We could all do with an opportunity to answer this question. The idea being that if you know where you’re heading in terms of measuring success, it’s going to be much easier to know when you arrive.

Turns out there is at least one question soloists are happy to ponder –

“My business will be a success when I…”

I threw this one to our community on Facebook this week after Paul from our forums suggested it was a great question to throw at a questionable staff member.

Letting go of the controls

To give some more context Paul was replying to a thread started by Mischelle, who is having a hard time letting go of micro-managing this particular staff member.

Paul suggested the question would allow Mischelle to have a better understanding of what was motivating her employee in the role and therefore where her energy and attention was being directed.

He writes:

“People will generally do what they like doing and what they feel they are good at. Conversely, people will often not do what they are not good at or do not like doing.”

It struck me that we could all do with an opportunity to answer this question. The idea being that if you know where you’re heading in terms of measuring success, it’s going to be much easier to know when you arrive.

Your answers were fabulous and varied.

Here’s a screenshot of some of them.

And you can find the rest here.

Getting down to (one) business

While some saw financial rewards as key to achievement, an equal number said it would be when you’ve finally been able to shrug off the second (or third job) and just focus on your business full time.

And for a fair number of others success is marked by the day you can finally push pause on the business and take a much needed holiday.

YES to that idea. (Where would you go?Perhaps that’s a question for another day!)

Thinking about success metrics can be a bit of a slippery slope. Some days you aim too big and undercut any sense of achievement because the goals you’ve set are unrealistic.

On other days, the realities of running your own business (and the workload needed to manage it) can get in the way of feeling able to daydream.

So where should we draw the line?

Psychologist and soloist, Trisnasari Fraser of I am Ready Psychology told Flying Solo recently that if we aim for balance in our life, then we’ve got a healthy definition of success: 

“Maintaining some balance between work, relationships, health and leisure is advantageous. When measuring success, it’s useful to establish goals in all of these areas and work out where you are placed in each area. This is likely to shift and change over time and you needn’t identify a point at which you’ve achieved success, but you can celebrate small successes in each area as you experience them.” 

Sounds sensible to me.