Think about your greatest victories in life, those times you were successful in achieving a goal or completing an important task. What was the key?

Hard work? Having a written goal? Working as a team? Good planning? Lots of prayer? Having the right connections? Being in the right place at the right time?

In many cases, those are critical elements in achieving success. Sometimes though, all of those (and others) can be in place…and success doesn’t come. Failure does.

The start-up business doesn’t quite get started. Your team finishes last. Your investment loses value. No one comes to your Bible study. The new job isn’t all you thought it would be.

Ever been there? I have. Despite doing the right things and following the plan, it doesn’t work out.

Let me suggest a different way to look at things. Maybe we need a different way of interpreting results.

The dictionary defines success as “a favored or desired outcome.” So let’s go with it, but to make our definition complete, we need to consider perspective. In other words, who decides what favored and desired mean?

For example, 13 years ago, I was involved in a start-up company. It looked like a great opportunity. A lot of people told me it was going to be a big success. I not only invested my time, but my money. It wasn’t much, but it was about all I had at the time.

Nine months into it, we shut it down. It didn’t work out like we’d hoped. It failed. Or did it?

What if God’s objective was different than mine? What if He had a different definition of success?

My goal was financial success. God’s goal was, and is, to grow my character, to make me more like Jesus, to strengthen my faith.

From my perspective, the start-up was a colossal failure. From God’s perspective, it was another step in the journey toward Christlikeness.

So what’s the key to success? It begins with properly defining the term and then considering God’s goals more important than mine. When I do that, I’m able to see my trials and difficulties from a different perspective, then I can cooperate with God through the process rather than giving into anger or worry, because things didn’t go as I’d hoped or planned.

How about you? Are you currently failing at something? Maybe it’s a matter of changing your definition and perspective.