The Three Stages of Success

I was recently thinking about the nature of “success.”

Of course, it’s a process and a journey and not a “completion” or a destination, but how can we better understand the process, the journey of “success?”

Well, I came up with three phases, each marked by three key ideas: Responsibility, Maturity and Wisdom.

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I – Getting unstuck / making major progress on your Key Project.

Until we get serious about what we want to do now we cannot hope to be successful.

We must take Responsibility for where we are, what we are letting get in the way of what we want and then taking consistent action towards what we really want to accomplish.

II – Living well and integrating all areas of your life in an authentic way.

Once we, as adults, understand what it means to work on, and accomplish, things that matter, we move to the next phase of success: Maturity.

Being mature is more than just doing something important. It’s knowing that we are multi-faceted beings with different areas of priority and taking excellent care of these areas.

It’s making the tough decisions about time/energy allocation so that we keep what we value and desire in balance.

It’s making the necessary investments in ourselves, our families and our work so we may show up well in each of those areas.

It means we integrate our values, priorities and goals in a way that is workable and sustainable.

This can be difficult: it requires sacrifice, it requires self-care and it requires sometimes delaying gratification.

It requires maturity.

III – Sustaining Integration and doing Legacy work.

The next phase builds on the first two.

Is the embodiment of the third key: Wisdom.

A life of wisdom is marked by a sense of what works and what is required.

It’s knowing that once one has developed years of experience, as a person, a family member and a practitioner of something (or as it’s increasing likely, multiple somethings), that there are investments of time and effort that are important to make – given what one knows.

It’s seeing the forest for the trees and knowing there’s something the forest needs, something that matters to more than one tree, or one person who might encounter the forest.

This is the Legacy Phase. The time in life where all the important work one has does comes together, it coalesces and begins to become a sum greater than its parts.

But this coalescing doesn’t happen by accident.

It happens by design.

And it’s important.

And it requires planning, intention, effort and wisdom.

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The framework I’ve laid out here is both simple and complex.

It can seem overwhelming if you’re not even aware of the first phase, how it works and its vital importance.

But that critical first phase (Responsibility) and that which follows is exactly what I help my clients with.

If you want to learn more about the work I do and how I help my clients, click here to schedule a Demonstration Session.