Most successful people recognize the need to have a method of determining what is important to them. Since each person's life experiences are unique, it is difficult to define a universal system to identify what is best for someone. You might be asking yourself why you should even have a system for determining the good. After all isn’t that what thousands of disagreeing religious leaders and philosophers have debated for millenia?

If the intellectuals that have been concentrating on this subject can’t figure it out, is there any hope for all of us less enlightened individuals?

Absolutely. Determining the good really just starts with the question “what do I want most in my life?� If you can easily answer this, then you just need to ask yourself "why?"

Suppose I answered that I want my health the most, then I should continue:
"Why?"
"Because I want to have the opportunity to enjoy whatever comes my way without the hassle of health complications."
"Why?"
"Because I want a lot of pleasure and a limited amount of pain."
"Why?"
"Because pleasure makes me the happiest."
"Why?"
"Because happiness is the most important thing that I could obtain."
"Why?"

If you find that you can’t go any further than happiness than you might have just found you’re purpose in life.

Most people come to the conclusion that happiness is what we want most. However, almost every single person on earth has a different conception of how to go about obtaining it. The trick is to create a system of obtaining happiness that is consistent and that seems to yield the greatest amount of happiness for your effort.

Perhaps you believed that money is the most important thing for your happiness. To make sure that this is accurate simply double check with your system. Though doubtful, it might agree. The majority of individuals who complete the exercise find their definitions for the good life to change from external oriented to internal oriented. Many suggest that externals factors don't depend solely on any single individual and therefore are unworthy means to dictate someones happiness.

No matter how you define happiness this exercise will help you to create a system that keeps all your goals congruent with the primary goal. If you continue to fine tune your priority determination system, all of your success can be congruent with the most important kind of success, which most likely is experiencing a happy life.