for helping you achieve what you want; Whether it be women always within arm’s reach, a luxury car that you have to ever so lightly step on that gas pedal else risk entering warpspace, or just the newest gaming console. These are all things you ironically give money up to achieve.

So what does it mean to live a successful life?

Well it depends on what YOU actually want and what’s enough for you. Let’s ignore the “How to get there?” for now and focus on the finish line. Do you want more freedom, the ability to travel anywhere around the world anytime you want, or maybe just a family.

It’s important to firmly plant that finish line before you begin chasing it. Otherwise, you’re going to burn out quickly and never get that sweet and savory hit of dopamine that you finally get when you’re successful in your goal that you set.

How much money somebody has is a terrible metric for how successful somebody is in life. Here’s why:

• The point of money is to spend it
• If you don’t use it all before you die, then what was the point of making it?
• If you do spend it all before you die, then you die unsucessful by that definition

See why I hate it? It’s full of contradictions and the value it holds is ultimately dictated by the governing body of the borders you reside in, and that’ll change multiple times in your lifetime when compared to foreign currencies.

As for love and relationships, if it takes us showing somebody our bank account in order for them to stay, then they’re going to be somebody that can only subtract from your life (and your bank account). In the moment, it may be great, and could be even worth it, but as a long term investment, it’ll lead you to searching out others to feel successful and content in life.

Great question! Let’s use the tried and tested SMART goals method to find a starting point.

What do you SPECIFICALLY want?

For me, it’s to grow a few of my side hustles.

How about you?

How can we MEASURE it?

This is referring to the having “enough” that I mentioned earlier. I’d like to start by building to 1k followers for this site. Once I hit that, I’ll consider this site to be successful.

How much is “enough” for you to consider your goal met?

Can you ACHIEVE it?

Personally, this is the most difficult one for me and that I often skip. I want to do everything all at once, which ends up to a lot of things not being successful. Hence, the social media accounts I started but haven’t posted anything for several months, which subsequently leads to me not feeling very successful.

The easiest thing for me to do when addressing if I can achieve something is to be almost too vague. For example, I mentioned earlier that I’d like 1k followers, but didn’t mention what counts as a follower.

How RELEVANT is it?

This is addressing your motivation for this goal. Why do you want to achieve this?

As mentioned earlier, I’d specifically want to grow a few of my side hustles. This is important to me since I don’t want to be solely dependent on one income stream.

What is it that you ultimately want and how does this relate to what you want in life?

What TIMEFRAME are we working with?

This one is self explanatory. For me, I’d like to achieve my example in two years.

How long are you giving yourself to meet yours? Make sure it’s not a sprint to the finish line, but a marathon.

Do you know how to get there?

If no, you’re probably looking too far ahead. Look at what you can do today. Think smaller. If you want to be the head chef at a Michelin star restaurant and have zero experience, make some ramen. Now that you can make ramen, start building from there.

Don’t worry about failing. That doesn’t mean you aren’t or especially that you’ll never live a successful life. Everybody’s allowed to make mistakes as long as we learn from them. Failure also shows us two things:

• There’s still room to grow
• We’re continuing to improve

Experts in their field only got there by testing their ideas and failing… a lot. That’s what makes them an expert though. They’re able to speak from their experience on what does and doesn’t work better than the person who never attempted it in the first place. The important thing is that you learn from each failure. Embrace, analyze, and don’t make same mistake again. That’s the simple trick to turn every mistake into progress.

It’s not a highlight reel. It’s something that I can wake up every morning and feel content with. It keeps me driven to continue looking forward, but allowing me to live in the moment as well.

If you want a way to start, consider checking out How to Have a Better Day.