My Own Definition Of Success

By Adenuga Sunday Joseph

There are many definitions of Success as there are many people on the face of the earth. The idea that I am trying to sell to you in this article is summarized as follows, "You too can become as successful as you ever desired."Success is the ability to set a goal and accomplish it in record time.
The synonyms of success are achievement, accomplishment, victory, triumph, hit the target, winner, sensation, and so on. The opposite of it is failure. What one considers a success, another may see as nothing meaningful or important. For example, a man that set out to climb Mount Everest is going to consider himself a success only after climbing the highest mountain on planet earth.Failure to accomplish this feat will point out to our man that he has not succeeded yet. Though presently, he may be a millionaire, but something is lacking, a goal yet to be fulfilled, this will cause a lot of heartache until that mountain is subdued, he doesn’t see himself as a success. As long as he has not climbed the great mountain, he continues to battle, plan and preplan so that he can eventually succeed. To me, climbing Mount Everest is nothing of value to me (because my interest is in something else), but it means a lot to our man who has set a goal to conquer the greatest mountain on earth.Success therefore is the accomplishment of a purpose (or goal) that brings fulfillment, joy and satisfaction to a man. We must remember also that what a man consider a success, another man may see as a child’s play.

When I was growing up (as a youth in the secondary school), I use to consider as unserious those other students whose goal in life was to excel and become stars in the field of sports. Every time they went out for practice was wasted as far as I was concerned then. Little did I know that with each practice, they were getting nearer to their life’s purpose and goal; they were getting nearer to their success; they were accomplishing their life’s vision as they went out early in the morning. I remember that I always pitied them and their parents for such waste of time, now I know better.Success is not just accumulating a lot of money (although many people consider those who are rich as successful): Many strikingly rich people actually died lonely and unfulfilled in life. Many of them have been further destroyed because of large volume of money they do not know how to manage due to lack of vision. Success brings true joy (it is not money that brings joy), I have seen many people who are not so rich who have a lot of sense of accomplishment in life. I know that a truly successful person cannot remain poor in life, but I also know that money is not the only yardstick to measure how successful any person is in this life.

Success is not a destination but an adventure that continues to get better each day as you discover more secrets of how to better achieve your set goals with ease.Success is not luck or winning large amount of money in a lottery. Many lucky winners of such lotteries have ended up really broke and some have died most miserable and shameful death because of their inability to maintain such life of affluence that they got from winning lotteries. Friend, sudden wealth has led more people to early grave than poverty. Poverty has helped more people to be wiser and better in life than sudden wealth. In fact, sudden wealth is very dangerous and should not be sought after. Go for real success that comes out of hard work and careful planning.Success is not just becoming the leader of a group, organization or nation. Many leaders are not truly successful; we’ve had leaders like Adolf Hitler in this world that killed about two million Jews, his end was shrouded in mystery.

Success is not popularity or acceptability of an individual in the society, although true success always attracts many people; most of them are ready to idolize the successful one. Such successful people always know how to manage the praise of men without allowing it to get to their head.

Success is discovering God’s goal and purpose for your life and pursuing the same until you have accomplished it to the maximum, and make a mark in that God’s chosen purpose for your life.

Success is the ability to exhaust your entire God given talents and gifts to make this world a better place than you met it. We are talking here about the real meaning of success, it is the ability to put smiles on the faces of those whose lives touch yours; it is the ability to make men (and women) better than you met them. No matter how rich you are, if you make people bitter instead of better than you met them, then with all your money, you are a big failure. A successful life is that which leaves others with a desire to do something worthwhile with their own lives too. I assert again that success is beyond the accumulation of wealth; it is the ability to raise up many other successful men. It is the ability to produce many other millionaires. The success of Moses became established as he was able to produce a Joshua (a successor), Elijah produced an Elisha. Jesus, the greatest success that ever happened to mankind has raised us up as successful disciples of His. We are destined by His word to tread upon serpents and scorpions; we are the ones that will put the devil to shame in these last days. Jesus Christ is alive through us in this generation; we are the miracle workers; and we are called to do those things that He Himself had done when He was here on the earth. See John 14: 12

"Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do: because I go to my father."

A success without a successor is a failure in disguise. Are you surprised at that statement? If you succeed beyond measure, and have billions of dollars, when you die, except you have a good successor, all those wealth will be squandered and wasted. If you want to know how successful Jesus was, look around you, every Christian you see is a testimony to the success of Jesus. What? Jesus who neither bought a land, nor build a house, nor own a car. He didn’t even own a donkey not to talk of owning a fast horse, yet he is the greatest man that ever lived. Why is this so? Because he has millions of successors, those who carry on His God given purpose on earth. The purpose of destroying the works of the devil in the lives of innocent people who are bound by the forces of evil. This wonderful Jesus did not get married, produced no biological children, yet have turned many sons of men to become sons of God. We are changed from ordinary mortal to supernatural beings, we are giving to have the very life of God, we are translated from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of God and now the kingdom of God is within us. What a great success Jesus is.To be the president of U.S or Nigeria is a success, but you see that is just the beginning of the show of success. Performing your duties in such a way that many people’s lives will be better because you are president is the REAL SUCCESS that we are talking about in this article.

In other words, if your success is a selfish ambition, a selfish wish for millions of dollars so that you can have something with which to oppress others, then you are not on the real road to the good success the Bible talks about. In Joshua 1:8, the last clause says, "…and then, thou shall have good success." This implies that God do not consider some successes as good. God had to qualify the type of success Joshua should go for, not the selfish, ‘me alone’ success, but the God’s type of success called the good success that will make other people better.Any ambition that does not consider the well being of other people may be considered by people as success, but it is not a good success in God’s eyes.

From years of experience as a pastor as well as an observer of nature, I have found out that people who became extremely rich did not start out to accumulate such large sums, most of them started out by helping to meet human need. Most of them started with a consuming passion in their heart to help produce things that will alleviate the suffering of people. While been faithful to this honorable passion, they have made millions (and some of them) even billions for themselves.Consider your life and your way, if you don’t have the welfare of others in mind in your quest to become rich, though you may hit it and become rich, you may not enjoy the money and if you do, it may not last long. Bill Gates was said to be obsessed with the idea of wanting every home to have a personal computer, the result is his stupendous wealth.

Success becomes so sweet when you see others thriving and doing well as a result of your own personal input. Such success brings a sense of accomplishment, a satisfaction of a job well done, and an inner joy that glows, sometimes inexplicable. When you see a successful man or woman, you’ll know that there is something about him/her that you cannot explain; you know its not his money; not his properties; not his physical attraction; there is a magnet around him. You are sure its there, but you may not be able to lay your hands on what it is.

What I am passing across goes beyond having a fat bank account, it gets to the mountain top of joy and satisfaction; it is the level of perfect peace that comes with a knowledge that your life counts. Not only that; you are also contributing positively to building other peoples lives, and the satisfaction of a job well done.Good success is always concerned about the good welfare of other people, while selfish success (that does not last) always concern itself about how to get other people’s money at all cost without giving anything of value in return.

Good success is talking about what to contribute to make this life a better place than I met it; it is thinking of what to do to make others happy. Good news, you can be that person, you can be successful too. You have what it takes to climb to the top and come out successfully. There are no two ‘YOU’ on earth, you are the one and only you, and God has a purpose for bringing you on board (the earth) at this point in time.