Define Success for Your Own Terms

Get one kind disappointment wey dey catch people unawares. You finally get the thing. The promotion, the title, the money for account, the house with the room wey you always want. For one week or two e go feel like say you don arrive. Then the feeling go begin thin out, the goalpost go quietly shift go front, and you go find yourself dey reach for the next thing, small confuse say the last one no hold.

That puzzle worth make you sidon with am, because e usually mean say you dey chase one idea of success wey you never really choose.

Plenty of us dey soak our idea of "making am" the same way we dey catch accent. From parents wey measure worth by stability after one lean childhood. From a culture wey put number on top everything. From the colleague wey dem promote first, the friend wey life look easy for online, the version of yourself wey you imagine for twenty-two. By the time you old enough to question any of am, the scoreboard don already feel like physics. Permanent. Obvious. No be something to argue.

E dey for argument. And the people wey dey do well pass over a long career, the ones wey still dey stand and still be themselves decades inside, na dem do the plain, unglamorous work of deciding wetin the game be before dem spend their whole life dey play am.

The scoreboard wey you borrow

When Boris Groysberg and Robin Abrahams study how professionals dey judge their own life, dem draw line between two kind measure. Objective ones na the easy-to-count markers: title, salary, the prestige of the logo for your badge, the schools wey your pikin dem enter. Subjective ones harder to put for spreadsheet: the satisfaction of solving one hard problem, the people wey you dey work alongside, whether you happy when you waka enter your door for house.

The objective markers get one obvious pull. Dem clear to see. Everybody understand title. Nobody need explain salary. You fit compare dem across people for about half a second, wey na exactly wetin make dem so easy to adopt and so quietly corrosive. A scoreboard wey you fit read with one eye na scoreboard wey dem build for other people to read about you.

None of this mean say money or title no matter. Dem matter. The honest research on income more interesting pass the slogan say money no fit buy happiness. For one careful study wey settle one long argument for the field, Matthew Killingsworth, Daniel Kahneman, and Barbara Mellers find say for most people, day-to-day happiness dey keep rising with income, with no clean cutoff where e dey stop. But one catch dey hide inside the average. For the least happy slice of people, more money mostly dey buy relief from the things wey dey make life hard, and that relief dey level off. Past a certain point e dey stop to move the needle. If money na the only lever wey you dey pull on top a deeper unhappiness, e go eventually stop to work.

So the picture no be say success no matter. Na say one single, borrowed, outside-counted version of success na thin thing to hang whole life on top.

Cost dey to never settle the question, and e easy to miss because na cost of the thing wey you leave undone. Without your own definition, you go default to the one wey dey the air around you, and that default get bias. E dey pull towards whatever visible, comparable, and impressive to strangers. E dey quietly drop the things wey no dey photograph well: a calm home, a craft wey you don sabi well, a friendship wey you keep for thirty years, the absence of dread on Sunday night. You fit win every visible round and slowly lose the parts of your life wey nobody dey keep score of. People wey reach a certain age full of regret rarely dey regret a smaller title. Dem dey regret the years wey dem spend dey optimize for one metric wey dem never really pick.

Why the goalpost dey always shift

Reason dey why that hard-won win dey fade so fast, and no be fault for your side.

Human beings dey adapt. Whatever you get used to go become the new normal with startling speed, wey dey wonderful when life hard (you adjust, you cope, you recover) and dey vex person when life good (the raise become the baseline, the dream job become ordinary Tuesday). Psychologists dey call this adaptation. In plain terms, the floor dey rise to meet wherever you dey stand, so the view from up there stop to feel like achievement and start to feel like the place wey you just happen to dey live.

Comparison dey pour fuel on top this. We no dey judge our life for empty room. We dey judge am against the people around us, and internet now dey hand us endless, arranged supply of people wey appear to dey do better. Researchers wey dey study social comparison find say when you measure yourself against somebody wey you see as dey ahead, and you read am as verdict on your own worth, e dey tend to leave you dey feel worse, no be motivated. Not-enough. One step behind. The same comparison fit sometimes inspire you instead, but only when you read am as proof say the thing dey possible for you too, rather than evidence say you dey lose.

Put adaptation and comparison together and you go get the treadmill wey almost everybody dey on top. You hit the target, you adjust to am, you look sideways at somebody wey dey small bit further along, and the target move. You fit run that race for forty years and never feel like say you don arrive, because the finish line never be fixed place. Na always just "small more than now."

The way comot for the treadmill no be to stop to want things. Na to choose, on purpose, which things wey you actually want.

Writing your own definition

This na the part wey sound soft and turn out to be the most practical thing for the whole essay. A definition of success wey you fit actually name dey do real work. E dey tell you which opportunities to say yes to. E dey tell you when you don do enough and you fit stop. E dey steady you when person else win threaten to knock you off balance, because you fit check am against your own list instead of the room own.

Here na one way to build am. E dey take an afternoon, no be full retreat.

1. Look at your good days, no be your achievements. Think back over the last year and find a handful of ordinary days wey you go gladly live again. No be the milestones. The regular days wey feel right. Write down wetin you dey do, who you dey with, wetin the hours actually contain. Patterns go show up fast, and dem rarely be the things wey dey your résumé.
2. Name wetin you dey aim for, in your own words. Try to finish this sentence honestly: "A good life, for me, get more ____ and less ____ inside am." Maybe na more deep work and less performing. More time with your pikin dem while dem still want you around. More making things, less managing the making of things. Keep am concrete enough to act on.
3. Sort your measures into chosen and inherited. Make two columns. On one side, the things wey you go still want if nobody fit see am. On the other, the things wey you mostly want because of who go impress. Be brutally honest about which column the prestige stuff land inside. You no need to throw am away. You just need to know say e dey there.
4. Pick a small number of things wey count. Three or four, no be fifteen. A definition wey include everything measure nothing. These na the things wey you go actually check your decisions against.
5. Decide wetin "enough" look like. This na the one wey almost everybody dey skip, and na the one wey go comot you for the treadmill. For at least one important area, name a number or a state wey go genuinely be enough, so that crossing am go let you turn your energy go somewhere else instead of just raising the bar again.

That last step deserve small more attention, because "enough" na word wey most ambitious people get trouble to talk out loud. E fit sound like settling, or like say drive no dey. Na neither. Naming an enough na wetin dey turn open-ended hunger into finished goal, and finished goal na the only kind wey you fit ever really reach. Without am, every win automatically dey turn into the new starting line, and you never dey get to feel the thing wey you dey work for in the first place. You no need to name an enough for everything. Pick the one or two areas where you suspect say you go keep climbing forever if nobody stop you, and draw line there on purpose. The line fit move later. Just make am a decision instead of a drift.

No aim for perfect manifesto. Aim for something true enough to use, written plain enough say you go recognize yourself inside am one year from now.

When you dey lead other people

If anybody dey look up to you (a team, a company, a pikin wey dey watch how you spend Saturday), your definition of success go quietly become their own to push against. People dey read wetin you reward far more accurately pass wetin you talk. Praise only the visible wins and you go teach everybody around you to chase the borrowed scoreboard, the same one wey leave you empty. Notice the quieter things wey actually matter, the careful work, the recovery after a hard stretch, the person wey make the team better without grabbing credit, and you go give people permission to define a fuller version of the game.

The most grounded leaders no be the ones with the loudest numbers. Na the ones wey clearly know wetin dem stand for, wey dey let dem stop to compete on every side at once. That clarity dey catch on in the best way. E dey give the people around dem room to do the same.

A few honest warnings

To redefine success dey free person. E fit also dey misused, so two warnings.

First, no use "defining success on my own terms" as fine name for giving up on something hard right before e wan get good. Real difference dey between releasing a goal wey never be yours and abandoning one wey just get difficult. The test na honesty about your reasons, and that hard to run alone. A trusted friend, a mentor, or a good coach fit help you tell the two apart.

Second, dem suppose allow your definition to change. The version wey you write at thirty-five no suppose tie down the person wey you become at fifty. Treat am like a living document, wey you revisit every so often, no be vow wey dem carve for stone.

And if the question wey dey under all of this no be really "how I go define success" but something heavier (a flatness wey no go lift, a sense say nothing worth am, a feeling say you don already fail at a life wey never even happen yet), that worth to carry go a professional. A therapist fit help when the problem less about goals and more about a low mood or anxiety wey dey color everything. That no be a detour from doing this work. Sometimes na wetin dey make the work possible.

The quiet payoff of all this hard to over-praise. When you know, in your own words, wetin you dey work towards, the constant low noise of measuring yourself against everybody else go get noticeably quieter. You go still want things. You go still work hard. You just go stop to run person else race, and start to run one wey you go actually glad to win.

Sources

• Harvard Business Review, What Does Success Mean to You?
• Harvard Business Review, Make Your Career a Success by Your Own Measure
• National Center for Biotechnology Information, Income and emotional well-being: A conflict resolved (Killingsworth, Kahneman & Mellers, 2023)
• George Mason University, Center for the Advancement of Well-Being, Social Comparison Processes and Well-Being