What are your success factors? That is; what are the things that you use to gauge yours or another person’s successfulness in life?
Does being successful mean:
• Being rich
• Being famous
• Having a big house
• Having a beautiful spouse
• Having lots of happy children
• Being able to donate money to charity
• Being able to do volunteer work
• Saving a life
• Rescuing animals
• Playing the trumpet
Actually, being successful means different things to different people. You shouldn’t let anyone else tell you what it takes to be happy or successful. You should come up with your own list. You might want to travel around the world. To me, being successful means being able to do the things that I want to do, regardless of what they are.
Unless you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth, you didn’t start out on top. There were things that you had to do, in order to achieve what you wanted out of life. School is considered very important to most people. But, there are some high school drop-outs that have gone on to become successful.
If you come up with your own list of success factors, those can become your goals. You should always keep your short and long-term goals in front of you, every day. Day to day activities can get in the way. You could make decisions that don’t move you towards your goals, if you don’t pay attention.
Regardless of what your goals may be, never forget to be grateful for what you have, today. If you’re living in a one-bedroom flat, it might be hard to find something to be grateful for. But, every morning or every night, you should jot down the good things that happened to you that day.
Being grateful might not seem to have anything to do with your success factors, but it does. Being grateful makes you feel happier. Feeling happier creates more positive energy around you. The positive energy attracts good things to you and it just keeps growing, as time goes by.
We all have different ways of measuring our level of happiness. What makes me happy might not make you happy at all. But, there is at least one factor that we all share. No one can truly be happy unless they are able to give of themselves. If your success factors don’t include a little giving, take the time to rethink them. It’s important.

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