What Success Really Mean?

By Sunday Joseph Adenuga

There are many definitions of Success as there are many people on the face of the earth. The idea that I am trying to sell to you in this book is summarized as follows, “You too can become as successful as you ever desired.”

Success is the ability to set a goal and accomplish it in record time. The synonyms of success are achievement, accomplishment, victory, triumph, hit the target, winner, sensation, and so on. The opposite of it is failure. What one considers a success, another may see as nothing meaningful or important. For example, a man that set out to climb Mount Everest is going to consider himself a success only after climbing the highest mountain on planet earth. Failure to accomplish this feat will point out to our man that he has not succeeded yet. Though presently, he may be a millionaire, but something is lacking, a goal yet to be fulfilled, this will cause a lot of heartache until that mountain is subdued, he doesn’t see himself as a success. As long as he has not climbed the great mountain, he continues to battle, plan and re-plan so that he can eventually succeed. To me, climbing Mount Everest is nothing of value to (because my interest is in something else), but it means a lot to our man who has set a goal to conquer the greatest mountain on earth.

Success therefore is the accomplishment of a purpose (or goal) that brings fulfillment, joy and satisfaction to a man. We must remember also that what a man consider a success, another man may see as a child’s play. When I was growing up (as a youth in the secondary school), I use to consider as nun-serious those other students whose goal in life was to excel and become stars in the field of sports. Every time they went out for practice was wasted as far as I was concerned then. Little did I know that with each practice, they were getting nearer to their life’s purpose and goal; they were getting nearer to their success; they were accomplishing their life’s vision as they went out early in the morning. I remember that I always pitied them and their parents for such waste of time, now I know better.

Success is not just accumulating a lot of money (although many people consider those who are rich as successful): Many strikingly rich people actually died lonely and unfulfilled in life. Many of them have been further destroyed because of large volume of money they do not know how to manage due to lack of vision. Success brings true joy (it is not money that brings joy), I have seen many people who are not so rich who have a lot of sense of accomplishment in life. I know that a truly successful person cannot remain poor in life, but I also know that money is not the only yardstick to measure how successful any person is in this life.

Success is not a destination but an adventure that continues to get better each day as you discover more secrets of how to better achieve your set goals with ease.

Success is not luck or winning large amount of money in a lottery, neither is it a gift. Many lucky winners of such lotteries have ended up really broke and some have died most miserable and shameful death because of their inability to maintain such life of affluence that they got from winning lotteries. Friends, sudden wealth has led more people to early grave than poverty. Poverty has helped more people to be wiser and better in life than sudden wealth. In fact, sudden wealth is very dangerous and should not be sought after. Go for real success that comes out of hard work and careful planning.

Success is not an inheritance. Although some inherited wealth is enough to sustain you to a life of affluence till the day of your death. Real success builds on the inherited wealth by hard-work. You cannot afford to sit down and enjoy someone's success without any input of your own. See Proverbs 20:21.

An inheritance may be gotten hastily at the beginning; but the end thereof shall not be blessed.

When you work hard your inheritance will give you more success, and it shall be blessed at the end. Inheritance can give you wealth only God can give you true success, see also Ecclesiastes 7:11

Wisdom is good with an inheritance: by it there is profit to them that see the sun.

Success is not traveling abroad. Remember that if you travel, you have to work twice as hard as you will at home to make anything of note because you are now in a foreign land. Except the Lord specifically is calling you out to do something definite and productive in raising other people's lives in the foreign land, then the whole effort of traveling may be meaningless.
That your friend has traveled abroad doesn't make him to be more successful than you. If traveling is your goal and the thing that will add to your joy and give you a sense of fulfillment in life then go for it. The only point is this when you get there, do all you can to help as many people as you possibly can.

Success is not just becoming the leader of a group, organization or nation. Many leaders are not truly successful; we’ve had leaders like Adolf Hitler in this world that killed about two million Jews, his end was shrouded in mystery.

Success is not being born to a rich family, it is the ability to bring wealth and comfort to a hitherto poor family and help poor friends.

Success is not popularity or acceptability of an individual in the society, although true success always attracts many people; most of them are ready to idolize the successful one. Such successful people always know how to manage the praise of men without allowing it to get to their head.

Success is discovering God’s goal and purpose for your life and pursuing the same until you have accomplished it to the maximum, and make a mark in that God’s chosen purpose for your life.

Success is inside you, failure is around you. God is Success and He is in you so says the Bible, see 1John 4:4. Satan is outside you and he is author of failure, look inward and you will discover success. Success is in you, don't look elsewhere.

Success is the ability to exhaust your entire God given talents and gifts to make this world a better place than you met it. We are talking here about the real meaning of success, it is the ability to put smiles on the faces of those whose lives touch yours; it is the ability to make men (and women) better than you met them. No matter how rich you are, if you make people bitter instead of better than you met them, then with all your money, you are a big failure.

A successful life is that which leaves others with a desire to do something worthwhile with their own lives too. I assert again that success is beyond the accumulation of wealth; it is the ability to raise up many other successful men. It is the ability to produce many other millionaires. The success of Moses became established as he was able to produce a Joshua (a successor), Elijah produced an Elisha. Jesus, the greatest success that ever happened to mankind has raised us up as successful disciples of His. We are destined by His word to tread upon serpents and scorpions; we are the ones that will put the devil to shame in these last days. Jesus Christ is alive through us in this generation; we are the miracle workers; and we are called to do those things that He Himself had done when He was here on the earth. See John 14: 12

Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do: because I go to my father.

The greater work or success your successor makes, the greater your success. When your successor cannot do greater works than you, then your success is not everlasting. A success without a successor is a failure in disguise. Are you surprised at that statement? If you succeed beyond measure, and have billions of dollars, when you die, except you have a good successor, all those wealth will be squandered and wasted. If you want to know how successful Jesus was, look around you, every Christian you see is a testimony to the success of Jesus. What? Jesus who neither bought a land, nor build a house, nor own a car. He didn’t even own a donkey not to talk of owning a fast horse, yet he is the greatest man that ever lived. Why is this so? Because he has millions of successors, those who carry on His God given purpose on earth. The purpose of destroying the works of the devil in the lives of innocent people who are bound by the forces of evil. This wonderful Jesus did not get married, produced no biological children, yet have turned many sons of men to become sons of God. We are changed from ordinary mortal to supernatural beings, we are giving to have the very life of God, we are translated from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of God and now the kingdom of God is within us. What a great success Jesus is.

To be the president of U.S or Nigeria is a success, but you see that is just the beginning of the show of success. Performing your duties in such a way that many people’s lives will be better because you are president is the REAL SUCCESS that we are talking about in this article.