Try this pop quiz:

1. Who do you consider the five most successful individuals in the world?
2. When you introduce acquaintances, do you most often identify them by mentioning what they do for a living, where they live, how you know them, or something they’ve accomplished?
3. How have you spent most of your waking hours this year—personal goals, business goals, family goals, spiritual goals?
4. How many times do you choose spending time with your family or friends over spending time at work? Spending time at work over spending with family and friends?
5. Where do you spend the most money?  On charitable projects? On personal leisure?

Now consider your answers. Did money and status dictate your answers to numbers one and two above?  Is money the biggest determiner in your choices about time and relationships? Usually, we are better at defining success than living it.

Ambition, the spark of financial success, is the fire that ignites creativity, intelligence, and energy when enthusiasm has burned itself out, and flame of ambition can’t be lit by anyone other than its owner. But unlike ambition’s beginning, many things can be responsible for putting out its spark.

Often the most common extinguisher of ambition is success.

Show me a person who owns every trinket or toy, who has accomplished every goal, and who has earned praise from friends and strangers alike, and I’ll show you a person who has extinguished their ambition for the world’s definition of success. That person finally asks, “Is this all there is?”

Often that drive to excel is restlessness. Even God rested on the seventh day—not from physical exhaustion, but from a sense of satisfaction:  “It is good.”

That’s the big difference:  Successful people often miss the feeling of satisfaction—they do not feel happy—because what they’ve done is not meaningful. Their success is not linked to a worthwhile cause or result.

No one would deny that they want to lead a successful life; the difference of opinion comes down to how we define success.

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Undoubtedly, if I took a reader poll and asked you to text your definition of success, I would get comments like these: “Pleasing God with my life.” “Having a successful marriage.”  “Raising well-adjusted children.” “Being happy.” “Doing what I enjoy.” “Serving others.”

But do you really live that way? Does your daily practice show that to be your real conviction?

As I hear older people talk and read wider and wider, I’ve come to believe that people do not so much fear the physical aspect of dying. They fear that after dying, life will go on without them; everything will be the same.  Their living will not have mattered.

What gives life meaning is not what we accomplish on the job. It is not what we own. It is not whom we know. It is not accolades.  What gives life meaning is attaching ourselves to something significant—to finding our purpose in the world. When we do, we’ll find that happiness and fulfillment have slipped inside us when we weren’t looking.

Rather than searching for success in your world, aim to become a person of value.  Discover what you can give rather than receive.

What’s YOUR definition of success?[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]