The Key To Success: Setting Goals That Suit Your Life and Business

Success is defined by meeting the goal you set out to achieve — meaning that regardless of whatever your goal is, as long as you feel it was achieved, you’ve succeeded.

As nice as that sounds, most entrepreneurs crave less of a cerebral message and more of a literal idea of what success means. But learning what success is to you is more about deciding what matters most to your spirit and your happiness. After all, freedom (they say) is the new wealth.

To help, we’re taking a look at common success metrics. Our hope is that by breaking down typical concepts of success and helping you see multiple sides of achievement, you’ll think more about your values as a high-vibe entrepreneur and use those findings to guide your business.

To Some: A Thriving Business

Money, status, a nice house, new car, etc. In most Western societies, the standard idea of success is often confused with material wealth. Think of success and you often see the monetary results of a thriving business. Some high-vibe entrepreneurs fall into this bucket but some believe the ultimate definition of success isn’t so much the material trappings but the business itself. They might be more fueled by meaning, connection, creativity, or freedom.

Owning a business or working for yourself is difficult — ask any entrepreneur — and the thrill of achieving and the need to do so is what traditionally fueled the work to start with. Maybe it’s meeting a sales goal, a particular number of Instagram followers or landing a dream client — whatever the goal is, achieving it is the most important thing. For the high-vibe entrepreneurs among us, the definition of success in this capacity is realizing your true goals in business. To them, it just doesn’t get any better than that.

Creating More Meaningful Goals

Because the definition of success is changing, the way we look at success must also change. Someone who has hundreds of thousands of followers on social media might be viewed as successful, but that doesn't always translate to dollars in the bank. The question to ask yourself, as an entrepreneur, is do you care about followers, freedom, dollars or security? You no longer need to live by someone else’s definition of success. We’re all lucky enough to live in a time where we can create our own definition, the same way many of us created our businesses, from what was likely a non-traditional model. For some, happiness is a tiny house in West Texas, and working with a couple new clients a month. For others, it might look differently. Taking all of this into consideration, it’s important to understand how you might adjust your means to match your new value-based goals.

For Others: A Wealth of Time

For many, time is the ultimate commodity. It can’t be replenished or contracted out, and therefore there’s nothing quite so valuable. Defining success with the abundance of time looks like owning your own business and being flexible with your work hours or reworking your schedule to allow for more concentrated periods of focus followed by large swaths of time off. This relatively new way of working goes hand-in-hand with digital nomadism, a movement which allows you to work whenever and wherever you want thanks to WiFi and what’s known as the gig economy.

Defining success in this way may or may not have to do with having a successful business. It could mean sacrificing a career for more flexibility, or creating a business that will allow you to work on your own time. But for the entrepreneurs and business owners who value time over all else, it doesn’t matter.

Most of us fall somewhere between these metrics and know that ultimately there is no single path to success. Determining what true achievement means to you is one of the hardest things to figure out because it comes down to deciding what truly matters to you. This will also drastically change over the course of your life. What you needed when you were 30 won't be the same as what you need at 40, and so on. Because of this, it’s important to look at what you really want, and what you truly value in your life often. Then, once you’ve decided, work to build your business accordingly.

Need help figuring out what success means to you? The DesignGood team is here to help, with lots of resources and coaching available for high-vibe entrepreneurs and small business owners. Get in touch today to learn more.