You were successful this year, here is why

With the end of the year around the corner, most of us are reflecting on what we have – and haven’t – managed to accomplish this year and how much we have lived up to the goals we set last year. But are these our genuine goals – reflection of what we truly want – or have they been imposed on us by societal norms and our social circle’s values?

I believe you have two ways to evaluate how successful you have been this year. I will exemplify them with a short personal account.

When it comes to evaluating my year, I can do two things.

One is to compare myself to some of my friends and people my age who live in their own spacious, beautifully furnished houses in higher-class neighborhoods, drive nice cars, have ‘senior’ in their job titles, can afford to go on vacations to dream places, are already married and raising children, or have launched a successful business that has made them financially free.

I haven’t achieved any of these, so the outcome will be my self-worth going down the drain and me feeling like a failure. Am I not successful?

The other way is to compare myself to whom I was last year.

• Last year, I dedicated almost no time to writing even though the idea for a novel (together with hundreds of ideas for short stories) had been eating away at me. This year, I have made significant progress and have experimented with my fiction writing projects. Now, writing gives me energy and the prospect of publishing a book one day leaves me with a sense of self-worth, even though I am making no money out of it.

• Last year, I could barely run 8km. without getting out of breath. This year, I have run 476km. in four months, and I am training for my first half marathon. Now, running doesn’t feel like a punishment: it makes me feel happy and at peace with myself, so I make sure I block time for it in my weekly schedule and go despite the weather conditions or the piles of unfinished work (that is never-ending).

• Last year, my website – in which I have invested an enormous amount of time and energy – didn’t get a lot of traffic. This year, I get about 200-300 visitors every month, and I often receive messages from people I don’t know who tell me they have loved a blog post or a story on my website. And even though I am not making that much money out of it, this gives me more energy than anything else does.

So what do you think? Which way should I go when evaluating how successful I have been this year?

The same goes for you. You can choose whether to compare yourself to others and measure your success by what society and/or your social circle asserts as “good” and “right” or to define your worth by the extent to which you are at peace with yourself, by the discovery of what gives you a sense of fulfillment, and by the amount of time you spend on the things and people that give you energy.

If there was one piece of advice I would give to myself and to you for 2021 – and for all the years to come – it would be this:

Find what gives you energy and what you are looking forward to every day. Once you find it, take a good grasp of it, and don’t let it go because of social or peer pressure to live in a bigger house, drive a fancy car, settle and raise kids, or make loads of money so that you can afford things you don’t really need.

• If you want to take up painting, get yourself a not that pricey second-hand easel and start painting today!

• If you want to make a career change and become a personal fitness instructor, sign up for a personal training course today!

• If you want to get started with yoga, don’t wait until you feel fit enough (because you lean on the misconception that only thin people do yoga): sign up for a class today!

• If you want to quit your otherwise high-paying job that leaves you dejected and messes with your health, do it and find a workplace where you will feel appreciated and do something that is interesting and exciting to you!

• If you feel you need to reboot your life by going to live abroad, start making a realistic plan how you can do that!

Time is the only thing that never comes back. Years do fly by and it will be incredibly sad to let them pass by mechanically doing things that we don’t like but still do to keep up with social or peer pressure while not spending time on what actually gives us energy and makes us at peace with ourselves.

Because, in the end, isn’t this what success really is?

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Think of all the things that make you successful and let me know what they are in a comment.

Featured image: Dawid Zawiła, Unsplash.