Redefining Success
Using Stephen Covey's "Five Dimensions of Health" and "Maturity Continuum" mental models to arrive at a truer definition of "success" in life
What is it?
This mental model combines two others from Stephen Covey’s seminal book, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”: the Maturity Continuum and Five (5) Dimensions of Health. When used together, these models provide a powerful way to gain a more holistic view of one’s true success in life.
Why is “Redefining Success” a valuable framework?
The key value of this mental model—the Five Dimensions of Health and the Maturity Continuum, together “Redefine Success”— is that it helps you develop a more nuanced and intentional way of defining and measuring “success” in life. Growing up, most of us are conditioned to define and measure success based solely on our professional (financial) health. However, that is too narrow-minded; we must broaden that definition of success to include the four critical health dimensions in the personal health domain space too, arguably even more so.
As Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs describes, each human being has the same different levels of needs, and being aware of the Four Dimensions of Personal Health framework that maps well onto Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs provides you with an instant, more holistic and therefore true dashboard of your “success” in life.
How to apply it to your own life?
Start by estimating where you are on the Maturity Continuum in each health dimension today (i.e. rate yourself at t=0). (Focus on Dependent → Independent for now and ignore the Independent → Interdependent part of the spectrum.) It won’t be perfect, that’s okay…you will more clearly define what each health category means later; what matters is getting an initial estimate of your baseline.
Next, set goals in two of the health dimensions for where you want to be three months from now. (We strongly recommend starting with physical health as one of your goals since having more energy, healthier nutrients and/or better sleep will make it easier to accomplish any other goals in the future.)
Once you’ve set your goals, identify a minimum of one key habit you can adopt to work towards each goal. Do your best to be consistent with that habit every day.
In three months (or once per quarter), repeat this process.