What does success look like to you? I found myself writing this down in cursive on a piece of scrap paper with LSAT logic games on it. Before I wrote that down, I wrote: "I will succeed” right above it. If you don’t know, I’m in the process of studying (again) to retake the LSAT in a few days and honestly, I want to scream (I'm being dramatic, but not really). I’m not going to say that I’ve never been good at standardized tests, or tests in general, but one thing I will do is psyche myself out and it’s been this way since I was younger. I get nervous before tests, no matter how much studying I do or how prepared I KNOW I am… I always end up psyching myself out.
I wrote these two quotes on my scrap paper as a reminder and encouragement, but then I stopped to really think about what it means (to me) to succeed. What does success look like? Does succeeding look like accomplishing certain goals that I set for myself for the month? Does succeeding look like doing what I said I was going to do for the day? Or the week? I really had to sit and think about how I measured success.
When I put it into perspective, success looks like me doing EXACTLY what I said I was going to do, no matter how big or small the goal might be. If I said I was going to consistently study Spanish for the year (which I have been doing since March, but more consistently since late July), that’s a success. If I said I was going to finally take the LSAT this year, (which I did), that’s a success. If I said my goal is to read 20 books this year (which I’m more than halfway finished), that’s a success.
All of this to say that success might look different to you than it does for the next person. I feel like we tend to stress ourselves out when trying to determine if the things we're working on are worthy of labeling a success. If you put that dream out there and you’ve accomplished it all the way, that should be a success to you. Even if you haven’t yet accomplished that goal, but are on the path to doing so, that should still be labeled as a success.
Comments