Let’s first understand the start and end points.

Performance: We are all engaged in some activities that are aimed towards delivering performance. It may be our professional, personal, charitable or learning pursuits. Or something else. Or a combination of these. Whatever our pursuits may be, all activities that we continuously engage in, consciously or un-consciously, consume a resource that is finite – our time, and produce some performance.

Happiness: Our goal is to attain a normal resting emotional state of happiness. It is not event derived emotional state, but a normal resting emotional state of happiness. Not, a normal resting state of sadness, anxiety or worry. Also, we may experience event driven other emotions like sadness, anger, worry, etc. But that is not important in defining happiness in this equation. What is important is that we must attain a normal resting emotional state of happiness.

And I believe that when we achieve a normal resting state of happiness, we attain success.

So how do we go from Performance to Happiness (normal resting emotional state), and hence success?

So, the Success Equation theorises that, when our “performance” gives us “reward” that help us achieve a part of our “purpose”, we tend towards “happiness” and “success”. In fact, at any point of time, we may be engaged in more than one endeavors, each of which generate performance and related rewards, that feed into our purpose.

This implies that we should be engaging in activities that are aligned to delivering  performance, that produce rewardsthat are aligned to our purpose, and thereby happiness. Once we have aligned our activities with happiness, we can then focus on enhancing our performance to speed up our journey from performance to happiness.

Of course, the equation pre-supposes that we have figured out our purpose in life. In reality, our purpose in life may change over time, and it is important to recalibrate from time to time to ensure that all the elements of the Success Equation are aligned.

I hope this Success Equation provides some clarity on how we can achieve success in life.