When one thinks of success, they might associate it with great fortune or a large trophy to represent their accomplishments. However, success isn’t necessarily rewarded with wealth and trophies. In the dictionary, it is described as “the accomplishment of an aim or purpose.” In simpler terms, success is achieving anything one wanted to accomplish.

Contrary to popular belief, success doesn’t have to be a large task. One of the first examples that can be used to describe success is something as small as passing a test. If someone studied and put in the work beforehand, their goal would be to do well on the test they are taking. Receiving the grade they wanted could be defined as success. Likewise, doing something to better oneself like drinking more water, being a nicer person, or exercising more can also be defined as success. As someone completes these things, they will have successfully accomplished their goal. Finally, something as simple as doing chores can be considered a success to someone. Depending on the goals of a person, many small tasks in their lives can be called successes as they are accomplished.

A different example of success that can be a harder goal to achieve is losing or gaining weight. There is a difficult process for both tasks that takes a lot of time and effort, but persevering until the end can leave one with a feeling of pride and success. To build on this, another large success is graduating from college. After putting in all the hard work and time, receiving a degree is a success for the person receiving it. While these larger goals take more time and effort to achieve, once they are finally complete they can be described as a large success.

Some people confuse the definition of the word success with wealth or material things. This is exactly the opposite. If someone is successful, they have a chance of becoming extremely wealthy and obtaining material things. However, money and objects have no control over how successful someone can be. Similarly, some people may believe that to be successful one can never fail at anything. This is virtually impossible, because all humans make mistakes. Failure is the key to success because if one never fails, how can they learn from their mistakes?

Whether we know it or not, we’ve always been successful. At least once in our lives we accomplished a goal that we never thought was obtainable or put in hard work to receive a desired outcome. Just because we aren’t rewarded with wealth or plaques recognizing out success, doesn’t mean it’s not important or that it doesn’t count for anything. To add, confusing the definition of success can cause someone to never want to try due to fear of failure. It is important to know the correct definition so that we can motivate ourselves and others to strive for success. And when it comes down to it, success doesn’t have to be a large feat; There are many small successes we can accomplish in our everyday life.