So you’ve chosen to work for yourself. Be it for more freedom, the opportunity to make money from what you enjoy or the chance to make a real success of yourself in life. It’s fairly common knowledge that if you want to succeed, you need to set yourself goals and then go about achieving them. However, how do you measure if you’re successful?

Is being successful something you want others to perceive? Is it a standard measure that you need to meet? Or is it just something inside you that you want to feel?

Success by Metrics

It makes sense to use measurements when it comes to business, such as measuring turnover, profit, cost, value, etc. However, how do you go about deciding what metric to use when measuring success? Can success be measured by an absolute selection of measurements? You could use any of the following as possible measures of success:

  • The turnover for your business (i.e. the total money value of all transactions in a period of time)
  • The profit margin of your business (i.e. the percentage of profit relative to your revenue. e.g. £30 profit for every £100 revenue is a 30% profit margin).
  • The amount of profit you make per month or year
  • The page rank, Technorati rating, RSS readers, Alexa Rank, unique daily visitors, or search engine rankings
  • The amount of money you make, relative to your investment of time.

All of the above are valid measurements that can be used to analyse how much a business has grown over time. However, you’ll easily debate what mixture of the above measures actually equate to success. That’s because success is highly subjective, and it means something different to each individual person.

Success by Reputation

If you’re someone who works to impress, or someone who’s driven by the need to have lots of money to buy “stuff”; ask yourself “why?”. Why is it important that others consider you to be successful? Why are you trying to prove yourself to others?

You might get the feeling that my questions above are slightly loaded. Well they are. Aiming to be successful to please or impress others will never give you long term happiness. You might obsessed with your own image (narcissistic), or insecure and needing the approval of others to feel good. However, why should your happiness be dependant on others?

Incidently, I used to be someone constantly seeking the approval of others.

Success by Self

Now I view success being a state of mind where you can feel proud of your achievements, and where you’re happy in life. Being happy in life is far from easy, and I’ve had to learn that this year. With my RSI being such a challenge, I had to re-examine my life to establish what really matters. When I finally reached that state, my RSI was merely a small inconvenience, not a brick wall stopping me from doing what I wanted.

I have my own targets for my business, and I use these results as simply a measure that I’m doing the right things to grow my websites. I have my ultimate goals in life, and my website business is a thoroughly enjoyable way for me to achieve my ultimate goals.

Some of my ultimate goals require more money than a bog-standard 9-5 job can give me. (One of my dreams is to have a large family home with a huge garden). I’m prepared to work hard for my dreams, and it gives me personal pride that I’m working towards those dreams.

Am I successful? Yeah! Definitely! I’m having fun, doing things I believe in, and surrounded my great friends and wonderful family. How did I achieve my success? With a great deal of effort and a huge change of perspective. I’ll achieve my dreams in time, but I won’t be successful just because I achieved my dreams.

In closing, what do you consider to be your measure of success?