How Do You Define Personal Success?

“There is only one success – to be able to spend your life in your own way”
– Christopher Morley, American author and editor, 1890-1957

In Issue #244

Editors Note: I am away at a personal – and very powerful – retreat this week. I have started many essays for you while I’ve been here. But I have discovered it can be hard to learn big lessons, synthesize them, and write about them – all at once! So please accept this oldie but goodie – and know that this topic is near and dear to my heart. Your personal success – and how you know you’ve achieved it. I’ll be writing more about this topic much more in future issues. In the meantime, enjoy!

How Do You Define Personal Success?
by Monica Day

Some people have more money than they could ever need or want…and still, they’re not happy. Others live a very meager existence, and still feel that most of their days are well-spent and worthwhile.

Money, clearly, only has some bearing on our personal happiness.

The greater portion of contentment comes from finding meaning in our lives. And money doesn’t confer meaning in and of itself…although it can be an important vehicle for manifesting the meaning you desire.

It’s not enough to say you want a six-figure salary or a seven-figure net worth…you have to know why.

One of the reasons copywriting works so well for me is because I always wanted to be a professional writer. I like the freedom of being able to work independently. And the income allows me to travel, to live where I want, to send my kids to private school, and to contribute to causes that are important to me.

But the connection with copywriting goes to an even deeper level for me.

More than anything, I value having the ability to influence others with my words. Whether it is to move someone to greater introspection, reveal new or hidden information, or issue a call to action – the best copywriting has the power to change people’s lives.

I believe the ability to communicate with others is one of the most powerful skills we can possess – one that can be used to achieve great things. Ultimately, I plan to do just that.

If I didn’t have these deeper reasons backing up my goal to achieve six figures…and ultimately seven figures and the status of independent wealth….I’m not sure how I would forge ahead when things get challenging. (And believe me, they do, often…)

I’ll share with you an exercise I’ve developed over a period of about 15 years – without even realizing that I was coming up with a ‘system’ for determining how much wealth I needed to accumulate. Of course, you can do it in just a few sittings!

  1. Discover What Matters Most To You

    The first step to uncovering your personal definition for success is to make a laundry list of the things that are important to you and that interest you. Everything from cherishing your family and friends to solving world hunger to riding horses and going sailing on weekends…you name it. If it’s something you’d like to pursue in this lifetime, it belongs on your list.

  2. Define Your Most Essential Goals

    Then, mercilessly cut that list down to the top ten. These are the things that you feel you MUST pursue in some way before you reach the end of your days. Ultimately, these ten items will comprise your legacy – how people remember you at your funeral. The list you emerge with from this step should be that essential to you.

  3. Drive Down To Specifics

    Next, take a little time to flesh out each one of your top ten goals more specifically. For example, maybe you have a passion for sailing. Determine what it will take for you to satisfy that passion fully. You may decide you want to buy a sailboat, dock it within an hour of where you live, and spend 50% of your time sailing. Or it may be enough to rent a boat for two weeks a year and spend your vacations sailing.

    Be sure to be more specific than “Retire in 10 years.” Retirement is a nebulous term – as anyone who has retired young knows, you can only play so much golf and go to the spa so many times before you crave a life with deeper meaning. Ask yourself the question “why” often as you create the vision for your life.

  4. Determine The Cost Of Your Dreams

    Once you determine the level of mastery or involvement you want in each of these life-defining goals, you’ll have to also figure out what it will cost to achieve them.

Not every item on this list will require money. Some will take time and others will require that you cultivate a certain attitude or outlook on life. But each will carry some type of cost.

Sharpen your pencil and determine what the cost is – particularly of time and money.

Once you add it up – and place a little padding on there for unforeseen events – you’ll have an idea of what it’s going to take to fund the kind of life that would make you feel personally successful.

Do It For Love, Don’t Do It For Money

When you are considering the opportunity to become a six-figure copywriter – or any path to greater freedom and wealth – take the time to ask yourself how it serves your deeper goals for your life.

You might find that achieving the items on your essential list don’t require as much income or net worth as you thought you needed. Or you might find that you thought $100,000 a year would do the trick…and you’ll need more like a half million!

You might also discover that copywriting isn’t the best fit for you. Travel writing might be better, or resume writing, or graphic design. Or you might prefer to work with your hands or talk to people every day. If you’re a square peg and copywriting is a round hole – don’t try to stuff yourself in and wonder why you feel so frustrated. Take the time to assess yourself first.

The most useful part of this exercise, regardless what it tells you about your ultimate career choice, is that it aligns your wealth aspirations with your life aspirations. Most people confuse the two and wonder why they never feel satisfied.

Resource Referral: Mentoring Options

A quick note to let you know that I will start a new mentoring group in July for our three-month intensive Copy Protégé Mentoring Program. Please send me your goals and a 2-page writing sample to admin@copyprotege.com if you are interested.

And if you want mentoring – but the three-month intensive is not for you – please check out our new Virtual Mentor program. It gives you all the tools, techniques, support – and even copy critiques and answers to your individual questions – anytime you want or need it. Click here to learn more.

Quick Copy Tip: Skip the Stuff That Slows You Down

I remember many teachers in grade school giving the same sage advice as they handed out our weekly math or spelling tests: if you get stuck on a problem, skip it and breeze through the ones you know. Then, go back to the harder ones later.

These days, with a 4-8 page promo considered ‘short,’ and 12-20 pages the norm, I can’t afford a big slow down when I get stuck. I’ve been looking for tricks to keep up my writing pace, when a subhead, transition, or particular selling point I need to make is giving me a headache.

Getting stuck costs dearly in terms of time and stress about meeting deadlines. So I reached back to grade school memories for a solution. So far, so good.

I skip any section where I’m slowing down or getting stuck and jump into another part of the package or letter. I make a note of what belongs in the section I’m skipping and highlight it in yellow. That way I can go back and easily spot the places where I went ahead and fill them in before turning the promotion in to the client.

Isn’t it funny – sometimes we look for new tricks, when the old ones we learned years ago work just fine. Try it.