Setting goals for personal success
Recently I had a conversation with my fiance about whether I was stretching myself too thin with the extracurriculars I do outside of work. Since graduating and going from an insane class/work schedule to a regular office job, I’m attempting to tweak #5 of the 23 lessons learned in 23 years.
Through my life, I feel as if I haven’t been able to keep my attention on one thing for too long, flitting from one activity to another. I’ve tried so many sports and hobbies that it’s a little disconcerting—if only for the fact that I am, almost desperately, trying to master one of them.
“Jack of all trades, master of none.”
So then the questions I constantly ask myself are these: Am I doing enough? Am I doing too much? It seems to be a never-ending cycle of uncertainty that I can’t seem to break myself out of. I don’t want to be complacent, and yet I don’t want to be discontent.
It seems to be an ongoing trend with other young people like me. We’re finding our way in our careers all while looking for that something that will give us our big breaks. In a world where the internet can make you famous seemingly overnight, each of us strive, with stars in our eyes, to be named the youngest on some ranked list for coming up with the next best thing.
Just as much as anyone else, I strive to become something greater than I am right now. With each and every endeavor I take on, I have the hope that it will give me credibility as a rightly-dubbed young professional.
“But you’ve only just graduated.”
Sure, but it doesn’t make me any less anxious to do something great with my life. It’s just a matter of being patient, since success isn’t created overnight but is instead a culmination of hundreds of hours of hard work.
To be fair, some young people had forgone college education in order to pursue something else, something non-traditional. Imagine what you could accomplish if you, instead of spending thousands of hours sitting in class and staying up to do papers, focused all that time, effort, and energy (and perhaps even money) to one or a few entrepreneurial endeavors. The possibilities are endless.
Sometimes I get frustrated that I’m not as far along in my own success as I’d like, and it takes me constant reminding that most of us don’t come out of the womb ready to conquer the world (unless you’re the baby of a power couple like Beyonce and Jay-Z—let’s be real here).
“So when will you know you’re successful?”
I’d like to call myself successful once these criteria are met:
- My student loans are all paid off.
- I'm earning an above-average salary for the industry.
- I've had a significant amount of managing experience in my professional career.
I’m sure there are other criteria that I’m missing, but these are the top 3 that I believe are most important to fulfill. And it’s not to say I don’t feel successful now, but I’m thinking down the line, perhaps 7 years from now.
Let this blog post mark my long-term goal of success. It seems a little daunting, but I know that I can achieve this as long as I am steadfast.
Main image by Ahmad Kadhim.