Success

I have been told that I am ambitious, and I guess that is true. But how do you define when a person is successful?
A successful person might be one who has a high salary, works 14-16 hours per day and is in a high position. Status and money are the carrots, the driving force. I don´t think that theese things motivates everybody, and maybe that is why so many people get burned out as they are chasing carrots that they don´t really want?
Why can´t personal goals be more evident in the society? Why does not personal success count more? I mean, if one person is developing her social skills, and is getting really good at it, she should be able to be proud of it and also get recognition from people around her. Or if a person is able to be happy and also a good worker in the same position for years and years, shouldn´t that be counted as success also?
The carrots for my personal succes is not status and money. Success for me is to get as much freedom as possible in my work, to become more and more efficient, to increase my knowledge, to gain better communication skills, to grow in myself and to get a balance between work and sparetime. To be able to achive this I guess I do need to climb the career ladder, but money and status are not my driving forces.
Which is your way to success?
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karriär