success and goals september '26

September 16, 2026

When I consider the times I have felt an undercurrent of consistent contentment, it oftentimes correlates most strongly with how productive and disciplined I have felt. The emphasis is on the feeling of productivity and discipline, rather than the outcome, although I would consider myself self-reflective enough where feeling and reality approximate one another quite closely. To achieve that state, I outlined success and adhered tightly to a schedule that pushed myself towards my goals. The caveat is that my schedule approximated the journeys to success. Regardless of the end outcome, I suspect my sense of well-being would have held either way, for what fueled my happiness were the day-to-day wins of feeling progress.

I am too introspective to feign these feelings though. Success, defined by my own ambition, has always been a necessary pillar, and I’ve spent every year since high-school writing down my yearly success criteria. As I have matured, these resolutions have oftentimes felt more opaque. Today, I describe success in terms of state-of-being rather than tangible outcomes. Most notably, I aspire to achieve a state where regardless of the challenges thrown at me, I will have the confidence and the competence to resolve each and every one of them. My prior definitions of success would have required a more concrete outcome, such as a college acceptance or a fencing ranking.

Murkier definitions of success leave fewer tangible bullet points to check off. And checking things off is a cheap, reliable way to feel productive and disciplined, a form of proof that one can collect at the end of the day. I surmise that as my worldview broadened when I reached college, my criteria for success evolved, leaning more stateful than outcome-based. With a greater mismatch between my definition of success and my expectations towards the pace and way to achieve it, my feelings of productivity and discipline were no longer sufficient to fuel prior levels of consistent contentment. I believe this is a rather pervasive sentiment held amongst my most ambitious and high-achieving peers as their success criteria evolved during college.

Most folks will advise you to alter your definition of success when experiencing a lack of fulfillment. I’ve attempted to do so, and I would argue that it is counterproductive. Speaking for myself, my definition of success is rooted deeply in my value structure, how I was raised, and the types of experiences I have accrued such that, to alter my sense of success to become more “tangible” or outcome-based would be contradictory. Others may point out that while one’s fundamental success criteria may be more state-based, one ought to set tangible proxies for it. It is a solid argument, but one that I have not had the foresight or ability to execute on. I have found it quite challenging and misleading to dissect my deeper goals and translate them into more tangible proxies. There is high variance to achieving an underlying goal, and picking one path to follow at a point in time where you have limited knowledge on other optimal paths can be counterproductive.

What I suspect is that focusing more on feeling productive or disciplined is a far better proxy to fulfillment and content than on defining tangible outcomes that try to proxy one’s underlying success criteria. Success can be state-based, but introspecting and thinking through how you feel moving towards that state will naturally allow you to focus on being more productive and disciplined. The irony behind this statement is that while a successful state may be ambiguous, the process behind reflecting on whether you feel productive or disciplined should not. Define your introspection loosely and the day-to-day will feel aimless, and the sense of discipline erodes along with it.

I attempt to outline this process of self-reflection for myself. Parts will remain more outcome-based than others: did I stick to the defined daily schedule or did I visit the gym 2-3 times every week (as examples). Others treat reflection as a search for a feeling: do I feel like I’m learning actively from my peers or do I feel as if I am pushing myself to execute on tasks I wouldn’t have felt comfortable performing a month ago? These reflections resolve far less cleanly than a completed checklist but fuel a self-awareness that is far stronger of a proxy for success than any tangible checklist could provide.

State-Based Goals

Knowledge and Experiences

Technology and Product

Investing and Financial Literacy

Conversational Knowledge and Curiosity

Health and Wellbeing

Relationships