i think i leave the concept of success down to the individual. Did you want to start a business? Did you start a business? Well then it was a success, doesn't matter if it completely failed.

It's about how you phrase what you want to do, and about how to appreciate what you've done in the past.

Measuring your success based on how other people define it is often a problematic way to define it, as other people are often unreliable, and not inline with what you want for your life. You need to set explicit goals that you know (or think) you can achieve. That way when you achieve them (or fail) you can look back on them as a success, or at the very least, a valuable learning experience.

Speaking of failure. Failure is a non condition, failure is just a step to success. In order to find the correct solution, you need to weed out the incorrect solutions. Often times there are multiple correct solutions, with varying degrees of complexity and levels of accomplishment. The way those are chosen is not well defined by any means. There is no point in fretting on the end solution, if you know that it will do what you want it to do.

Think of failure like a side step to success. The path to success is a vertical ladder. And failure is just a horizontal shifting on that ladder. It doesn't place you any further or closer, merely offsets you from the top.