SARAH MOON

What does it truly mean to be successful?

Where do we get our ideas about success from, and how can they be redefined?

Success. It’s a bit of a bitch of a word, if you ask me. I feel that the words ‘success’ and ‘failure’ are used too flippantly, and we often assign ourselves to one or the other for the wrong reasons.

Success is something that I have been re-defining for myself for some time now. This became a necessity given that I am an actress, and success comes with a lot of stressful connotations in the acting industry.

I’d brace myself upon meeting new people or relatives and old friends, awaiting the moment they would say, ‘Oh, you’re an actor. Have I seen you in anything?’ To me, the subtext of that statement is, ‘are you famous yet?’ I would stumble my way through an answer. ‘No, you wouldn’t have seen me in anything. I’ve done a TV mini-series, but that was aired some years ago. I’ve done a lot of plays and a couple of short films …’ I’d then look for a way to divert the conversation as swiftly as possible, whilst summing up the answer in my head: ‘Yes, I’ve done plenty of work, but nothing that you would probably find very impressive.’

I was ashamed because I anticipated others judgement. I assumed that other’s were deeming me a failure because I wasn’t Margot Robbie yet.

It kills you slowly to believe that you are a failure, and the pain of it only makes you strive harder to cover up the fear and shame. It is an endless feedback loop of self-punishment and suffering.

As with most things, the pain had to become unbearable before I truly stopped to reassess.

How is it that I am defining success? I finally asked myself. If I think that I am failing myself, then where do I think I should be in order for me to be succeeding?

It took me some time to contemplate the meaning of success, but I finally got some clarity.

I know I’m not the only one who struggles with the concepts of failure and success. After all, I picked up my ideas of success from my environment – namely, other people, the media and society on the whole. Society presents a whole lot of damaging ideas – and the concept of success is a big one.

We need to step back and re-define, and straighten the whole thing out.

1. Where was I going wrong?

First and foremost, I was looking to other people to decide whether or not I was succeeding in life.

I don’t know what other people are thinking about me. We can all only assume that we know, and so most of our assumptions are based on the thoughts that we are already thinking about ourselves. I assumed that others were thinking I was failing, but in actuality, I believed I was failing. I was endowing others with my own beliefs surrounding my success as an individual, and the reason I believed I was failing was because I hadn’t yet accomplished what I had set out to achieve.

Definition 1. Success = The accomplishment of an aim or purpose or Achieving what you set out to achieve.

Whilst we have many mutual, societal ideas about success, (which I’ll come to) many of our measures for success are deeply personal.

As we are growing up, our experiences inform our desires. Abraham Hicks often speaks about the following: That through observing what you don’t want, you become clear about what you do want.

Our desires are born through contrast. We constantly desire change and expansion, for we think that we will feel better in the getting of that bigger and better thing. Actualising our desires, therefore, becomes our personal measure of success.

My experiences informed a desire to be seen, which is why I chose acting. More specifically, achieving my desire looked like winning an Oscar for Best Actress, for only then would I have tangible evidence that I’d achieved being seen.

The more time that passed, the greater my awareness became of not having yet achieved this desire. This only made me more aware of the thought that I was trying to overcome through striving for my desire in the first place: That I was invisible. The fact that my perceived invisibility seemed more of a reality than my being seen meant I was met with a perpetual feeling of failure.

Leaning on limiting beliefs about my self was where I went wrong because fame became my measure for success. Limiting beliefs inform our individual ideas of success, and they also screw us over. We don’t come up with the solutions to our obstacles on our own, however …

2. What does society say about success?

For a start, society still very much connects success with material possession, for attachment to material possession (particularly that of wealth and fortune) is a fault of the human ego, ever tempted by the illusion that ‘seeing is believing’. Furthermore, success has and continues to be attributed to social status, particularly those with fame and prosperity.

Not enough emphasis is placed on that which can’t be seen, and this leads to one of life’s biggest misconceptions: That material value determines one’s worth.

Definition 2. Success = Attaining wealth, prosperity and/or fame

The root fear of all humans is: I am not enough. A popular way to smother this fear is to hold on to the material and tangible, as it makes us feel more certain of our existence. We think that if we attach things and labels to ourselves, it’ll boost our worth: ‘I’m a millionaire; I’m the CEO of a banking firm; I’m an Academy Award winning Actor; I’m vegan; I’m a singer; I’m married; I have a six-pack and can bench 140 kg …’ The list is endless, for without these things, who are we and how can we be sure that we amount to something?

‘Ego is the false perception of oneself as a limited being.’

– Eckhart Tolle

Our modern world has opened up a multitude of opportunities that didn’t exist just a couple of generations ago. Where people were once thought of as either ‘fortunate’ or ‘unfortunate’ depending on the cards that they were dealt in life, it is now commonly accepted that we are, in fact, the creators of our reality. There have been enough ‘rags to riches’ stories for us to see that we are not fated; we can be, do and have whatever we desire.

Whilst this is liberating, the fact that we are no longer victims to our life experience presents a new kind of stress: The pressure of responsibility. There is more expectation for one to do well with their life.

Nowadays, the word ‘success’ is thrown around more than ever before, attributing to societies obsession with being, doing and having the best. It is no longer acceptable to, say, just start up a business – it needs to become the best business in it’s field. It is not enough to simply cook for pleasure – you must go on Master Chef and be deemed the best cook. You like playing netball? Awesome … But are you playing for the National team? This pressure applies to every area of our life, and it is emphasised by the media, who plays into that common human fear of: I am not enough.

Our need for success is driven by our limiting beliefs, and our ideas of success are derived from our environment. Success according to this format, however, encourages shame, as well as breeds further stress.

Success taken from this model is a lie, for it narrows our focus and causes us to view our life through a tainted lens. We cannot see the areas where we are actually successful because we are only focused on the parts of our life that are still lacking.

3. What does it actually mean to be successful?

Success is not about having, it is about being. It has nothing to do with material possession, status, fame or wealth; it is much simpler than that. It is about being in alignment with oneself. Success is personal, and personal success will differ from person to person.

This is where society gets it wrong, for we tend to believe that success looks the same for everybody, and this simply isn’t the case.

Each of us has personal desires, and these desires are born through feeling lack, or observing things that we do not want. These desires are unique, and we cannot fully comprehend another’s desire, meaning we cannot fully comprehend (or define) another’s success.

We often look at others and believe that they are more successful than us – yet just because somebody has what you want, doesn’t mean that they have received it from the standpoint that you are coming from. One might be born into wealth, and another born into poverty. The one who is born into poverty desires wealth and decides that the one who was born into wealth is more successful than them. Wealth is circumstantial to the one who was born into money, and so their desire will be something different. Their idea of success might be a stable, loving relationship. Let’s say the man who was born into poverty has been happily married for 10 years. The wealthy man will look to the poor man and see success. We assume that those who have what we desire started from the same place that we did, but everybody has their own journey. Our points of attraction are different, therefore it isn’t what you have or who you are that makes you successful, it is your ability to align with your unique desires.

Success is a thing to begin with because our mutual purpose as humanity is self-actualisation. We desire to be the best, most complete version of ourselves. It isn’t the desires alone – it is the fact that you always feel good when you are in alignment with what you want and who you have become, and these good feelings bring you closer to your true self, who is is joyous, loving and all-knowing.

‘Success is alignment; focused thought, control of the thoughts I think, feeling my emotions and guiding my thoughts deliberately toward the greater being that is me.’

– Abraham Hicks

In summary, you need to define your own success and ignore what the others are doing. Ever heard the expression ‘follow your joy’? Your emotions are your guide, and if you endeavour to follow your joy, you cannot go far wrong. I have therefore come to lean on the following definition: