I often think about the power of words to build or to tear down. Language is one way humans mediate experience. Thoughts mediate language. Mindset mediates thoughts. When our mindset is growth oriented, how we choose and use words is also growth oriented.
I see a lot of focus on the word ‘success’ by young adults in career and academic contexts. Very often, superlative words & phrases are used to assess our ‘success’ in school and work: excellent; exceeds expectations; outstanding, A.
Equally often, many young adults spend their lives (reductively defined by performance at school & work) feeling unsuccessful and as ongoing ‘failures.’
I want to challenge ourselves to think about concrete, measurable ways to define and assess ‘success’ on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. The large-scale years-based assessment will only come with time. The baby step, ongoing assessment is, however, quite much in our control.
Just for today, I am choosing to define ‘success’ as a two-letter word: DO.
Assessment question: between having woken up and till this moment, list all activities under the category ‘DO’. A few (out of many) from my own activities today:
1. Wrote this blog post.
2. Cleaned kitchen.
3. Did dishes.
4. Read one article on attachment theory to reflect on application to career success.
5. Pondered my next 4 baby-steps to build my nascent coaching business.
Success = DO-ING.
What’s on your list today of ‘do’ items? Would love to hear from you in comments below!
š, – Maya
AlkaDevika Project Solutions (ADPS), LLC. 