Reflective Essay Sample on Success

What is the definition of success?  The dictionary definition of success is getting or achieving wealth, respect, or fame.  This may be true in some cases, but I believe that this isn’t the exact definition of success in life.  For example, I agree with the saying “Money can’t buy happiness”.  Yes, you may have a high-paying job, but you may not be truly happy with what you are currently doing.  I believe that being successful in life is having a job that you enjoy, always having goals, and being happy.

When choosing a job, majority of the time, people pay more attention to how high the paycheck is and not if they’ll remain happy with their job in the future.  It is important to have a job that you enjoy.  Having a job that is interesting would result in the person feeling more accomplished and happier.  In fact, a recent study shows that people who describe their work as “interesting” are four times as likely to be satisfied with their jobs.  In addition, having a job that one enjoys could even result in being more productive due to he or she would enjoy doing what their occupation requires them to do and execute it well.  But, some may say that making more money results in happy people, however, this is not the case.  For instance, according to a recent Washington Post article, the amount of people that quit their jobs have “surged to record highs” and that this was pushed by a variety of factors, including ample opportunity and that the workers were not willing to endure inconvenient hours and poor compensation.  In other words, these workers had quit their jobs as a result of not truly enjoying their job and felt as if it was not worth the suffering.  In short, it is important to enjoy a job that you have because it is important in being successful.

Next, I believe that always having goals is influential to being successful in life.  Having goals can result in more success and performance by constantly motivating the individual.  Goals can serve as milestones and benchmarks that can help individuals see how far they have progressed.  These goals allow people to focus on priorities and completing tasks  quickly, and learn from those better than them.  For instance, a study has shown that 67% of successful people write down goals, in comparison to 17% of less successful people.  Also, the study has shown that 80% of those who are successful focus on achieving a specific goal, compared to 12% of the less successful.  This statistic supports the fact that setting goals is essential to being successful, as it shows that the majority of those who are successful in life set goals.  Some may say that setting goals could result in mental health decline due to it creating illusions about the future.   However, goals actually can improve mental health.  When you reach your goal, you’d have a feeling of accomplishment.  This sense of accomplishment can increase self-confidence and self-esteem because you’d realize what you are capable of achieving.  In fact, according to a study, people who identified goals that they were pursuing were 19% more likely to feel satisfied with their live; in addition, 26% of those people were more likely to feel positive about themselves.  As you can see, having goals is a key to being successful in life as it works as motivation, can improve success, and could even help with mental health.

Lastly, being happy is important to being successful in life.  On average, the more successful people are, the more content people compared to the more unhappy people.  In fact, those who are content and healthy are more prone to be more successful in life.  For example, if you aren’t psychologically as healthy as you can be, it is difficult to progress and keep a sense of fulfillment.  Being able to maintain a sense of fulfillment and being able to push ahead is significant in being successful, considering that this would result in an individual believe in themselves and feel more motivated to accomplish more.  As someone is more motivated to accomplish more, there would be more improvements being made in what they do and would result in more successes in their work and quality of life.  In fact, happy people are constantly seeking joy in every aspect of life, not confined to professional accomplishment and relationship goals.  However, some say that success is affected by different factors and that happiness is not always related to success.  It is true that success is affected by multiple factors, such as how hard you work, happiness is still an essential factor in success.  For instance, a psychology research on students’ happiness and grades had shown a link between happiness and success.   Moreover, this study had found a statistically significant correlation between happiness and students’ GPA.  The results of the study revealed that students who had reported being happier had higher grades.   To reiterate, being happy is an essential factor to being successful in life.

Some may believe that success in life is having wealth and having possession of expensive items.  However, I believe that being successful in life has a few main factors which include enjoying your job, having goals, and being happy.  First, enjoying your job is important since if you are more passionate about what you’re doing, you’d improve more quickly and be more productive.  Second, having goals is crucial to being successful, seeing that it motivates people to achieve more and can even improve mental health and self-esteem.  Last, but not least, being happy is critical in being successful in life.  This is because it can result in having a better quality of life, for they’d seek joy in every aspect in life.  In conclusion, I consider being successful in life is having a job that you enjoy, always having goals, and being happy.