Success is invented, not accepted.

I’ve read quite a lot of people talking about success in the past couple of weeks. Almost all of them have resented the word for how it’s used today. This morning, I read somthing that migh change the way I use th word, and possibly how you do.

Success isn’t something you accept, it’s something you invent. — Parafrased from ”What to do when it’s your turn” by Seth Godin.

Sucess, just as failure, is only measuerd by expectations. If ones got exactly no expctations, there’s no way to fail or succeed those expectations. Of course, this isn’t entierly true now, is it?

As we progress in life, other people start having expectations of your performance. It might be school, your teacher, parents, coach and so on. I mean, you don’t necesarily need to have any exectations passing your drivers test, but you might still fail the test. Or at least the expectations set by the issuer of that license.

The point is, for you to win in life, you don’t really need any other peoples’ expecations. All you need to do is to clearly define your own, if you have any.

Elon Musk said the following on the Joe Rogan Experience:

”Happiness has a really simple equation. Happiness eqals life minus expectations.”

That might be true for some people, and I think it’s a very much valid point to make. Far to many of us have far to high, far to many and far to undefined expectations of ourselves, our surrounding and the overall daily accomplishment of the world.

The thing I think Elon doesn’t cover with this quote, and he might cover it in the conversation with Joe, is the ambition of some people. For you to have any ambitions at all, you need to have very clear expectations of your performance. Otherwise, those ambitions are for nothing.

So what I suggest you do, if you feel like expectations onyourself and others is a problem, is to map them. Long term, short term, daily. If you’ve got people very close to you that you have expectations on, let them know. It makes everything so much easier.

Invent your success by taking control of your expectations of success rather than accepting or not accepting others’ version of it.