What does "success" look like?

One of my first and favourite mentors, Ross McLean, used to ask this question when we were designing solutions to our clients’ intellectual property issues. It struck a chord with me because often in life we are so focused on the process and the expected outcome that we forget to look at what it is we are really trying to achieve. Over the last 12 years, I have used this question a lot, both in my professional life and my personal life. It helps to pinpoint what you are really trying to achieve.

With my work with Mitrataa, we often struggle with the question of how to measure “success” – we live in a world obsessed by measurable outcomes, SMART goals and being able to “prove the impact and value” of our work. But does success always have to be measurable? Could it be like the “star factor” that directors look for in actors – “I don't know what it is but I know it when I see it”.

A recent example from a workshop we ran on teaching life skills to a hand-picked team of life skills facilitators in Nepal. We often discuss in our team what “success looks like” for our life skills program. We can’t teach, for example, gratitude, and tick a box at the end saying “We taught them about gratitude, now they are grateful.” It doesn't work like that. How do we show that the girls understand this powerful concept and how to apply it as a skill in their daily lives? During this workshop, we brainstormed what a person who understood how to use gratitude as a tool might act, what observable behaviours might they exhibit that we could take as signs of success of our program. We did it from the perspective of the person involved – “I thank my friends when they do something for me”, “I can make a list of things I am grateful for in my life to help me in hard times” etc. But is this really “success” in terms of our program?

Then I started thinking about what success means in terms of our lives – what does a “successful person” look like? And how does “success” contribute to our happiness? Success will always be subjective but I think we have an unhealthy definition of successful which rules our dreams now – it involves money, material possessions, things that are easy to see and measure. “Wow, look at his big house, he must be successful.” “Oh they are going on holidays to Hawaii, their business must be successful.” When I searched for an image using the key word "success", the results all involved either climbing a ladder (ie always just out of reach) or people in suits making lots of money. Then there were the group that had a fork in the road with success one way and failure the other. Is it one or the other? I believe that the road to 'success' (whatever that is) is filled with 'failures' which help us to learn and grow. What are we teaching our kids if it's an either/or proposal - what if they fail? Can they never be 'successful'?

Our view of success needs to change if we want to live sustainably on our planet, working together to make the world (not just our own individual world) a better place for everyone.

David Orr says it best:

'The plain fact is that the world does not need more successful people; but it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers and lovers of every kind. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these qualities have little to do with success as our culture has defined it.'