The ancient Stoics emphasized the need to reflect at the end of the day and ask ourselves constructive questions about what went well and what did not. But how can we measure the success of a day? By which criteria are we defining good days and bad days? And since each day constitutes a slice of life itself, how can we extrapolate and scale this assessment to our measures of personal success for life in general? Before you can even begin to reflect on your day like a Stoic, you need to know your measures of success. We’ll discuss different measures of success and provide some practical tips on how to practice Stoic daily reflection.
“Allow not sleep to close your wearied eyes,
Until you have reckoned up each daytime deed:
‘Where did I go wrong? What did I do? And what duty’s left undone?’
From first to last review your acts and then
Reprove yourself for wretched [or cowardly] acts, but rejoice in those done well.”
– Epictetus
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Traditional measures of success
We’re all familiar with traditional measures of success. Job titles, monetary wealth, and happiness are common ones. Are they good measures of success? Perhaps. It depends on your values.
This article will focus on a Stoic definition of success, not because it is inherently more important, but because it is inherently less prevalent than traditional definitions of success.
Measuring your personal success by job title or wealth, for example, is baked into modern society. It’s inescapable. If you have a job, then you by default have accountability. You have people and mechanisms in place to hold you accountable and ensure you’re performing to their standards. You have annual performance reviews. The entire capitalist system is designed to reward you based on the perceived value of what you bring to the market. We already spend so much of our lives at work, so let’s not fill our personal time assessing and tracking work-related performance.
Who’s there to measure your personal success? Who’s there to keep you accountable for your actions—the steps you take, forward or backward, to uphold what you believe is truly important? The answer is no one but yourself.
How do Stoics define success?
Stoic definitions of success are unconventional. Stoicism is all about knowing who you are, so that you can act in accordance with your values and ultimately make the world a better place. The 4 Stoic virtues—Justice, Wisdom, Temperance, and Courage—are immensely useful for guiding your actions and informing your values. They have endured as guiding principles for good reason, and you can draw upon them to clarify your decisions in nearly any situation. But you are unique. You have dreams and aspirations and obligations to juggle. This is why it’s useful to define your own values and learn how to measure them during your Stoic daily reflection.
Measures of success need to be just that: measurable. If you can’t quantify and track it, it’s fairly hard to improve it.
Here are some ways to measure your success when you sit down to practice Stoic daily reflection:
- Hours of quality time spent with family
- Hours of quality sleep
- Minutes spent meditating
- Number of mindful responses to difficult or frustrating situations
- Minutes spent exercising
- Time spent truly listening to others
- Number of hugs or other signs of intimacy
- Number of healthy meals
- Instances where you felt fear and acted despite it
- Number of acts of compassion
- Number of pages read (here are some of our favorites books on Stoicism)
Stoic reflection questions
It may not always be feasible or practical to literally track metrics like these. They are useful for creating some accountability for recurring values or behaviors you’d like to display more consistently. But we don’t want to turn our Stoic daily reflection into a mechanical chore of pouring over numbers. The ancient Stoics were writers. Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations was literally his personal journal. It was never meant to be published.
Writing your thoughts down at the end of the day in honest reflection is a powerful tool. Writing has an almost magical ability to turn thoughts into reality. It clarifies your thinking and allows you to review, edit, and plan in a way that thinking without a pen and paper simply does not.
Here are some questions to serve as prompts to help your daily Stoic reflection:
- Did I act in contradiction to my values? If yes, why? How will I prevent this in the future?
- Was I honest to others and to myself?
- Did I do anything to make the world a better place in any way?
- Did I handle obstacles with calm and grace?
- What are my plans for tomorrow? What are the potential obstacles that could stand in the way? How can I avoid or prevent those obstacles? Premeditatio malorum
- Was I able to resist desires and temptations?
- Did I have an opportunity to face a fear? How did I respond to this?
- Did my words promote peace and reconciliation? Were they in harmony with my values?
How do Stoics define success?
Any Stoic practice of reflection should end with a gratitude practice. The Stoics had their now-famous phrase Memento mori (Latin for ‘remember you will die’). This is not meant to send you into a downward spiral of morbid despair. Instead, it’s meant to renew your excitement for life today. Remind yourself that this present moment is precious. Make a mental or written list of things you were grateful for today.
Your intention in the morning should be to neglect none of your values. If you can perform at least one positive action in relation to each value, then perhaps that day can be considered a good one. The Stoic practice of daily reflection requires a mid-day check in. Often our days contain distractions and conflicting priorities. It’s important to pause during the day and ask yourself how well you’re upholding your values. This gives you the opportunity to course-correct if things aren’t going well.
Acting in accordance with our true values and Stoic virtues should be integral to our own measure of personal success. Make this easy to remember by boiling down your values into keywords. Use these keywords as memory cues to aid your daily assessment and reflection.
Finally, don’t be too hard on yourself. The ultimate goal of Stoicism and Stoic daily reflection is to strengthen yourself so that you can help others. It’s a bit of a cliche, but one worth repeating here: You can’t truly love others unless you love yourself first. You will have unbalanced days. But never give up, for it is the act of striving for greatness and falling short that adds meaning and distinction to life.
“It is not by muscle, speed, or physical dexterity that great things are achieved, but by reflection, force of character, and judgment.”
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Looking to begin the Stoic art of journaling?
Here are some recommended journals:
- Handmade, leather-bound journal from an independent artisan with the inscription “Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny”
- Handmade, leather-bound journal from an independent artisan with the inscription “Nevertheless, she persisted”
- The Daily Stoic Journal by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
- Handmade, leather-bound journal from an independent artisan with the inscription “But still, I rise”
- The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck Journal by Mark Manson
- The Bullet Journal Method by Ryder Carroll