In the book Act Accordingly author Colin Wright dives into ideas surrounding confidence and surfaces with a unique definition of success. His views on success leave materialistic desires behind, and escape the common trap of comparing ourselves to others. The author writes:
“Wining is a word that has a slightly different meaning for truly confident people. Rather than it being a declaration of their superiority over others, it’s an acknowledgement that they’ve worked hard and improved upon a skill they’ve been cultivating. It means they’re better at something than they used to be, and the only comparison drawn is between their present self and how they were before victory.
In this way every race is against oneself. Every exam, challenge faced, and successful sale is an indication of personal growth, not one’s place in society.”
My first thought when I came across this section from Wright is that confident people have a different way of defining success by looking at success as personal growth. What is fantastic about this definition is that it puts success in our own hands, and makes success something that everyone can achieve. We do not have to decide to the best in the world at any one thing, but if we focus on continually growing, learning, and improving in everything we do, we will have success.
The entire idea of success being our own personal growth is an idea that I find incredibly calming and reassuring. Wright’s philosophy on success takes the pressure off of monetary gains and external comparisons to those around us and instead turns success into a more personal desire. When we compare ourselves to others we become envious and frustrated by what others have or do. It is difficult to see the differences in our backgrounds, and how those differences lead us to unique outcomes. Some people may be in positions where they can practice more on certain skills to achieve our goals faster than us. Some people will have more money and be able to obtain more material items than we can, but neither of these examples truly shows another person to be more successful and more valuable than us. We can only focus on our own goals and our own growth, and as long as we improve on something daily, we will be successful. This requires a great deal of self awareness to be able to examine the time we have, how we spend that time, and just what it is that we want to grow toward. Knowing where we are placing our time and effort will help us shape how we grow, and where our successes will be.
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