Is success what other people say it is, or is success what we experience inside ourselves?

I had the opportunity and privilege to take part in an Olympic triathlon at a national championship, and I prepared for these events for 9 months.

My only goal was to reach the finish line.

Not to win.

Not to achieve any special result. My only goal was to finish.

What Is Success?

A very important question is, what does success mean for an individual?

Does it mean comparing yourself with others?

Does it mean adapting yourself to society?

Or does it mean coming from yourself and from your own inner experience?

I believe we would all agree that the last one is the real one.

But unfortunately, life and the society we live in often push us in the other direction as well.

My Example of Success

In this concrete example of the triathlon, I only wanted to reach the finish line.

My goal was not any particular result.

But my mind very soon started playing with the idea that I might be last.

What If I Am The Last One?

This was the question I was asking myself.

Too much, actually.

Even though I knew that I should not deal with this question, the thought kept coming back.

I looked at the results from previous years, and I have to admit I did not want to be last.

Although in the end, I somehow also made peace with that possibility.

My purpose was only to participate, not to win. But the results of others forced me to think about competing.

And I struggled a lot with this question because the whole thing was so competitive.

During the Competition, I Felt the Desire to Beat Others

Very quickly, because the competition itself lasted somewhere between two and three hours, I already felt, during the race, a desire to overtake as many people as possible.

And when I started to succeed in that to some degree, this desire only grew.

So in the end, especially during the running part, I was fighting this inner battle.

How fast should I run?

A few minutes saved in the final result would not play a significant role.

And finally, I let go and just ran my own pace.

What Is Behind This Desire to Compete?

Behind this, in my concrete case, there was certainly one part of shame.

If I had been last, there would have been a certain level of shame.

Although none of the participants or spectators were dealing with that at all.

Everybody is always thinking about themselves, but still, we burden ourselves with what others will say.

People were encouraging us, cheering us on, and supporting us, and so on.

I remember that the last competitor, who arrived about 15 to 20 minutes after everyone else, was strongly supported by the crowd, which made it really beautiful and pleasant to watch.

And yet, nobody wants to be last.

This psychology of human nature is very interesting.

We all come here, many of us come here just to participate, and yet we then want to achieve the best possible success.

That is the nature of human beings, I guess.

What Is Success for an Individual?

For me, success was swimming 1,500 meters (approximately 1 mile), cycling 38 kilometers (approximately 24 miles), and running 10 kilometers (approximately 6 miles).

That was my only goal.

To do this at my potential pace, which would not be too hard, and which would be in accordance with my abilities, would take somewhere within three hours.

With this goal and this result, I would have been very satisfied.

As I said, the first goal was only to come and finish.

The second goal was to be somewhere in accordance with my abilities, without exaggeration, and so on.

But someone else’s goal may have been to win this championship.

For him, success would mean only winning.

Second place would not exist for him, and he could be very disappointed by it.

So this raises a very important question.

How Do We Measure Success Without Comparing Ourselves Too Much With Others?

My success in this concrete case was more than achieved.

Not only that.

I had the privilege of doing this with two friends, which made it much easier to overcome the obstacles.

This is an actual photo after the race.

There was a lot of laughter and joking about the three of us being last.

And in fact, this encouraged us.

It gave us more energy.

In the end, I can proudly say that we all reached the finish line and significantly exceeded our own expectations.

And that, my friend, is real success for me.

Is Modesty Better Than Bragging or Self-Praise?

I personally come from a place of modesty.

It is true, however, that in the past I was sometimes too modest, which may have lowered my self-confidence slightly.

Nevertheless, it is important that we know how to be in both.

To have some harmony between modesty and self-confidence.

Modesty is great, so that a person does not brag.

And also, even if someone is a winner, the greatest winners are certainly the most modest.

I am talking here about inner winners.

Not only external winners, but also inner winners.

And there are many such people in sport.

I would also like to emphasize that there are winners who are their own inner winners.

They are confident enough to be satisfied with their own success.

They set themselves a goal, on which they may have worked for months or years, and they achieved it.

And this goal may be far removed from others’ comparative results.

But nevertheless, their goal can be enormous.

Once, I saw a man complete a marathon on crutches.

He obviously ran or walked the marathon because he had deformed legs.

And I admit that in such situations, you see real strength and real spirit.

The real sports spirit.

And people were cheering and encouraging this man in an unbelievable way.

What Is Success for You?

Ask yourself, what is success for you?

Set your own goals.

Follow these goals.

Define what your success is.

Do not compare yourself with others.

Be modest.

Be confident.

And be committed to your goal.