One of the questions that people often have when they start becoming serious about striving for success if how they can measure if they are successful enough or if they are doing enough to achieve their goals. This question comes because of the propensity that people have to compare themselves to others. But you never seem to measure up when you do that, particularly with those who have already achieved success. So, what do you measure against?
Each person is different and each success story is different. It is impossible to compare your journey to anyone else’s, so you have to do something else entirely. You have to compare yourself to yourself.
The best way to accomplish this is by comparing your current self to your past self. The thing that many people do is live as their past selves instead of forgetting about that person and living in the present.
Your past self may have made mistakes, but your current self, going forward from this moment on, has not made any mistakes. You have a fresh, clean slate, and luckily, you have the benefit of all of the experience of your past self to rely upon.
But even more important than living in the moment is tracking your progress. No matter what goal you are pursuing, or what end you are looking for, tracking your progress will allow you to see how different you are today from where you have been.
If you are trying to lose weight, tracking each pound lost will give you motivation to continue even through the hardest times. If you feel like giving up because the income stream that you have been working on isn’t nearly as large as you thought it would be, checking out where you were a year ago can put the present in perspective.
The bottom line is that when you want to measure your success, don’t measure it against other people. Other people may have had different opportunities, different skills and different circumstances that affected their progress.
Instead, compare yourself to your past self. If you have improved, then you are on the right track. If you have improved more than you ever thought possible when you started, then you can call that a huge success. If you are better off now and are well on your way to reaching your goals, then you are successful.