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Key points
- Success can be considered from the outside and from the inside. From the outside, success depends on context.
- From the inside, success is what allows us to feel like we are flourishing.
- Outcomes include self-regulation, self-esteem, emotional vocabulary, and increased worldview.
Hello, readers.
What is success? How should one be and and what should one do to feel successful? I’ve written much on this topic. And not surprising to anyone but perhaps my younger self, success has many possible definitions. For one, there is material or worldly success; for another, there is the internal sense of success. Success from the outside; success from the inside.
To appear successful to others depends on what those others in your life consider hallmarks of success. Well, depending on your circles and the general expectations of life, that is going to look different for many of us. Perhaps you come from a family of entrepreneurs, so success looks like starting your own business. Or perhaps you come from a long line of teachers—becoming a teacher could be the hallmark of success. Or suppose you immigrated to this country, so getting a green card, obtaining work, and finding a safe, comfortable place to live looks like success. Or, you’re from a family of electricians, so becoming an electrician is success to those around you. In other words, success from the outside depends on context.
Success from the inside, I would argue, feels the same from person to person. Success from the inside is about how you feel, rather than what you do or have. Success on the inside means you are living with your personal values directing your purpose. Your personal goals align with both of those things. And you feel content, energized, and motivated by all of these things. In simplest terms, you are flourishing. But flourishing isn’t something that happens from the outside in; it’s something internal. Success = flourishing.
Flourishing
Now, what allows for a human to flourish? Here's where therapy can help. A flourishing person feels confident, competent, worthy, engaged, and able to control themselves and direct their energies as they choose. Flourishing means becoming the best possible you. In therapy-speak, that means self-actualizing. Some of the greatest psychologists, such as Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow, believed that we all have an inner drive to self-actualize, and when we allow ourselves to act on that drive, then we flourish.
Four Universal Outcomes
So how does a human self-actualize/flourish/become the best version of themself? Well, through therapy, or through positive relationships with others in life, a human develops what are known in child-centered play therapy as the universal outcomes. What are these four universal outcomes, you may ask? They are:
1. Self-regulation: This is the ability to control yourself. You don't kick someone just because they piss you off. You walk away because you have self-control. You don't fall apart when life throws one of those inevitable curveballs. You catch the curveball.
2. Self-esteem: This is the sense that you are a person of worth, that you have the ability to impact the world through your actions and words, that you are competent to do so, and that you know who you are. Self-efficacy, self-confidence, self-identity, and self-worth are four components of self-esteem.
3. Emotional vocabulary: Emotional vocabulary has two components. One is the ability to identify what you are feeling. The other is the ability to choose how to express that feeling to others. In other words, maybe you're really ticked off that your spouse put the toilet paper roll on backwards; with emotional vocabulary, you can express your annoyance in a way that will get your result without creating a big argument.
4. Increased worldview: This is the understanding that there is more than one way to look at most situations and people, and that other people may have different experiences and understandings of a situation than you do. The saying "there are two sides to every story" sums up this one.
The four universal outcomes are interconnected and develop within the safe, secure boundaries of a trusting relationship. That can be in therapy. However, these universal outcomes can develop through healthy relations between primary caregiver and child, and even through healing relationships with friends and lovers.
Am I suggesting that you have to be a child in child-centered play therapy to achieve these outcomes? No, I am suggesting that research in child-centered play therapy bears out the truth of these outcomes, and we all love research. While I haven't seen this term applied to adults, I believe that person-centered therapy in adults creates these outcomes as well.
The four universal outcomes are essential to flourishing. And flourishing is essential to success. Or it might even be success in its broadest definition. Once you develop these things, you can work on succeeding in whatever context matters to you. Flourishing is the foundation of both feeling successful and appearing successful.
To find a therapist, please visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.
