Positivity: Success

How do you measure success?

I believe that most people would give fairly broad answers. A great job, a beautiful home, an incredible family, wealth and so forth. But success does not need to be these grand and glorious things. Success can and should be simpler, and more easily attainable.

Society loves to hold up pillars of success. Great men and women who have overcome the odds and risen above this and that to achieve success. Whether a business mogul, politician, athlete or some other untouchable hero, that is where we seek and find success in our world.

Because we get caught up in such an impossible and all-encompassing definition of success, we miss out on not just an empowering ability, but also an incredibly positive force. Success need not be such a high bar. Success can be far, far smaller.

Some days success is waking up and getting out of bed in the morning. Some days success is not getting into an argument with a coworker. Success can be the completion of a project, or it can be making and following a set schedule. Success could be the finished laundry, the empty sink, the vacuumed carpets.

Why does the size of success matter? Because we all have been told that failure is unacceptable. Because our society is obsessed with the polar opposites, we have come to believe that the opposite of success is failure. And no one wants to be a failure. So we often pursue success not for the joy and happiness it can bring us, but in order to not be a failure. As such, the power of success is removed, and we do not gain the positivity it can generate in our lives.

No one has yet to convince me that negativity is healthy. I do not see any evidence that a negative attitude gets you anywhere good in life. Positivity builds strength, a positive attitude draws more good than a negative can hope to. Why make success, which brings us positive reinforcement and positive energy so hard to achieve?

Take joy in the little successes. Make more of the small achievements, and take pleasure in succeeding with them. Is there any harm in letting more positivity into your life? Quite the opposite, from all I have seen, from all I have experienced, but maybe most importantly from all that I have felt. Lessen how you measure success, and the greater quantity of small successes I believe will draw in the greater successes we work for and desire to attain.

Finding positivity is not hard, it just requires action. Knowing that small successes empower us, and generate positive energy is a powerful tool to better out lives. When we allow ourselves to lower the bar for what we consider success, we actually raise the probability of attaining the grander successes we all desire. The more we allow ourselves to succeed, the better we feel about our lives, and the better we all feel about our lives the more Positivity we can create. Positive attitude begets positive energy, and that is always a good thing.

This is the nineteenth entry of my Positivity series.  It is my hope these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone.  Feel free to re-blog and spread the positivity.