Let’s be honest for a moment,

most of us aren’t looking for answers

We say we do but we don’t really mean it.

We also say we want to be successful and accomplished

yet we rarely stop to properly define what it means.

This weekend I was honoured to give a talk at a conference

for young professionals from all over Europe.

In my talk, i shared my personal story of hardships and challenges

as well as my blind boss’s story.

The main point i was making is- we need to have a strong why.

We need to know- why we are doing what we are doing?

Why we are living the way we live?

Why do we want to succeed or to start our own business?

You see, why isn’t just the question, it is the answer.

But no answer can be found without first asking the right question.

And that’s something we rarely do.

Simply ask yourself- when was the last time you sat down,

took out a piece of paper and wrote down important questions?

You could ask yourself anything! For example?

Why do I want to be successful?

Why aren’t I already successful?

What does it take for something to become successful?

If that’s already too far ahead, simply ask:

What is success?

You see, if you go and ask around, most people won’t be

able to tell you what is success.

People who answer that success is money, fame, etc, are simply

confused and blindly repeat what society has told

them to answer.

It’s amazing how many people want to succeed

despite lacking a clear definition for the word success.

The definition i like to use for success is taken from

the brilliant Earl Nightingale who defined success as

The continuous realization of a worthy goal or idea

This definition in my opinion is powerful and when you

have it in front of you, you can properly set goals to

achieve it. The beauty of this definition is that it shows

you that success is a continuous process.

It shows you that we should not strive to reach the

peak of the mountain but simply to continue upwards

whenever we can, as long as the climb is towards a worthy

idea which deserves our time and effort.

A worthy idea is for us to define and that makes

success even more subjective.

You yourself can determine your own success by

first thinking about what ideas or goals are important

enough for you to give them everything you have.

Not having such goals or ideals is the unfortunate norm

and in my opinion it’s the source of frustration and

unhappiness that our society is currently experiencing.

If you read these words and can relate with the point

i’m trying to make, let’s do an exercise.

I want you to take out a pen and a piece of paper and

write down as many questions as you can possibly think of.

Questions such as:

Where am i heading with my life?

Am i happy or unhappy with where i am today? why?

Am i a better person than the person i was last year?

Who is the person i want to become until 2020?

What do i need to do to become this person?

There are endless questions you can ask yourself.

The beauty of it is, you don’t need to know the answers.

You can try to write down answers but that’s not easy.

We will most likely spend our entire life searching for the

right answers and perhaps we will even find some.

But before we do that, we must ask the right questions!