If you want success on your own terms, you have to define your terms.

"Defaulting" is what we call what happens when you don't make a move in your favor...the situation either stays the same, or it shifts to the most likely outcome to happen without your influence. You don't get to have a say anymore even if you are affected, because you didn't speak up when you had the opportunity. This goes for action too, not just words.

This is another facet to knowing exactly what you want. If you are clueless about what you truly desire in your life, if you don't know what you want, you'll take what you can get...again, you land in the default zone. You didn't know any better, or maybe couldn't have cared less at the time. You drifted, went with the flow or followed the status quo. You followed the rules. So, take a look at where you are now. Assess your life.

Are you satisfied with what you're doing with your time? Are you content in the life you have? Are you enjoying the security that you envisioned for yourself? Are those visions actually yours?

Success on someone else's terms are their kind of success, not yours. As a kid you may believe they are yours because those standards are what you grew up with, and measured yourself against. Since you grew up with these standards, they're normal to you. They become your default standards -- but sooner or later, living by default standards can get wearing. Teenage rebellion is only the tip of the iceberg, but it's a very honest example. As an adult, you can take the initiative to test things for yourself and find out what you can do, find out which standards you can truly claim as your own....and you can say it's because you're trying to find out who you are and what you stand for.

For example, which of the following means "success" to you?

• A house you own free and clear.
• Confirmation that 4/5th's of your college debt is paid off, just that last 1/5th to go, and with your careful attention, you can be in the clear by the first quarter of next year.
• A job with very good health insurance. Or a livelihood that allows you to tour various cities as you support a music group as part of the crew.
• Losing the next to last 5 pounds. Getting your bad cholesterol down and good cholesterol up.
  
• Graduating. High school or college, just making it past graduation. Or all your kids graduating from high school. Or getting your associate's degree.
  

Success is a term, but everyone defines it differently. You have to define your terms, whatever they are, to suss out what things you truly value and what they mean to you.

As you mature though, your definition of terms should change with you to more accurately reflect who you are now. Haven't you even gotten the word from people older than you -- they're always  "older than you" -- who say, "if I only knew then what I know now, if I was your age I'd ____"? Other people's hindsight can be your foresight, if you're savvy enough to know yourself well and gutsy enough to find out what's true for you. You can find out for yourself  what happens when you know what you want.

Knowing what you want aligns internal vision and external action.
When that happens, especially on a consistent basis, you're already balancing your way to a life well-lived, and that's a success no matter where you look at it. Dis-alignment works in ways that retard your growth, much like when the wheels of a car aren't aligned properly would impede its performance, to say the least. You're pulled in different directions. Result:  discomfort, pain, dis-ease
 
How long can you pull it off  depends on your pain threshold, your ability to motivate yourself to change the situation, or bear it while BS'ing yourself (which is actually denial)-- which can manifest in such bad choices like ignoring the pain, hiding it behind something else, using money to bury it ("I deserve this after all I've been through today."), and procrastination ("I'll do it later..much much later.").

Walling things off in denial or turning a blind eye just leads to prolonged discomfort and a longer, delayed resolution, if things resolve themselves at all. While you're doing so, time is ticking -- it doesn't stop for you. Knowing what you want makes you use your time better, because you appreciate its value.

Knowing what you want saves time.
One thing about trying to wait things out is that while you're waiting for the situation to change, it's already charging past you, and what can be left for you to control is your attitude.  You can't wait for your dream to come true, you have to make it manifest in reality through action. And just saying "I'll be successful/ happy when _______ is done," doesn't guarantee it.

Life is happening right now, your life, the entirety of your life up to the present. It's going on right in front of you, all around you, and you might be missing it. Can you imagine all the time you can lose waiting?

•  Waiting for something or someone to tell you that you're a success, ("What about now? Now? How about now?)
•  Waiting for someone to give you permission to BE a success ("Here's the gold star. And a key to the corner office.")
•  Waiting to validate your image of success. ("Hey there, lookin' gooooood.")
•  Waiting for that internal click, that tells you you're happy and fulfilled.
•  Waiting to be told that finally, FINALLY, you're good enough.

Knowing what you want gives you a target to reach for.
Human beings are capable of awesome things - we are members of the race that built the Taj Mahal, broke through the clouds to put a man on the moon, and extends our hands to others in times of need. And while there as many kinds of success as there are people, comparisons will always pull you short in some areas -- and pull you up in others. When you get pulled down by your own judgment, you can sap your energy  by diverting it into dead ends. You'll never be That Lucky Bastard, or That Poor Bastard. Flip it around, they will never be you.

That's why it's so important that you define your terms. Because it's your life. If you don't get a bead on what you want out of it, who else will?

What it takes:

• Of course, an intensely, intensively personal involvement, and an openness to learning that you don't know everything, so be humble.
• The willingness to learn from other people's mistakes...and successes. Monkey see, monkey do, right? Use comparisons towards action if you are to use them for yourself -- "How can I improve this situation? How did someone else who succeeded do it?"
• The maturity, foresight and insight to accept the consequences of your actions and non-action.

These are just a few of the things you can do to help yourself. Test everything that gets in the way of you knowing what you want: get hurt, take the hit, sort things out in the aftermath -- you don't know what you truly hold important until you get shaken up, and that means having your convictions tested. When that's done, you've defined your boundaries. You've defined your terms.
 

Recommended article:
Cal Newport on "Atul Gawande Thinks You’re Not As Good As You Think You Are." (StudyHacks)