Success and Self-Esteem

by Carla Valencia

"To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

It seems that for most of us the word “success” is only for other people. We usually find ourselves looking outside and thinking: “Wow, if I only had his or her talent”, or “he or she is really lucky…” or “If I have only had the opportunity.” and so on.

We find ourselves questioning all the time why other people have success while we do not have it. Is that because they are lucky, more intelligent than us or better? Absolutely not, that is not the reason.

Only when we decide to start look inside ourselves, instead of looking at other people’s life, we will finally find out that we are successful.

Success is an internal sense, is a feeling of satisfaction and peace, and is to be comfortable about us.

For many years I thought that success was for other people but not for me, and also that was a matter of having a lot of money, be famous, have a perfect body and so on.

(This could be the meaning of success for many people and I respect it, and I even support it as far as one can be comfortable with oneself and can enjoy from inside out to have a lot of many, or to be famous, etc.).

But because I was not aware of this, what I did most of the time was to copy other people, trying to dress like them, acting like them struggling to get the main goal: “I want to be a successful person”.

But at the end of the day, I got really tired of doing that and really frustrated because there was no satisfaction inside of me. I felt really empty, like living in a superficial world, and spending too much time trying to be loved by everyone and trying to please them.

Finally I realized that success was a feeling from inside out. And it was a big surprise to find out that I was a really successful person.

I discovered that I have done a lot of things that made me felt happy and in peace, and this awareness helped me to discover that the main meaning of success was to be comfortable with myself.

Success is also to accomplish your goals, sometimes it could happen that you have promised yourself to reach a goal and you failed.

To fail is not important, what really matters here is your awareness that comes from inside out that you made the best you could to get there, and of course if you did not get there, you learned a valuable lesson.

We cannot measure ourselves from what other people think, because everybody thinks different and the meaning of success for me, may be different for another people.

Success is to be simple and honest, to be in peace with yourself. Success is to trust you; is a great challenge.

Everything you do or you try to do is important, may be, is not important for other people, but the main point here is to be honest with yourself and respect yourself.

In order to accomplish this, you have to really believe in yourself first, knowing that your life is important.

"Success it is simply a matter of doing what you do best and not worrying about what the other fellow is going to do.”
John R. Amos