Some may call it ego. Others call it delusion. But regardless, I’ve always felt it—this intrinsic knowing that I was meant for something more. Not more success, necessarily. Just… not this. Not a life of numb routines and surface-level problems. Not a life that feels like I’m waiting for each day to pass by until I’m dead. If I’m being honest, that’s how most people live without realising.

If you’ve ever felt that subtle ache, like your life is supposed to mean something deeper, then you get it.

But as I grew older, life slowly began to ground me to reality. My beliefs began cementing. I still believed I was meant to be successful, I just had no idea what that actually meant anymore. The path kept getting blurrier. I wanted to be great, but I couldn’t tell you at what.

And it's what happens to most of us. Somewhere along the way, we stop asking “what do I actually want?” and start asking “what should I want?”. And then we proceed to design our lives according to what we think we should want.

A digital nomad on TikTok tells you that success is making millions of dollars from your phone.

An old friend from school tells you that success is getting a respectable degree from a prestigious university.

A musician tells you that success is being able to create art for a living.

Asking the world to define success for you is like asking strangers to choose your life partner. They might pick someone impressive, but you’re the one who has to wake up next to that choice every day.

Social comparison theory reveal why this happens. Our brains are wired to look for social proof, especially when we’re uncertain. In the digital age, we’re exposed to more “success models” than any generation in history. Instagram feeds become success templates. LinkedIn profiles become scorecards. We absorb these definitions unconsciously, like cultural programming running in the background of our minds.

When you don’t have clear personal frameworks, your decision-making systems default to social proof and external validation. You become a psychological passenger in your own life.

Most of what you think you want, you actually learned to want.

This is what has created the existence of the universal feeling of existential hunger.

It’s the human need for meaning that transcends external circumstances. And what's pretty ironic is how 87% of people report feeling unfulfilled at work despite external achievements. We’re living through an epidemic of successful emptiness.

Despite all these online gurus that try to feed you with the notion that monetary success is the meaning of life and it's the only thing that should determine your self worth. Clearly, more achievement is not the solution to internal emptiness. And most of the time, that narrative is just a tool to get you to buy their "how to get rich" course - I'm sorry but it had to be said.

The lawyer making $300K who feels spiritually dead inside isn’t an anomaly, in fact, it’s a pattern affecting nearly 40% of high-earning professionals. Meanwhile, the teacher making $45K reports deep satisfaction because their daily actions align with something authentic inside them.

And don't get it twisted. This doesn't mean that "money doesn't matter". We all know that that mindset is just foolish, especially in the world we live in today. But the point I'm trying to make is that the alignment between actions and authentic purpose is what separates the lawyer and the teacher.

The Real Cost of Getting This Wrong

So, to provide a clear and concise definition,

Success is the alignment of one’s actions with their deepest purpose, creating a sense of fulfilment regardless of the outcome.

This definition draws from several wisdom traditions. Aristotle called it eudaimonia - human flourishing based on virtue and meaning rather than pleasure or achievement. Viktor Frankl, working with Holocaust survivors, discovered that those who maintained internal purpose survived conditions that broke others focused solely on external circumstances.

Don’t buy into everything you see online. Success isn’t always measurable, and it’s definitely not a one-size-fits-all. Just because something looks fulfilling on the surface - money, metrics, recognition - doesn’t mean it holds any real value.

This is where a lot of people get lost. They confuse visibility with value, and performance with purpose.

For a lot of people, success is internal. It’s about doing work that aligns with who they are, not what gets the most attention. Fulfilment, creativity, purpose. These things aren’t visible on a dashboard. You can’t necessarily measure them in tangible ways. But to certain individuals, such as artists, this is what success feels like.

When we measure success by the wrong metrics, we optimise our entire lives for outcomes that leave us hollow. We spend decades climbing ladders only to discover they’re leaning against the wrong wall.

The cost is enormous. Wasted years, damaged relationships, and the quiet desperation of people who achieved everything they thought they wanted but feel like failures on the inside. It's no wonder that lottery winners return to baseline happiness levels within months. Meanwhile, people who pursue intrinsic goals - meaningful work, relationships, personal growth - show sustained well-being increases.

The Anti Vision

If defining what you want feels too blurry, start with what you don’t want. A good starting point is getting clear on failure.

What would you personally classify as failure? What type of career, relationship, lifestyle would you definitely never want? If you can identify that, you can grasp a better understanding of how you want success to feel like.

This approach, called “negative goal-setting” in psychological research, is surprisingly effective. Deriving motivation from running away from things can sometimes be more powerful than finding motivation in running towards things. This is because our brains are wired to avoid pain more strongly than seek pleasure.

I'm not implying that fear should be your greatest motivator. But we all have fear. And it holds us back from things it shouldn't. So why not redirect that fear into holding us back from things that it should, such as what we perceive as "failures".

Evaluate your current actions against your authentic purpose. Identify where you’re operating from external pressure versus internal motivation.

Addressing the Practical Concerns

“But external success does matter.” Of course it does. Money provides security, recognition opens doors, and achievement can be deeply satisfying. There's nothing wrong about pursuing external success, but it is an issue when you're making external success the primary measure of your worth.

“How do I know my internal definition isn’t just self-delusion?” The difference between authentic purpose and self-delusion is this: authentic purpose energises you in the pursuit, regardless of external recognition. Self-delusion requires constant external validation to maintain itself.

If you ask yourself these questions:

"Does this goal still matter to me when no one is watching? Does working toward it give me energy or drain me? Do I find satisfaction in the process itself, and not just the outcome?",

Will your perception towards your current pursuits or goals alter?

The Courage to Disappoint Others

The most honest way to measure success is by identifying goals that hold genuine meaning to you, and then evaluating your life by the level of peace and fulfilment you experience in the pursuit of those goals.

But what nobody tells you is that the path to authentic success requires something our culture doesn’t teach - the courage to disappoint others in service of your deepest truth.

And this isn’t selfish. When you align with your authentic purpose, you give the world access to your actual gifts instead of your performed competence.

The people worth keeping in your life will respect your authentic choices, even if they don’t understand them. The people who can’t respect your authenticity were probably measuring you by their external standards anyway.

Most people are so busy performing their idea of success that they’ve forgotten what their own success would actually feel like. But once you remember—once you align your actions with your deepest purpose—you’ll wonder how you ever measured yourself any other way.

The universal ache you feel isn’t a sign that something’s wrong with you. It's actually just your internal compass trying to point toward a life that you're supposed to be living instead.

The path to authentic success starts with the courage to disappoint others. But it ends with a life that’s undeniably yours.