A Few Thoughts On Success
The term success is thrown around a lot in the blogging world and I mean a lot, there isn't a day go by that I don't see somebody discussing it on Twitter or another blog post on how to make your blog a success or how to become a successful blogger. Every time I see this it makes me really question, what do I consider a success? Not just in blogging but in my life, what I hold as success will not be the same as what someone else sees it as and that is what makes us unique individuals.
When I was in my first year at university at the tender and ever so naive age of 19, I had a solid five-year plan in mind I thought I knew what my success would look like. I would have left home, be engaged, have my dream job in the field that I wanted, live in a nice apartment and go on holiday every year. What I view as success now is a the complete opposite, my dreams have changed a lot in the past 5 years. The only thing, that I have achieved out of my long gone five-year plan, is that I have the job of my dreams. I'm self-employed doing the things that I love and not making a bad living from it.
Right now what I view as success is being able to have a job that I love more than anything and continue to be able to make a living from it whilst most importantly being happy and healthy. By no means, do I think that I'm at the top of my game career-wise, but I'm on the right track. There is no formula to this either, there is no ten-step plan to get to that place and I'm sure as time goes on the goals that I have right now will change and evolve. My happiness and my health are my number one priority over everything else and they always will be as without them then everything else will never feel as good as it could without those two things.
Two years ago a successful day for me was to be able to get out of bed and be able to make it without being so exhausted that I had to crawl back into it. I was incredibly unwell, months of going in and out of the hospital with no real answers until finally after a week stint in hospital got the bottom of why my stomach just didn't want to be my friend. I've got a lifelong chronic illness which is still pretty hard to manage, but long gone are the days where I'm completely bed bound. This might sound like a sob story but believe me it isn't it's just reality of what was going on at that time. Those months that I spent confined to my bed completely changed me because once you see a good day as leaving your bed it puts a lot of things into perspective.
I've spent a lot of time worrying about not being considered successful by other people but what about my own thoughts on the matter? Why does it even matter if complete strangers think I'm doing well or not? If I feel that I'm on the right track and I'm happy doing that then that is the most important thing not the opinions of others. I don't think we can ever live up to other peoples ideals, not in anything because we don't have the same vision of what a success is. Who knows what success even looks like? To some, it is earning over 30K a year and having a nice car and to others it's just getting through each day.
What are your thoughts on this?
.Check out: Angerawrs // Jennifer Polly // Every Little Thing 07, you can advertise on From Roses here.
