One time I was in a high school class on bring your parents to school day. The teacher asked the teens, when would you say that you are now a successful person?
Some kids replied, “when I drive my own Ferrari”, “When I have a million dollars in my back account”…There were several answers like that until a kid said something that still touches me till today. The young girl said, “when I happy with life”.
That one line has stuck to my brain for some years now. The sentence covers a truth that not many of us have come to realise – which is that life is the goal. The best and most accurate scale that you can use in measuring how successful you’ve become is how you spend your time on this earth.
The question now is, how do you measure success in business and in life?
Money can buy you a fine dog, but only love can make him wag his tail – Kinky Friedman
This statement speaks volumes. The majority of us spend most of our lives searching for fame and money, thinking that is the trademark of a successful person. Truth is that life and the way you live it – this includes work, family, and your relationship with others – is the meter through which you can answer the question on how do you measure success.
First note that success encompasses all aspects of life. It ranges from your family life, business and general relationship with others.
How Do You Measure Success in Business
In business, we view profitability as being successful. I am not arguing that this fact those not hold any water, but there are other means through which you can measure success that is also important.
1. Reaching your goals
When running a business, it is very important that you know your goals. Knowing your goals is the first step in achieving them. In business, your goals might manifest in several forms aside from being profitable.
Good examples of goals would include increasing your market share, increasing your customer satisfaction rate, reducing the rate at which defective products are made, causing a shift in the market and so much more. You see that you can attain success even when your business hasn’t begun to make profit.
The goals above cannot be achieved if you don’t know them beforehand. You have to know these goals, communicate it to your team and that way you would be able to measure success. A lot of startups fail because they do not have set goals so they don’t have a way to check their progress.
The steps in guarantying success are not difficult, but if they are not done at all success would be hard to attain.
2. Growth of your business
A business is like a baby that is learning to walk and you the business owner is like a parent that is gingerly waiting for their first steps. You get your satisfaction from raising the child (business) through the years from when it was a toddler, to when they become mature and grow. In this period, you are also improving the fortunes of your employees and your community at large.
Remember we said that how you spend your live on earth is the greatest determinant of how successful you are.
3. Low turnover rate
A turnover rate refers to the percentage of employees that are leaving a company within a certain period of time. A high turnover rate can be very costly for companies because the departing employees would have to be replaced.
A measurement of success can be seen in your turnover rate. A low turnover rate signifies that you have created a culture in your company that is very favourable to your employees. A company with a bad culture would have a high turnover rate while one with an amazing culture would have low turnover rate.
There is another phenomena known as a boomerang employee turnover rate. It is a situation where an employee who has a left the company decides to come back because they realize that you offer the best working condition.
4. You share your success with others
Sharing might in fact be the purest and truest form to ascertain how successful you are. It doesn’t necessarily have to be money that you would share. It can include your time, wisdom, patience, knowledge and even love.
Ghost cried, “Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!” – A Christmas Carol.
5. A well- balanced life
A mantra that I always try to remember is that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, and sometimes Jack becomes a jerk. The reason for this is that life is not all about work, only a small part of it. A CEO of a fortune 500 company that never takes time out to relax, go on long walks on the beach or travel with his family is not a success.
It is unproductive to measure how balance your life is. Measuring the lack of balance is much easier. It is easier to measure things like falling health, broken marriages, and estranged children. You measure your success with the trials that you go through in life
How Do You Measure Success in Life
Now we are leaving the business life and moving onto the non-business side. The two areas works hand in hand. Your business life also affects your personal life, you cannot separate the both of them. Some of the things you can use to measure your personal life include:
6. Being Healthy
You cannot enjoy your life or even think about success when your health is poor. How does your health the affects your business?
When you are feeling sick, your company would be affected especially if you are in a key leadership role, your family gets affected (because you can’t be there for them and they constantly stress over you), and you cannot serve your community also. All aspects of your life is affected when you are sick.
Do not joke with your health. Your body is your machine and it should be in good working condition as it is necessary for you to attain success.
7. A good family
What is an essential role of every human on earth? To grow a family and provide love and support to others. In improving the lives of others, you also improve yours also. Giving is receiving.
Having a good family also gives you access to love and a support group when you need it. Especially when you are about to start your own business that comes with a lot of risks, the love and support then comes in handy.
8. It is important to do the difficult tasks first
Whether it is in your business or in your personal life, there would always be obstacles. What makes us different from other life forms is our ability to bounce back.
We have been doing this from the beginning of time, went against nature to create fantastic inventions – we manufactured motors to combat walking long distances, aeroplanes that went against the law of gravity, going into space in a rocket ship and so many more.
What you should understand also is that none of this inventions occurred in a blink of an eyes, it took many years before success was attained. Out of all the inventions, the ones that were achieved faster were the ones that the person or team involved looked at the difficult problems and solved them first. After the difficult problems were solved first, the rest of the problem becomes easier to solve.
This principle also works in your life as well as business. When a task looks overwhelming, don’t shy away from it. Learn to prioritize your difficult tasks first, when you do this, the rest of your tasks becomes easier.
9. Success is not measured by your tangibles, but by your state of mind
How do you handle failure? Sometimes you might misinterpret setback as a reason to stop trying or see it as a loss. You might also use it as an excuse to start something new without ending the one you started. What’s approach do you use? Give up or try harder?
10. Do not let other people keep a score of your wins
The only person that is allowed to stress you are the ones you give yourself in applying your energy to become successful in whatever outcome you want to achieve. Any other person can shut up! Nobody knows what you are going through or how your road to success would feel like.
The only thing that is certain is that there is no straight road to achieving success, it is a road full with questions, situations, circumstances, choices and every other thing sandwiched between. How you can determine success is determined by yourself and not how other envision it for you.