What is Success to You? Healthy Family, Spiritual Sound, Whatever Your Answer Is, Don't Ever Jeopardize Your Soul!

Success wears different faces for each of us. For some, it's the corner office with a view. For others, it's the freedom to travel the world. And for many, it's simply the peace of mind that comes from living authentically.

The Foundation: A Healthy Family

When I reflect on success, my thoughts first turn to family. Those relationships that form the bedrock of our emotional lives. A healthy family—whether biological or chosen—provides the safety net that allows us to take risks and the mirror that reflects our truest selves.

Success here isn't perfection. It's the willingness to work through conflicts, to apologize sincerely, to celebrate each other's victories without jealousy. It's creating spaces where everyone feels seen, heard, and valued.

In a world constantly pulling us toward individual achievement, maintaining these bonds requires intention. But what greater success exists than looking around a holiday table at faces that have witnessed your journey and loved you through it all?

The Center: Spiritual Soundness

Beyond our relationships with others lies our relationship with ourselves and something greater. Spiritual soundness doesn't necessarily mean religious devotion, though it can. For many, it's about alignment—living in harmony with your deepest values and truths.

This kind of success manifests as inner peace that remains steady even when external circumstances falter. It's the ability to sit with uncertainty without being consumed by anxiety. It's finding meaning in both joy and suffering.

Spiritual soundness gives us the compass to navigate life's complexities with integrity. It reminds us that how we achieve matters as much as what we achieve.

The Personal Definition: Your Authentic Answer

Perhaps you measure success by creative expression—the novels written, canvases painted, or songs composed. Maybe it's professional impact—lives changed through your work, problems solved through your innovation. Or possibly it's the quiet satisfaction of living simply and sustainably.

Your definition matters. Not the one inherited from parents, absorbed from social media, or imposed by cultural expectations. The one that resonates in your bones when you're honest with yourself.

Success might look like financial security that allows you to sleep peacefully. It might be raising children who are kind and resilient. It might be maintaining your health against difficult odds. Or creating community in an isolated world.

Whatever it is, claim it. Name it. Pursue it.

The Non-Negotiable: Don't Ever Jeopardize Your Soul

Here lies the boundary that transforms ambition from destructive to life-giving: Don't ever jeopardize your soul.

Your soul—that essential core of who you are—cannot be sacrificed on the altar of achievement without devastating consequences. No promotion is worth your integrity. No relationship worth your self-respect. No amount of wealth worth your compassion.

When we compromise our fundamental values for external markers of success, we win the world but lose ourselves. The victory feels hollow because the person celebrating is no longer fully you.

The Daily Choice

Success isn't a destination we reach once and inhabit forever. It's a series of choices made daily:

• Choosing presence over distraction with loved ones
• Choosing ethical action over expedient shortcuts
• Choosing authentic expression over people-pleasing
• Choosing gratitude over endless wanting

These choices accumulate, creating not just a successful life by external standards, but a meaningful one by the standards that will matter when we look back.

The Question That Remains

So I ask you—not rhetorically, but as a genuine invitation to reflection: What is success to you?

Define it carefully. Pursue it passionately. But remember always to protect your soul along the way. Because true success isn't just about what you achieve; it's about who you become in the process.