Redefining Success Sample

The way you define success for yourself has a huge impact on your work, and ultimately on your level of fulfillment in life.

Over the course of his career as both a pastor and an executive coach, Nicholas Pearce has seen this link again and again. 

“Defining success is a critical question against which the rest of our lives are built,” said Pearce recently on the podcast Making It Work: God and Your Work. “What I've seen in many of the leaders I've had the opportunity to work with is that they spent so much time trying to score points on other people's metrics, but one day they woke up and looked at themselves in the mirror and recognized that against the scorecard of their own soul they had done absolutely nothing.” 

If your definition of success comes from external sources and not internally from God, you’ll likely feel like your work is “meaningless” or what Ecclesiastes calls “a chasing after the wind.”

Film producer Jared Callahan has needed to redefine success in his work in order to find meaning in his career. 

"Success for films is tough” Callahan says. “You can base it on money or you can base it on likes or clicks that you get.”

Given these pressures, Callahan had needed to be specific about his own definition of success. “It's being happy with the stories that we’re telling and products that we’re making," he says. 

Success for you may mean making sure your work stands up to your own values or standards for quality.

How do you define success in your work? 

Prayer: God, show me what success means in your eyes. Be with me in my work today. Amen.