Never give up: 7 signs you’re successful — even if it doesn’t feel like it

If you’re ambitious, you’re bound to feel like a failure from time to time. Lofty goals lead to moments when we aren’t living up to our own expectations. When it comes to success, our eyes often lead us astray. Regardless of what you achieve, there’s always someone with more, and this can make you feel like you’re losing.

If you ever worry that you’re not as successful as you should be, you may be evaluating yourself using the wrong criterion. Sometimes you just need a reminder as to what you’ve really accomplished in life. Compiled from The Huffington Post, here is a list of success indicators that will help you do just that.

1. You’re no longer the centre of the universe

We all know ‘successful’ people who act like they’re the centre of the universe. It’s their world and the rest of us just live in it ... right? That’s not success. True success requires the ability to feel empathy—to realise that other people’s feelings and dreams are just as important as ours, and we cannot succeed without them.

2. Stay positive

Hope and optimism are essential components of a happy life. If you dwell on things that go wrong, you become bitter and resentful. When that happens, you fail—no matter what you may have achieved. Real success means always seeing the bright side and believing you have the power to make even the worst situations better.

3. Know that failure isn’t forever

You’ve learnt that the only people who never fail are those who don’t try. When you fail, you don’t automatically assume that you’re a failure. Instead, you embrace each failure as an opportunity to learn something—and then you move on. If you still struggle with this at times, know that you’ll never experience true success until you learn to embrace failure. The biggest breakthroughs typically come when you’re feeling the most frustrated and the most stuck. It’s this frustration that forces you to think differently, to look outside the box and find a solution.

4. Keep things in perspective

Sometimes bad things happen. It’s part of life. For most of us, however, our very worst day would seem like a vacation to somebody who has real problems—like not having enough to eat, or trying to survive a civil war. Locking your keys in the car or even getting passed over for a promotion aren’t that bad once you learn to develop perspective. If you’ve mastered the ability to keep your problems in perspective, mark it down as a huge success.

5. Ask for help when you need it

Refusing to ask for help, no matter how much you’re struggling, is a sign of emotional immaturity. Asking for help means that you no longer feel like you have something to prove by being perfect. It shows you aren’t afraid of people discovering your weaknesses and you understand no one succeeds alone.

6. Life isn’t a zero-sum game

It’s not a see-saw, either. Just because somebody else achieves a big success, that doesn’t mean you suffer a loss in equal proportion. You just didn’t win that particular time. One sure sign of success is the ability to celebrate others’ achievements with sincere enthusiasm.

7. Accept what you can and cannot change

There’s a difference between pessimism and practicality. If there’s a hurricane headed your way, there’s nothing you can do to stop it. But once you accept that the hurricane is coming, you can start working to mitigate its effects. If your company downsizes and you get laid off, every moment you spend in denial just delays whatever is waiting over the horizon. You’re able to move on only when you start exploring your options and making plans to change what you can. Taking responsibility for changing the things you don’t like about your life is one of the biggest indicators of success.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 26^th, 2016.

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