Leona Laurie
The title of this blog post might seem like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised how often people set out on a path towards “success” without fully defining what it is. Success differs for every person and every situation, which means that knowing what it is for you in a particular situation is the best way to ensure that you’re walking towards it and that you’ll recognize it when you get there.
A few years ago, I was working as a publicist for a handful of musicians. Each one had entirely different goals, but at the outset, they were all on a very similar path– the conventional path that takes aspiring musicians towards record deals and into stardom. As you can imagine, if every musician on earth was vying for a record deal and stardom, most would walk away disappointed! Once we defined what success would be for each of them, though, we wound up with as many distinct paths as we had musicians.
One defined success as earning a steady income from working with music, not caring if he ever saw his name in lights. That was a very attainable goal, and as soon as he’d locked it in, he started making significant strides towards it.
One defined success as keeping her momentum going as her family grew, making sure she continued to write and perform music, and using music as a means to express her faith. Another attainable goal! All she needed to do then was write and sing, without worrying about who would hear her or how much she would make.
The need to define success in order to attain it is present in every aspect of our lives and careers. Recently, I encountered it when considering my future in public speaking. I knew that I wanted to get more training and to make more progress, but until I defined what I was trying to accomplish, I was floundering. I sat down and started thinking about where my career would benefit most from additional training in speaking, and almost immediately I realized that my pitch skills had atrophied a bit in the wake of a lovely couple of years of referral business. I’d had to introduce myself to so few people that my business cards, professional wardrobe, and elevator speech had gotten severely out of date, and my pitch had lost all of its impact. Voila! I now knew what I was aiming for, and even before beginning my new training regimen, I started making progress towards my goal.
If you take a moment to think of all the things we strive for in life, you’ll immediately recognize a difference between popular definitions of success and your own definition. When you plan your meals and workouts, are you trying to look like a supermodel, or trying to be your best, healthy self? When you nurture your children in sports and education, are you only aiming for a professional contract or an ivy league school, or do you aspire to some other mark for your them? If you’re working to improve as a public speaker, are you trying to become the next Abraham Lincoln or John F Kennedy, or do you just want to be able to give a presentation at the office or read aloud to your children at bedtime?
When you have a quiet moment today, think about the things you’re working on and ask yourself if you’ve really defined what success will be on each front. If you haven’t already done this, you’ll be so glad you did!
- Leona Laurie is a freelance Public Relations practitioner specializing in social media strategy and training
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