How to avoid the pitfalls of chasing someone else’s dream.

You know the old adage “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”? Well, the same goes for success. If you’re focusing on what everyone else’s idea of success is you’ll never achieve it. Success, like beauty, starts from the inside out.

You have to go deep inside yourself to define your own version of success. Not what your friends think, not your family, not even the entrepreneurs and business leaders you look up to.

You can take tips from the important people in your life. Go ahead and borrow best practices. But you have to discover what your own definition of success to achieve it. Why try to live someone else’s dream while standing in the way of your own?

For me, I want to spend as much time with my wife, and two little girls as possible, while building businesses and inspiring people to follow their own path. Everything I do at work and at play aligns with those goals. E-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g.

So now, I work from home. I run two businesses. I write here at INC and I’m blessed to have my words reach a global audience. For me, that’s success. For others, not so much.

Stop waiting on someone else’s version of success and grab yours. Here’s how.

Dig deep.

We’ve been taught that things should matter to us. Money, good benefits, a nice car, a big house, a fancy job title. Nice things are great, but we all have our own idea of what those things are. It only makes sense to choose our own individual paths to getting them.

By taking the time to dig deep, you discover your own personal values. These values will help you carve out a happy, exciting and fulfilling path. This path will lead you to your final destination — success.

Consider everything.

Is being able to travel important to you? Do you want to work from home? Is getting the Rolls Royce you’ve always been dreaming of a must? Material or not, no judgment here. This is your journey.

Meditate.

I know, I know … here I go again with the meditation. It comes up a lot in my articles, and that’s because it works.

Here it is, the world is your oyster. You’ve been told you can define your very own version of success, and you’ve come up with nada.

It’s the moments of silence that we take for ourselves to reflect that we get the most honest answers. It’s then that you can actually hear what your heart and your gut have been trying to tell you. Meditate on your success. And don’t just do it once. Do it often.

Your version of success doesn’t always have to stay the same. Keep challenging yourself to live and stay true to your best life.

Don’t compare.

This is the hardest part. Don’t look at what other people have and think “oh they seem happy, that’s what I want too.” Somebody else’s post on Facebook should not and cannot define your success. First of all, looks can be deceiving. And secondly, you’re not them, you’re you.

Go back to your values and your personal and professional dreams and desires. You’re the one that has to live this life, make it the best one you’ve got.