Defining Success for Yourself

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Defining Success for Yourself
Defining
Success
for
Yourself
Jeffery Loo LIBR 500
Chinese character for success
Foundations of Information Technology PowerPoint
Assignment
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Importance of defining success

• Success is a cultural obsession
• Billboards top 10, 40, and 100 lists
• Whos the best dressed, the sexiest, the richest,
  or the coolest?
• Look at television commercials and print ads
• Dont waste time and energy pursuing a definition
  of success that is not your own!

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How does one define success?
?

• There are many difficult questions to ask
• Do you know yourself?
• Is the definition of success your career?
• What is the nature of success?
• Is it material, worldly, personal, emotional, or
  spiritual?
• For each person the questions to ask will be
  different

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Goal of this presentation

• Bring attention to some issues/difficulties that
  may arise when exploring the idea of success.
• These issues/difficulties include
• Fixed plans
• Money
• Failure
• Perfectionism
• Ambition
• Time
• Self-comparison

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Exhaustion from fixed plans

• Having a plan such as the following can help you
  to achieve success
• Set specific goals
• Have a strategy
• Get into action
• Self-manage
• Be passionate
• Have support
• However, dont exhaust yourself by allowing a
  plan to be the focus of your life.

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Money

• Be careful of gauging success by how much money
  you make
• There is another way of measuring financial
  success
• Ask yourself How do you use your earnings to
  improve the quality of
• your life?
• your self-worth?
• the lives of others?

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Failure as a good thing

• Failure may be the beginning of something new
• Risking failure may lead to success
• Failure may be a sign that youre doing the wrong
  thing

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Perfectionism

• It can be healthy to want to improve performance
  or to meet high standards
• If this desire leads to unhappiness or interferes
  with functioning, perfectionism may have become a
  problem

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Ambition

• Be ambitious!
• Being ambitious does not necessarily mean being
  ruthless
• Ambition is not a dirty word
• Ambition is a description of the drive to be
  excellent

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Self-destructive self-comparison

• Within limits, comparing yourself to others may
  be healthy
• You may get objective information to improve
  yourself
• However
• Dont compare yourself to others in areas you
  have no control over
• Dont beat yourself up for your shortcomings

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Time concerns

• Defining success for yourself takes time

Be patient
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Conclusion

• Defining success for yourself is important
• Remember these issues/difficulties you might
  face
• Fixed plans
• Money
• Failure
• Perfectionism
• Ambition
• Time
• Self-comparison
• A final word . . . .

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Occams razor

• Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate
• Entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily
• Keep things simple

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References

• O, The Oprah Magazine. September 2001.
• Hiroshi, Sugihara. What is Occams Razor? In
  Usenets Physics FAQ. 23 July 1997.
  lthttp//math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/occam.htmlgt
  (20 September 2001).
• Riera, Mike. I'm always comparing myself to
  other girls. In Ask Dr. Mike. lthttp//www.tracker
  s.net/lip/drmike/body/0009.htmlgt (20 September
  2001).

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Define success for yourself
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