There is so much talk and argument over what it means to be successful. Some people think if you have a large amount of money that means you are successful. Others think you need to be famous or win an award in order to be deemed successful. Everybody has their own idea of success and what it means, which is totally fine. The problem lies when we try to impose our idea of what success is on someone else. The truth, which it seems like a lot of people tend to forget, is that success is relative.

Let me give an example to help illustrate what I mean. I am a college student and I often considered my grades a reflection of whether I am succeeding in school or not. If I am making an A or B in a class then I consider that a success. However, someone else might have a different standard of success and consider just barely passing their classes a success. We are all different, so it makes perfect sense that we all have different ideas and standards of success.

If I were to impose my standard of success, when it comes to grades, on the person who is just barely passing their classes, in my eyes, I would not consider them successful. It can be so easy to pass judgement on someone else when we know little to nothing about them. I have no idea what personal struggles they face or how difficult their classes might be for them personally.

Basically we need to be a little more understanding in our judgements of what is successful and what is not. How unfair it is to hold someone with completely different talents and struggles than you to your standard. Let us be a little kinder and a little more human in our considerations of what is successful.

On another note, we need to quit being so hard on ourselves when we do not at first succeed or achieve the desired outcome we were going for. We are often our own toughest critic. We are all too quick to jump to the conclusion that we are a failure when we don't reach our ideal of success. We forget that failure is not permanent and that the only time we truly fail is when we stop trying.

Another common mistake I believe a lot of us too often make is adopting someone else's view of success as our own. When we do this we are setting ourselves up for disappointment. It is similar to the inadequacy we feel when we compare ourselves to someone else. We are too different to hold ourselves to the same standard of success!

Keep trying, keep chasing your dreams and do not lose heart when you do not at first succeed. Remember that success is relative; do not let someone else define success for you.