Stop and Think!
How do you define success?
In order to hit a goal you need to have some sort of “end in mind”.
You need to know what you want or need, then you can determine the steps needed to get there. Or adjust your course. Or ‘make due’ with what you have in order to be successful attaining the ‘end in mind’.
Don’t know where to start, join the club!
Most people don’t really have goals or a life direction.
I didn’t. Still don’t. But I am working towards one.
I thought I did but what was happening… was, I was making decisions after the fact and living by reacting to things instead of working a path forward. Thinking I could learn ‘on the fly’ Â and adjust accordingly.
But there’s a reason a test pilot is called a test pilot.
And has a test pilot job.
People may ‘Think’ they know, but they don’t know as they ought to know. I have been asking people to define success for me and I haven’t gotten any clear answers yet. When they stop to think about the question that is as far as it goes.
So as I ’emerge’ into a ‘changed mind’ about what success is, I would like to put together some definitions in order to get an idea of the ‘end in mind’.
If you research ‘success’ on the internet there is an unlimited amount of self help works out there that all have some sort of top 5, 7 or 20, list of things successful people do. I have started to incorporate some of those into my own life.
Most notably a morning routine.
I am averaging about three mornings a week completing my routine so I don’t think it’s routine yet.
My take as the ’emerging man’ is this… all the list’s contain things that people who are already successful look back on and assume helped them become successful.
I would like to present my idea of a guy who is working toward being successful and developing his belief of what ‘successful’ is.
As I walk with the Lord I will endeavor to peal out of His Word a Godly definition of success as well (I think I have an idea but we shall see) and share it in a future post.
Here are two worldly definitions of success, one from good ole’ Merriam – Webster and one from Online Word Etymology.
Notice both mention worldly wealth at one point.
Merriam – WebsterÂ
Definition of ‘success‘
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2a: degree or measure of succeeding
     2b : favorable or desired outcome;
Meaning “a thing or person which succeeds,” especially in public, is from 1882.
“The moral flabbiness born of the bitch-goddess SUCCESS. That — with the squalid interpretation put on the word success — is our national disease.” [William James to H.G. Wells, Sept. 11, 1906]
Success story is attested from 1902. Among the French phrases reported by OED as in use in English late 19c. were succès d’estime “cordial reception given to a literary work out of respect rather than admiration” and succès de scandale “success (especially of a work of art) dependent upon its scandalous character.”
late 14c., intransitive and transitive,hence “get on well, prosper, be victorious,” from sub“next to, after” (see sub-) + cedere “go, move” (see cede).
Meaning “to continue, endure” is from early 15c.
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