The 10 Types of Success: Are You Successful and Don't Even Know It?

In our drive for success, we often navigate an interconnected set of values. But true success is more than the simplistic acquisition of wealth or status; it is embedded in the fabric of our existence.

Success, for many, isn’t just about the external milestones we achieve but also the internal growth and satisfaction we experience. And success is an ever-evolving journey.

In this blog, I share ten dimensions of success—inner, physical, family, career/business, financial/material, impact, mental, emotional, spiritual, and social—each vital to creating a fulfilled life.

Inner Success

Most life coaches say that inner success is about finding meaning and purpose. And that it comes from developing positive personal values and building healthy relationships,

However, to really achieve inner success, we must be content and happy or fulfilled in the present moment.

It is obviously great to feel a sense of purpose and develop great relationships. However, this also implies that life is not complete in the here and now without them.

I recommend that instead of continuing to look for something outside of us to “make life better,” we instead “start from great.”

Becoming aware of what is great about life right now is the best path to being successful internally – starting from great and building from there.

Next, work on building habits and practices that lead you to your desired outcomes. Mindset work, exercise, meditation—find practices that keep you clear, grounded, and feeling great. Become disciplined in maintaining these habits. Developing mastery in small daily actions creates confidence and momentum to achieve bigger life goals.

When you feel great and appreciative of the life you already have, feel vital, have a healthy outlook on the world, and your daily life reflects your true priorities - you are on the path to inner success. These build a strong foundation on which other achievements can grow.

One client I recently spoke with started out by saying that nothing was going right for him – that “everything was working against him.” He said that nothing he was trying was working, and he felt like just giving up.

We started out by looking for anything (in any area of his life) that was going well for him. It took him a little bit to come around, but we started with simple - he had a home, food and clothing. He then went on to see that there were a lot of other things going well for him, such as friendships, having a job, and many material possessions that served him. He started getting on a roll and was astounded at how much he actually had in his life but had not been focusing on or appreciating. Pretty quickly, he was able to turn his mindset from one of lack and depression to one of much greater appreciation for his life. Interestingly, with this new perspective, it didn't take him long to begin to change the things that weren’t ideal and to create a more joyful and fulfilling life.

Physical Success

Physical success involves taking care of your body by maintaining health, practising self-care, and developing an active lifestyle. It means having the energy, strength, and vitality to pursue your goals and live life to the fullest.

To achieve physical success, make health and wellness a priority by eating nutritious foods, exercising regularly, and getting the right amount of sleep for you. Find forms of movement you enjoy, such as sports, dancing, yoga, or lifting weights. Stay active by taking walks, stretching, or doing bodyweight exercises throughout your day.

Listen to your body's needs by reducing stress and taking time to achieve balance. Treat yourself to relaxing activities like massages, saunas, or reading a good book. Avoid burnout and fatigue by saying no to commitments you don’t really want to do.

Overall, make small daily choices that nourish your body, mind, and spirit. Find routines and practices that reduce anxiety, boost energy, and make you feel good. With regular self-care and consistent healthy habits, you will gain the energy, strength, and vitality needed to thrive in all areas of life.

Family Success

Family provides our most intimate relationships. Achieving family success is about having a vision for what you want your family environment to be like and creating a solid foundation from which you can thrive. Here are three ways to accomplish family success:

Spend quality time together—Set aside dedicated time for family activities and togetherness. Share meals, have weekly game nights, take vacations together, and fully engage when you are with family. Turn off devices and distractions, and be present.
Create shared memories and experiences. The most cherished family moments often happen during meaningful events and celebrations. Recognise important milestones, start holiday traditions, get involved in family members' interests and whatever bonds you. Build a treasure trove of memorable adventures and nostalgic rituals.
Express appreciation and affection—Everyone wants to be loved and appreciated. Take interest in each family member's unique qualities and contributions and actively appreciate them. Say “I love you” and let them know you care.

Strong family relationships provide an environment for flourishing. If you invest time and care into them, you will have and provide a great foundation for living life to the fullest.

Career/Business Success

Career and business success often get a lot of focus and attention in our society. It involves growth and gaining skills, experience, and achievement related to work and profession. There are several key elements of career success:

Advancing in your chosen field: This may involve earning promotions, taking on greater responsibility, moving up to management positions, or demonstrating upward career mobility or business success. Tracking metrics like higher salary or profits, growth, and reputation or status are common ways people define success in their work.
Gaining valuable skills and experiences: Success in your career often means having opportunities to learn new abilities, refine your expertise, and develop yourself professionally. This can include formal training and education, as well as informal skills development. Proficiency in in-demand skills or abilities can be a strong indicator of career or business success.
Achieving meaningful work: Enjoying your daily work responsibilities and finding fulfilment in what you do is an important component of career success. Work that utilises your talents and brings a sense of fulfilment can be tremendously rewarding. Making an impact and feeling engaged in your role are intangible elements of career success.
Work-life balance: While success at work is important, it should not come at the expense of health, relationships, and other life priorities. Achieving career or business success without burning out involves setting and committing to priorities outside of work as well.

True career/business success requires finding a way to advance your professional skills and position while gaining a sense of fulfilment and enjoyment from your daily work. This creates an inspiring and sustainable career trajectory.

Financial/Material Success

Material success relates to accumulating valuable possessions and wealth. For many people, this is a major component of success - achieving financial freedom and being able to afford a chosen lifestyle.

Owning useful and rewarding possessions can certainly contribute to your overall success and happiness. A beautiful home, a vehicle you love, jewellery you appreciate, and other worthwhile goods often provide enjoyment and satisfaction. There's nothing wrong with acquiring nice things.

However, it's also important not to become overly attached to material goods or make them the singular focus of your success. True material success involves accumulating enough wealth to live a life that you love, but we shouldn’t become dependent on it. True wealth can afford a type of happiness; however, the truest happiness is attained whether or not we have wealth. This way, if we should ever lose it, we don’t lose our true happiness with it.

Overall, wealth is a tool for gaining a particular kind of freedom and enjoyment of life. If we learn to balance saving and wise spending, we can achieve financial freedom, and money can be an integral part of a fulfilling life.

Impact Success: Making a Difference

Making a positive and meaningful impact on others is a key component of success for many people. Impact success is about positively influencing people, communities, and even the world at large through your actions, contributions, and legacy.

There are many ways to have a positive impact during your lifetime. You can use your talents and abilities to help others, volunteer your time to support important causes in your community, look for problems in the world that need solutions, and try to create innovative ways to address them. You can also mentor others and pass on your knowledge to help them succeed.

Leaving a lasting, positive legacy is another element of impact success. Make choices that will allow your legacy to have a continued ripple effect. Author books, create art, build organisations - do work that will make the world better and possibly even outlive you.

Ultimately, impact success is about using your precious life to make a contribution that improves the lives of others. It could be through raising loving children, creating great art that inspires, contributing to social change, using your skills to help others, or inventing new technologies. Discover the unique impact only you can make and commit to making it.

Mental Success: Expanding Your Knowledge

Mental success involves expanding your knowledge, developing your mind, and enhancing your ability to create your most desired outcomes. This type of achievement is marked by things like:

Learning new skills or subjects of interest through classes, books, or other educational resources. The more you learn, the more your mental capacity grows.
Improving your critical thinking abilities. As you gain knowledge, you also sharpen your ability to analyse information, weigh evidence, and make reasoned conclusions. Strong critical thinking helps you make the best decisions.
You can become an expert in a topic or field that fascinates you. Delving deeply into a subject allows you to contribute original ideas and solutions.
Tackling and finding solutions to challenges. The greater the challenge, the more your problem-solving skills are strengthened when you are able to work out an answer.
Using your intelligence to be creative and innovative. You can produce new inventions, works of art, business ideas, and other original contributions that add value to society.

Mental success comes through focused study, consistent learning, and exercising your mental muscles through activities that grow your thinking abilities. It brings feelings of confidence and capability that come from knowing your mind is sharp and that you are content and fulfilled.

Emotional Success

Emotional success encompasses developing self-awareness and finding inner peace and contentment. It centres around understanding and self-responsibility.

Self-awareness is key to emotional success. Taking time for introspection, keeping a journal, or talking with a mentor can increase understanding of your emotional patterns, triggers, and reactions. Knowing what upsets you or makes you feel negative is the first step to better addressing those feelings.

Managing emotions involves knowing their causes and having ways to shift into healthier and better-feeling states of mind. This requires identifying emotions, labelling them accurately, and then utilising ways to start climbing the scale into better feeling states. Techniques like deep breathing, meditation, questioning and turning around the emotions’ underlying thoughts can assist greatly in this process.

Finding inner peace and contentment stems from self-love, letting go of judgements, and focusing on appreciativeness. It means making peace with past experiences and people and loving yourself. Inner peace allows you to be at ease with life's uncertainties and focus on each day.

The path to emotional success is lifelong as we constantly evolve. But being able to understand and shift your emotions leads to more positive relationships, physical health, and an inner calm that propels all other types of success.

Spiritual Success

Spiritual success is about finding peace and contentment in life beyond material concerns. It involves exploring your connection to something greater than yourself and gaining wisdom and insight into the human condition.

Some ways to achieve spiritual success include:

Developing principles and priorities to guide your life. Consider what really matters most to you.
Seeking wisdom and understanding through activities like meditation, prayer, or spending time in nature. These can help you reflect on life's big questions.
Exploring different philosophies, faiths and belief systems. Learning about how others find meaning can spark your own spiritual journey.
Being of service to others. Making a positive difference in people's lives can provide a sense of fulfilment.
Finding wisdom in life’s challenging experiences. Hardships always provide opportunities for spiritual growth.
Developing intuition and listening to your inner voice for guidance. Your true self speaks to you if you make time to listen.
Expressing appreciation for life's blessings, big and small. Appreciating what you have cultivates spiritual contentment.
Making time for solitude and quiet contemplation. Slowing down allows deeper awareness and presence.
Seeing yourself as part of the greater whole. You are interconnected with all living beings in the web of life.

By developing your spiritual side, you can uncover who you really are, gain a broader perspective, and infuse daily experiences with greater inspiration. This can bring a profound sense of fulfillment.

Social Success

Social success is all about developing meaningful connections and relationships with others. It involves building strong networks of family, friends, colleagues, and community members.

Some ways to achieve social success include:

Nurturing close friendships: Maintain a group of supportive friends with whom you can be yourself. Make the time and effort to show how much you value their friendship.
Making new connections: Continually expand your networks by joining clubs, volunteering, taking classes, or contacting neighbours. Each new relationship is an opportunity for mutual growth and understanding.
Contributing to your community and world: Look for ways to positively contribute through civic organisations, places of worship, schools, and nonprofits that resonate with you. Donate your time, skills, or resources to causes aligned with your values.
Helping others: Go out of your way to support colleagues, friends, and strangers who need help. Offer to listen without judgement and provide encouragement or practical assistance.
Building strong teams: Foster inclusive and supportive dynamics in any group you are a part of. Facilitate cooperation, resolve conflicts, and strengthen connections between members.

By developing meaningful connections at multiple levels—from close friends to the local community to the world—you enrich your life and expand your capacity to make a positive impact. The rewards of social success are immeasurable.

Conclusion

Success is not a destination but a journey. As we navigate through life's paths, it becomes clear that true success is not measured by what we acquire but by who we become, the lives we touch, and the legacy we leave behind.

When we embrace the diverse facets of success, we strive not just for personal milestones but also to contribute to humanity's greater tapestry.

As individuals, we’re driven by the things that create meaning in our lives. But to be truly successful, we must find a balance between external and internal levels of success.

And that requires looking at the ten different dimensions of success - applying them to our lives and seeing the benefits that this brings.

If you found this information helpful, come and explore the Explore Community. This is where I help people transform their mindset and create the most fulfilling and powerful life they can. We apply all these tools we’ve been talking about, so you can make a difference in your life and the world around you.