How Do You Measure Success?
Will you know when you’ve achieved it? If not, it’ll never happen.
A writer published his book and now it’s available on Amazon. His success, according to him, is that the book is done and it’s available. He honest and truly doesn’t care if it sells 14 copies or 14 million. The measure of success for him was that he (finally) finished writing, editing, proofreading, designing, and publishing his book. If he were running a race, he’s past the finish line. If they want to shower flowers onto him as he walks a victory lap, that’s all fine. But he’s done. He accomplished what he set out to do. He can leave the stadium with his head held high–and he did.
Whose definition of success are you living by? Yours or theirs?
For others, they might think that he’s not at the finish line at all. In fact, he’s just getting out of the starting gates. “Great job, Mr. Writer! Now the real work begins!” But no, he was at the starting gates long ago.
Let’s take the example you’re reading right now. This site, Pass the Sour Cream, was originally built to get me back in the Writing Habit. That was the goal. I’m writing every day. I’m going to let you in on a little secret: it’s a smashing success.
You need some sort of measuring tool to know if you’re there yet–or if you need to keep going.
Do I get 4 million daily page views? Literary contracts from New York publishers? Multiple and obscure income streams? I’m not even going to answer those. I’m writing every day. It’s something that’s been bugging me for years. Years. Now it’s solved, now it’s a success. I have succeeded. I could stop now and say it was a successful mission. Except that the mission was to keep writing, so OK, I’ll do that.
Oh by the way, I’m having fun. Bonus.
1 championship or 21? A visit to the stadium or playing for the team? [Camp Nou, Barcelona]
