At my volleyball tournament this weekend, I started the day by asking my girls to choose something that would be their definition of “success” for the day. Each had a different, volleyball-related goal. One wanted to get on the court. One wanted to get a block. One wanted to be a more consistent server.
They set these goals for themselves so they could understand what it means to be successful. Today, for them, success was accomplishing that goal.
Success: working at something and eventually accomplishing it.
For several weeks, I’ve been floundering, not believing I was successful. I was looking at success in terms of life accomplishments. In terms of gigantic, unachievable things.
Of course I was unsuccessful.
My girls wanted to win a match. They’ve never outright won before. That didn’t happen the first match. It didn’t happen the second match. As each of them started achieving their own goals, they started working together better.
They won the third match because they had started achieving necessary successive steps toward the end goal.
I can do the same.
I want to publish a video game and make a butt-ton of money so I can support myself, my family, and give it away to people who can benefit from it.
Of course I’m not yet successful. But I can program pieces daily. I can deal with new problems that come up daily and solve them. I can do what my girls did and achieve necessary successive steps.
And if I notice and celebrate those, rather than let them pass by, I can feel successful along my journey.