Well Jay,
I guess an honest answer as possible is your level of happiness.
To me a successful person, whether rich or poor, is one who is happy doing what they do in their life.
Of course this is different for different people.
The question then becomes what are the things that make us happy.
Without going to much into this topic (because there are people far more qualified than myself) I think that the surest way to happiness is to have a set of clear values, having your goals aligned with your values and then each and every day taking small steps to achieve your goals.
To set about practically doing this I think that you want to:
1. Develop a clear vision or a long-term perspective. Try these goal setting activities to work on this.
2. Look to set goals in the different areas of your life. This could be in areas such as financial or career goals, or family goals and health goals. The important thing is to be balanced in your goal setting.
3. Since it is often very difficult to go for several goals at once, look to prioritize your goals in order of importance. This goal setting activity may help.
4. Use SMARTer goal setting technique to maximize your success in achieving your goals.
5. Put these short term SMARTer goals into an action plan so that you can identify the objectives and the resources to reach your short term goals.
6. These can then be put into your daily to-do list.
For me, mapping of long-term goals (which reflect your values) into a daily set of tasks means that you instill daily habits of success.
