What if I told you that unleashing success starts with realizing how successful you already are?

It's true. As a leadership and success expert I get asked a lot about "keys to success." My first response is always: "Before you start changing, adding, or subtracting, spend some time appreciating."

Success is more than just how much money you make, what job title you've achieved, or what accomplishments you've stacked up. There's nothing wrong with any of that, but true success is broader. It's about the kind of life you're living and who you've chosen to become.  

When you think about success in a more holistic way, it requires resilience, confidence, and other aspects of mental strength I talk about in depth in my recent book, "The Mentally Strong Leader." 

A true measure of success requires introspection on a set of questions beyond the typical "how much" and "how high" metrics. If you can answer "yes" to the following six questions, you're more successful — right now — than you may have realized.

1. Do you live your values?

The little things you do every day exemplify who you are. The little impressions you make leave a big, permanent impression. The question is: Do you choose to behave in line with your values? For example, if a core value is kindness, are you consistently kind, even when it's hard? 

Intentionally living your values shows you're centered and disciplined, and both are forms of success. Doing this is no small feat — it's not easy to clearly articulate your values, let alone intentionally live them. 

If you'd like to start by articulating your values, there's an exercise in "The Mentally Strong Leader" to help you do just that.

2. Are you working on your life?

We all need to work in our lives, navigating our daily routines to get stuff done. But sometimes we get jammed up in habits, systems, or processes that no longer serve us — or anyone — well. 

Greater success comes from working on your life, too.

Are you stepping back from time to time to envision the life you really want to live and the person you really want to be? Are you reflecting to discern if you're heading where you really want to go?

This is how you spot unhelpful patterns and habits you've fallen into — and give yourself a chance to change them.  

3. Do you appreciate what you already have?

As the Rolling Stones once lamented, "You can't always get what you want." But happiness and success flow from focusing on what you do have. 

I know from my own experience — and I imagine you do, too — that it's easy to get caught up feeling like what you have is never enough, to always be looking to the next thing, to constantly seek the next rung of the ladder to climb. 

The ability to consistently show gratitude for all you have and have already accomplished, versus always needing more, is a key trait of the most successful people.

4. Do you have a growth mindset?

As you strive for success, you'll make mistakes. The key is: How do you react?

Do you let mistakes beat you down? Or do you see yourself as successful only if you're making mistakes, making incremental improvements, and adapting along the way? 

5. Are you doing the work so you're ready when opportunities arise?

True success requires you to fall in love with the process of improving and achieving, not just the achievement itself.

That can be difficult at times, especially when the work might feel repetitive, uninteresting, or far removed from what you're ultimately aiming to do or get. But it's attention to the little stuff that pays off in big moments.

For example, I'm often asked about becoming a professional speaker. People tell me, "I'd love to get paid to talk onstage for an hour." But to do so requires intensive research to uncover insights worth getting paid to talk about and hours of repetitive rehearsal. It's a process. 

As Ina Garten points out with her new memoir, you have to "be ready when the luck happens." 

6. Are you trying to achieve your goals, not someone else's?

A friend of mine told me recently she felt like a failure for not getting a promotion she wanted. But when I pushed her to define what success really meant to her, it wasn't that promotion at all.

She'd fallen into the trap of thinking, "This is what I'm supposed to want." She realized success to her was having a team that she could coach and nurture — something she could achieve in the role she was already in.

It breaks my heart when I hear someone say they don't feel successful based on someone else's definition instead of their own. When you define what success means to you, you might discover how successful you already are.

Scott Mautz is a popular speaker, trainer, and LinkedIn Learning instructor. He's a former senior executive of Procter & Gamble, where he ran several of the company's largest multi-billion-dollar businesses. He is the author of "The Mentally Strong Leader: Build the Habits to Productively Regulate Your Emotions, Thoughts, and Behaviors." Follow him on LinkedIn.

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