How Do You Define Success?

suc·cess (səkˈses) 1. nounthe accomplishment of an aim or purpose

I was recently asked: How would you define a successful day at work? My immediate thought was: when someone doesn't die (I'm a nurse, in case you were wondering). But my verbal answer was something along the lines of: I have two different types of successful days. The first type of day is when everything goes smoothly. When my paperwork basically completes itself, all of the patients are pleasant, nurses are able to do work without much assistance, and I don't leave with (someone else's) poop on my pants (or my own, I guess). 

The second type of successful day are the ones that don't really feel like success, but they are in their own way. They're the days when everything seems to be going wrong: I don't have time for paperwork and weekly reports because I'm training a new nurse and three patients have had a bowel movement and one is in respiratory distress. The doctor needs me to round with him and there's a code on second floor. These days leave me feeling frazzled, but also with a sense of accomplishment, because maybe in the moment I didn't feel great, but at the end of the day I was still able to help, teach, and comfort other people.



Many people define success differently. You may define success as having a house, a car, and a stable job - while others may define success as having the vocational freedom to travel, work per diem, freelance, and ride a bike. When it comes to finances, success for me means being able to put money in my savings account every month while still being able to enjoy an occasional dinner or evening out with my husband. 

When it comes to my blog, I define success as having genuine interaction and conversation with readers. Someone asked on a blogging support group, how do you define success in the blogging world? Yes I enjoy it when a post gets many page views (but to be honest I only check my "stats" about once a week) and it definitely makes me smile when I get a lot of likes on my instagram posts. But I think real success, for me, is the amount of influence my post has. If there's genuine conversation and interest in what I have to say. 

Success also means reaching my personal goals. A successful week for me looks like: getting to work on time every day AND eating a nutritious breakfast, having a blog post pre-scheduled for Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and going to the gym at least four times per week before work. It means having stimulating conversations with my husband rather than getting lost in our respective screens for hours at a time. It means cooking balanced meals in the evenings rather than ordering pizza. It means that on Friday nights, I go to bed thinking, "wow, what a great week". 

I think it's so awesome that success can be defined in so many ways. It's awesome that one person's success doesn't invalidate another person's, even if their opinions of what "success" means are totally opposite. 

How do you define success with your blog? Your daily life?