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Defining Success For Today's Woman
There’s so much pressure to achieve today, but what does success mean for today's woman? Is achievement and success the same thing?
We hear stories of women who have reached the ‘top’ and appear to still have it all together - family, marriage and children. And then sometime down the track we hear things aren’t really all that together and something had to give.
There are many schools of thought on what success really means. What does it mean for you? Is it a big home, a nice car or a husband who can provide for the family so you can stay home and ‘work’ as a fulltime mum instead? Or perhaps you’re the corporate type and success might mean how high you’ve climbed the ladder in your chosen field? Perhaps it means the size of your annual income?
What does success really mean? To different people it means different things, but in reality it means achieving what you set out to do. If your main goal in life was to have a happy marriage, raise a family and own your own home and you have that, then you have achieved success. If your goal was to earn a particular income, or achieve a certain role in your workplace, then you have success. If your goal was to start your own business or see a dream come to pass, and you’re on the way to achieving this, then you have success. But let’s not stop there.
Our lives should be a series of goals along the pathway we travel, otherwise the feeling of success is short-lived and life becomes dull and boring. We should really be experiencing and seeing successes all around us, appreciating them even in the smallest of achievements. Depending on where life takes us and what it dishes out to us it could be something as simple as learning to walk all over again, just as the following story reveals.
Sam bent over her knee to check her shoelace one more time. It was a habit of hers which had become a pre-race ritual that eased her nerves and helped pass the time. This race was important and she needed to do her best. It wasn't just to satisfy herself of her ability to run and how fast, it was also for her coach, who had put so much time into her because he believed in her.
The time had passed by so quickly. How long had it been now? Six years? In some ways it seemed a lifetime, but in other ways just a moment in time. So much had happened to bring her to this very moment, to participate in a race that means so much to her and to her family.
Over to the left in the audience her proud parents sat watching. Mum had a hand over her heart, and her dad had that faint familiar smile playing around his lips. They had told her they didn't mind where she finished, but just that she could do it – to see her run a race they thought they’d see happen again.
Sam thought about that phrase that often played over and over in her mind, ‘Run, then, in such a way as to win the prize' and smiled. I've already won the prize. I won it when I could get back on my feet. I won it when I was able to take those first steps. I won it when I walked down the end of the street without the aid of a walking stick and back again. Where I finish today doesn't matter because I've already won the biggest prize of all and that is being able to use my feet and legs again.
Over to the right stood her coach, touching the ends of his fingers to his thumb on his left hand, from one end to the other and back again. This was an unconscious movement of his that was comfortingly familiar, and she knew it showed his thoughts were elsewhere. She was pretty sure at this moment, he was in silent prayer, hoping she would finish this race.
The call came and the other athletes moved into position either side of Same and she too settled into her position. She flexed her ankle and it felt good to sense the movement there. She was far more aware of the different parts of her body these days and how each felt when she moved or when something touched her. The start sequence began and the shot was fired. The race had begun.
And as she moved forward toward her goal of the 400 metre finish line Sam knew without a doubt she was going to finish the race. All the training and strict discipline that had been put in place since her accident had brought her to this very point and no matter where she came in the race she knew she had won. She would have success!
It is good for us to take stock of what we have in life, where we’ve been, where we’ve come from and where we are heading – I think when you do that, you’ll find your life has been filled with successes.
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