Guest post by Ray Bertani
If you are like most people, you tend
to judge your success by comparing yourself and your situation to other people,
usually within your inner circle of friends and acquaintances. You
have more than this person, but less than that person, and so on.
This “keeping up with the Jones’s” mentality leads to nothing but more stress
and less contentment. More importantly, it does not increase your
chance at attaining true success.
Success is not about having more than
someone else or being better than someone else, true success comes from having
more than YOU had and being better than YOU were. If you measure your
success on whether or not you have a better situation (according to you) than
other people that you know then sooner or later you will have a rude
awakening. The most accurate measure of success is not in relation to
someone else but in relation to you. Are you in better shape this year
than last? Is your financial situation better this year than last?
Are you spending more time with your loved ones, or less? Are you
becoming a better father, son, sister, brother, friend or employee? Are
you giving more of yourself than you used to? As long as you are
constantly improving based on your own definitions and values, then you are a
success.
There are those self help guru’s that
preach the message of freeing oneself from all material things. That the
pursuit of money and luxuries will lead to our ultimate demise and that we
should only be concerned with our spirit and inner peace. I’m not one of
them. I do however believe that it is misguided to base success solely on
material things. The same goes if you measure your success based on any
one factor. True success is based on balance. Balance is the key to
success. If you have a billion dollars but no one to share your life
with, are you successful? If you have loving relationships,
but can’t clothe your children, are you successful? If you have a great
career, but no time to enjoy the benefits of your hard work, are you
successful? If you have money, a great career, close relationships, but
are in poor health are you successful? True success is having a
life of balance based on what you define as being most important to you.
Look at all aspects of your life and find the balance that works for you.
Balance doesn’t mean that you must have equal amounts of each of the
factors. You may put a greater importance on your health and personal
relationships than on finances and leisure time or you may put a greater
importance on giving back to your community than on making a buck, or you may
put a greater importance on financial abundance because you feel that you will
be able to give more if you have more. That’s for you to decide.
Having said that I believe there are
six areas that we need to balance in order to feel truly successful.
These are (in no particular order).
- Finances/Career
- Relationships
- Health & Fitness
- Leisure time
- Personal growth
- Giving back
Each of these six areas needs to be
accounted for in our experience of life. Take each of these areas and
decide what your success formula looks like based on your values and
desires. Give each area a weight, a percentage of importance.
The percentages should add up to a hundred when you’re finished. This is
your balance, your success formula; this is what a successful life means to
you. Look at it as your recipe for success.
For example,
Finances/Career
15%
Relationships 20%
Health &
Fitness 25%
Leisure
time 15%
Personal
growth 15%
Giving
back
10%
____
100%
In the above example, which is
hypothetical and for illustration purposes only, 100% success is achieved by
the realization of each and all of these factors and in accordance with this
balance or weighing of each factor. The maximum success level which
can be achieved without strong relationships is 80%. The maximum success
level which can be achieved without personal growth is 85%, and so on. If
this hypothetical person was putting all their success eggs in the finance
basket, even if they achieved financial abundance, at the end of the day would
still only be 15% successful. These are the people who are sitting in their
beautiful homes, driving their fancy cars and wondering why they feel empty and
unfulfilled. The reason is that they don’t have enough ingredients
in their success recipe…they don’t have balance.
About Ray
Ray Bertani is the Managing Director and Founder of Cura Solutions, a
professional and personal development firm dedicated to assisting great
organizations and great people achieve their potential. Ray’s first book entitled, “Breaking The
DEAL” is due for completion in the spring of 2010. For more information on Cura Solutions or to
book Ray to speak at your next corporate or association event visit their
website at www.curasolutions.ca
or email Ray at ray@curasolutions.ca.
