What is Success?
Liz did a two part post this week about the question, “What is success?” I caught myself frequenting her blog to read all of the comments, but it took me a few days to come up with my own response. Liz is a college student and questioned, “How can you be successful in your chosen career without having a corporate lifestyle?” Comments on her first post about success centered around happiness, but defining happiness and the so called “balanced” life is tough.
After some thought, I finally came up with what to post as a comment on the second post:
It’s been less than a year since I graduated college and this is a question I wish I had the answer to. The one thing I have learned is that it’s okay to change your mind about your career, the lifestyle you want, etc. I majored in Economics, thought I wanted to go to law school, changed my mind, took a post-grad internship at a top PR firm that I thought would be perfect and didn’t like it. I ended up working as a web developer (definitely wasn’t in my plans) at the college I graduated from (also not in the plans) and LOVE it. The point is the definition of success and happiness changed for me many times between junior year of college and now. Luckily you don’t necessarily need a degree in what you want to do. I want the experience of the big “corporate” lifestyle at some point in my life, but not my whole life. For me, I think that’s how I’ll reconcile the conflict between wanting to have career success/challenges and also wanting a laid back, slower life where a career isn’t my focus.
Over the past day I thought about the balance I’m looking for in life a bit more. I figured this was an important thing to reflect on given that I’m 95% sure that I’m going to be quiting my job this summer and going to grad school full-time in the fall. Given the state of the economy, I’m lucky to have a secure, challenging job (even if I feel it’s underpaid). At the end of the day, I’m happy with my job, so I need to be 100% sure that grad school is the right step toward “success” and “happiness.”
Ten years from now, I want to have a senior or mid-level position (depending on the size of the company) in the IT industry doing a mix of consulting and actual development projects relating to knowledge management and/or web development. I want to be making enough money to be able to own a comfortable sized condo or home and have money to spend on fun stuff. Accomplishing these things would make me feel successful.
On the other side, I want to be married, have a kid or two and have time to spend with family and friends. I want to have time for a hobby or two and an occasional vacation. I think having these things in my life ten years from now would make me feel happy.
Beyond the next ten years, I’m less certain what I’ll be looking for in life. Currently, I consider my “dream life” to be one in which I work for myself/have a small company (something web development/business consulting related), have a flexible schedule with free time (I realize the first two don’t always work together), can work from home if I want to and live in the South and close to the beach. Accomplishing these things in the next twenty years would be the next level of success and happiness for me.
I try to make decisions about things like grad school based on whether they will get me closer to these goals. I suppose the challenge is that I’ve changed my mind a lot (as I mentioned in the comment I posted), so what’s to say I won’t change my mind again.
Do you have goals that you use to evaluate big decisions? Have they changed in the past few years? Do you feel them changing now?
March 13th, 2009 at 7:59 am
You have way better of a plan then I do. Maybe I will have a better idea once I graduate college. It is so scary to think about the future, everything is so uncertain.
I hope to someday own a business but that takes a lot of time. It’s hard to accomplish the goals you set for yourself while also having a life and time for a family. Some people sacrafice a lot for their job and if I have children, I would want them to be my first priority.
I think the best thing to do is have goals and try to achieve them, but be open to change the path you are on if you aren’t happy. There’s no need to set everything in stone.
We’ll figure it out someday.
March 13th, 2009 at 9:15 am
I graduated college as a sociology major. My first job was IT Director and theology teacher at my old HS. I LOVED IT! It was my dream job. So what if there were no young faculty members and 1/2 of them were my old teacher? I had the time of my life.
After my first year there, the school closed. I switched to another school were I was IT Director and taught computer science. I. Was. Miserable. The students were rude & spoiled. They didn’t care about learn nor did the teachers had the passion to teach like my first school. I worked 75-80 hr weeks between IT stuff and teacher. It was awful. I will admit this, the students that I personally taught, I did enjoy; they were good kids and motivated to learn. I also enjoyed teaching computer science more than theology and my kids blew me away with what they were able to do. Additionally, I won the highest teaching award of Catholic schools in Chicago at this school.
I only stayed at the school for 1 year. Now my 3rd year out of college, I’m working for an old employer as an IT field tech. This company gave me my start in the IT field and they took care of me. Though I’m not happy as I was 3 yrs ago, I’m content. Sometimes, we have to be content for a while to better grasp what we want or what we had.
In the end, happiness will come and go and so will success. What more important is that you must strive to be the best within yourself and all will come into place. Even though I’m just content now, I’m working w/ my personal self to be better so I can be truly successful and happy in the future.
March 13th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
What a thought-provoking question.
Right now I am determining my success based on school, how successful I do on assignments and in class etc. With only two semesters left I am also getting closer and closer to graduation and I’m starting to think about my career. I think for the first few years after I finish school I will determine my success largely by whether I’m successful in my career or not. And not just successful, but loving it. I don’t think you can truly be successful in a career you’re not passionate about.
Eventually I think I will probably determine my success based on my family. I want to have a family oneday and when I do I think I will view my level of success based on what kind of parent and wife I am. I think my career will still be important too though.
It’s interesting to think of how our definitions of success change as we change as people.
March 15th, 2009 at 9:12 am
Liz - I definitely agree with the idea of setting goals but knowing that they might (and probably will) change. For me, goals help me evaluate how I spend my time. I often ask myself if a potential commitment would move me closer to my goals. I also try to think about what things I want to do that maybe don’t fit into my goals in order to adjust my goals as time progresses.
phampants - I liked the point you made about how being the youngest teacher didn’t matter. During my first work experience after college (technically and internship) I was surrounded by fun, young people. I thought that would make the job enjoyable, but it didn’t compensate for the stuff I didn’t enjoy. At my current job, there are only a few young people and I’m the only female under 40. However, I like the job so much better.
I also agree that there are going to be points in life when you’re just content. If I’m content with one aspect of my life and know I can’t change it for awhile, I try to focus my effort on personal things that I can improve. I work on learning a new computer skill, working out more, spending more time with friends, etc.
Amber - Passion is definitely important in enjoying a job and a career. I think that’s why I’ve changed my mind so many time in the past 2 years. Once graduating from college was more of a reality, I finally gave serious thought to what would make me happy. I decided not to submit my near complete law school applications, I thought I wanted to do PR, and finally I found something I really like - web development.
I also think it’s interesting to think about success at different points in life. As females, if we choose to have a family, priorities are likely to shift. Honestly, I struggle with that a bit. I’m very career driven and want a master’s degree, but sometimes I wonder if I should skip the degree and get more work experience before I have a family and my focus shifts. I want a career when I have kids, but at a slower pace so they can be a priority (like Liz said).