December Topic: Define success.
By Matthew Laker with Experior Financial Group Canada
The reality of COVID caused my wife and me to ask what we want out of life.
Not only was there COVID and its impact on our world, but I was also struggling with who I was and my mental and physical health.
The result was I tapped out of my 20-year career, not having a complete plan, income, or pathway forward.
A year later and some reflection and walking a path of healing. We look back and can see now a season of change was coming. Perhaps it was sped up, due to my mental health.
This tapping out, if you will, led to a strange year. It has allowed me to wrestle with who I am, what I am about, and what I want for my family and myself. One trusted advisor recognized a real loss of knowing my mission and identity. When that is gone, it is hard to define success.
I had to wrestle with not only what I wanted, but also with who I am. I had to wrestle with the lies I believed about myself and let go of them.
In one seminar I teach called Financial Guardrails, one of the guardrails is to define financial success. When I sit with people in my financial service business, I figuratively give a paintbrush and paint to them. I then ask them to paint me a picture of what they want their retirement to look like, what their values are, and where they want to go. What happens in this process is they are defining goals, identity, values, mission, hopes, and dreams. From that, we put a plan together based on what success looks like for them.
To answer the question of what is success? We need to know who we are, our values and mission, and what brings real meaning that lasts. To do that, we need to know what we want out of life – what are our skills and passions and what we are willing to learn and work for.
Defining success is so important because it drives us, helps us articulate our purpose, and adds meaning to our lives. Something deep within us needs those things; we are lost when we do not have them.
We need to define success in two areas.
- What does success look like in this moment, project, or relationship?
- What does success look like in my life? When I get to the end of my life, what do I want to be proud about?
One lesson from the tapping out for me is to do something. Take some action. You may be struggling with defining success in your life at the moment. The action you take may not be where you end up, but the activity will help clarify what success looks like.
As I write this, 2022 is coming to an end, and as I walk into 2023, I am working at realigning my life and affirming, defining, and updating what success looks like for me.