What is Spiritual Success

What is success and how do you know when you achieve it in a spiritual sense? Success is defined as “the accomplishment of an aim or purpose” At least it is the first definition, as you look deeper it also means “the attainment of popularity or profit” or “a person or thing that achieves desired aims or prosperity. “ Why do we tend to associate success with material gain or recognition? How would this align with endeavoring to live a life based upon our own definition of spirituality and all that can be good in the world?

For many of us we do not see our lives as successful unless we own our dream home filled with all those things we desire, the big tv, the matching furniture and the perfect family all neat and tidy. That job where everyone comes to you for advice and you direct the ship. Where business colleagues sing your praises and shower you with attention. Sadly, as hard as we strive for these things we find ourselves disillusioned and unhappy or worse, struggling to figure out the why to it all. We look at those people on the screens all happy and enjoying themselves only to find out later the marriage has failed and that the things they have done are as fleeting as a shooting star. I think if you asked them, almost all would say there is an area of their lives where they are not successful.

I always question my measurement of success. Sure, I have my own version of the perfect life. I would love my own home, I would love to travel and I would love to have the time and resources to help thousands of people, but would I use that as my measurement of success? No. Success is a sliding scale. We spend a lot of time reaching for the perfect definition of ultimate success that often we are missing the true successes in our lives. As we move into a more spiritual way of living, our definition must change.

Success to me is all those little things that add up together day by day. It is the gratitude in which I greet each day for what I have done for me and those I love. Something as simple as being able to swing my legs over the side of the bed and to stand every morning is success. I am well aware there are those out there that struggle to do so, but they do and that intake of breath they experience fills their body with a light few others could understand and that there are others in tears because it is just not possible for them. They are not failures this is the thing we all have to realize. Spiritual success is a variety of small things put together and is unique as every one of us.

I often think of small children and parents when I try to measure my success. When children are first learning to speak, to walk, to dress themselves and to create and build parents are there every step of the way encouraging, easing the failures and the expressions of pure joy when they do achieve their goals. We celebrate their uniqueness in discovery of the basics of life. Why don’t we do this for ourselves as we grow up? Why are we not celebrating every small movement forward in our lives and why are we looking to others to celebrate it for us?

Success is not having the perfect life of your dreams, success is those small accomplishments we have every day that lead us to when we look in the mirror to say “ I have taken care of me today. I have learned today. I have found a small thing of beauty in my life, today. I have bettered my life and hopefully the life of another today.” It is being your own cheerleader in acknowledging that every small thing you do has value, to you, not to the standards of people outside of you. It is really time we stop using a measuring stick as big as the world to evaluate our worth in it.

“But what if I try and I keep failing? “

I think of that quote by Winston Churchill. “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” Each day we have as many successes as we do failures, and the choice is always which one you are going to base your life upon. Spiritual success is just that, knowing that you are living, growing and celebrating the person you are. Every day you are a success to yourself and for yourself. It knows no matter what, you have something to work for every day, that you have something to give and share and that you’re measuring of it will be something eternal to you, not a reflection of how the world sees success or what you may believe about what another person thinks how your life is being lived. It is not a tangible thing that we can touch and see.

We are our own success story. Take the time to recognize it and celebrate it. That my friends, is spiritual success.