One of my main concerns when I am helping people achieve their life goals is - How they measure success. I see individuals getting frustrated as they strive for that mystical term 'SUCCESS'.

One of the main reason that causes this frustration is that people allow their definitiion of success to be determined by someone or something else.

They look to individuals perhaps in their own work environment or even in the news who are 'Successful' then look at their own life and determine because they are not the same as this person then they, the individual cannot be successful.

We should look at our own skills to determine what is successful to us. We should look inward to determine what it would mean for us to be successful in our own mind rather than someone else's.

The key to 'Success' is all in our heads we should and must develop our own thinking about what it will mean to be 'Successful'.

Too many times I see people try to be like the 'Gurus' who are earning perhaps millions and feel insignificant next to them.

They become frustrated at their own apparent lack of success when comparing themselves to these people.

We are all individuals with individual wants, skills and experiences. For one person success is earning $100,000 per year another would feel unsuccessful with earning $250,000, another ignores earnings and looks to tangible assets to meaure their success. Then there are those who measure their success not in monetary terms but in how they have helped steer children to a better life perhaps away from falling into street crime and drug abuse. Teachers of children do not measure their success in monetary terms but in the satisfaction from seeing children under their guidance achieve something in their own lives.

The temptation would be for teachers of children and others in similar vocational type work to think they are not successful because they are not earning masses of money in carrying out their work. The person who earns $100,000 may look at themselves and compare their earnings with the one who is earning $250,000 and feel lack of success. And indeed that person earning $250,000 who is to say they are not looking at the person who is guiding children and wish that they could have some of their success and satisfaction?

You must set out your own course to success by all means look to others as guides, even emulate what they are doing, just remember you cannnot copy them. Each of us have our own experiences of life and when faced with a decision we use those experiences to form our course of action. Emulating a successful person is looking at their pathway to success, their actions, their determination and translating that into our own experience to see how we can improve ourselves. Note the word 'ourselves'.

You must set your own course of action, and stay on your course. You and you alone must determine what 'SUCCESS' means to you, fashion your goals on your interpretation not someone else's. Do what you do to the best of your ability and the rest will take care of itself. For example I believe that I am successful but I am not a millionaire! well not in money terms anyway but I have colleagues who are. They may not see me as successful in their eyes but that does not matter it is how I see myself that is important to me and my life.

Here is the truth. Being a success is doing your best, not being the best. Success is not something you become - It is something you continue being.

When we get to that point, we will experience a lot more joy and a lot less frustration. And that sounds good to me!

Remember the great quote from Napoleon Hill "If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way."