The Entrepreneur Insiders network is an online community where the most thoughtful and influential people in America’s startup scene contribute answers to timely questions about entrepreneurship and careers. Today’s answer to the question “What must every entrepreneur know about startup success?” is written by Jodi Goldstein, managing director of Harvard Innovation Labs.

When you ask entrepreneurs what startup success means to them, you’ll rarely get the same exact response twice. Some will focus on getting rich, while others will talk about making a difference in the world. Early-stage entrepreneurs might mention securing their first customers, or finding the right co-founder.

The interesting thing about these different answers is that they underscore something about success that all entrepreneurs should keep in mind: Success is fleeting.

Whenever one goal is reached, there’s always a new milestone to hit. Even when founders achieve significant accomplishments such as selling a company, securing a big partnership, or growing to a certain revenue number, they will quickly find themselves tackling the next set of challenges.

Once entrepreneurs understand that the nature of success is fleeting rather than a long-lasting state, they can take steps to make sure their relationship with success is one that helps them grow a healthy business. Here are a few tips:

Pause to recognize successes

When your startup experiences successes, take the time to acknowledge and celebrate them with your team.

Particularly in the beginning stages of a startup, it can be tempting to keep working full steam ahead even when you do achieve success. For instance, if your colleague who leads sales efforts comes to you and says, “We just hit our goal of securing 10 new customers this month,” a tempting response can be, “Great, but we need to get 20 wins next month.”

While looking ahead is certainly important, pausing to fully acknowledge accomplishments is critical for keeping morale high amongst your employees, and motivating them to achieve their next goal. Not enough can be said for taking your team out to lunch to celebrate an achievement, or organizing an after-work gathering.

Share your success stories

Whether you’ve just raised a seed round or had a great month of winning new customers, be open to sharing stories with other entrepreneurs about how you did it, as well as some of the setbacks you experienced along the way.

Often, when you share your moments of success with entrepreneurs, you’ll form beneficial relationships where you exchange ideas, and learn from each other’s successes and failures. Ideally, these relationships will help to speed up your entrepreneurial learning curve and will allow you to experience more success as a startup.

When you do succeed, don’t rest on your laurels

As your goals and aspirations grow with your business, keep in mind that the resources your team needs to achieve success will evolve. In other words, just because you won your 100th customer doesn't mean that you'll secure your 1000th customer using the same methods.

Once you hit one goal and take the time to acknowledge it with your team, make sure to both quickly set a new goal and form a plan of attack for achieving the goal. For instance, getting to a new revenue level might require you to hire additional salespeople or change your sales process.

Be wary of constantly experiencing success

When starting a business, it's important to push yourself to build the best product or service, and sell it as effectively as possible. If your venture is always meeting or exceeding expectations, and celebrating successes every day of the week, ask yourself if you should be setting loftier goals.

Analyzing how your competitors are faring in the market is a good way of judging whether your bar for success is high enough. If success for you means securing 10 new customers each month, but it’s clear that your competitors are achieving at least five times that, you might want to rethink your metrics that define success.

“透视企业家”是一个在线社区，美国创业界最有思想也最有影响力的大咖会在此回答有关创业和职场方面的问题。今天的问题是，“企业家应如何看待创业过程中的成功？”回答者是哈佛创新实验室董事总经理乔迪·戈德斯坦。

如果你问创业家成功意味着什么，很可能得到的答案五花八门。有些人希望致富，有些人会说希望改变世界。创业早期的创业家可能急切寻找第一批用户，或是找到合适的联合创始人。

琳琅满目的答案背后，突出了所有创业者都应该时刻铭记的一点：成功是转瞬即逝的。

当达到一个目标后，总会有新目标出现。即便创始人获得重要成就，比如卖掉公司、搞定重要合作，或是实现了某个收入数字，他们很快会发现下一批挑战已经不期而至。

当创业者明白成功的本质是转瞬即逝而非可持续时，他们就会想办法正确面对成功，确保每次成功都能促进业务健康成长。以下有几点建议：

偶尔暂停享受成功

创业公司小有成就时，不妨花点时间与团队成员共同庆祝。尤其是在创业刚开始的时候，即便成绩不错也会忍不住埋头向前冲。举个例子，如果负责销售的同事过来告诉你，“我们刚拿下10个客户，达到了本月的目标，”你的反应很可能是，“很棒，不过下个月得拿下20个客户。”

向前看当然很重要，但偶尔停下来享受成功可以提振士气，激励员工实现下一个目标，绝不容忽视。组织团队午间聚餐庆祝成功其实非常重要，组织下班后聚会也一样。

分享成功的故事

不管你是不是刚刚获得种子轮融资，还是这个月获得了大量新增客户，要敞开胸怀与其他创业者分享成功的经验，还有过程中的种种挫折。

一般来说，你与其他企业家分享成功经验时可以形成良好的互动，方便交流思想，互相学习成功经验和失败教训。理想情况下，这种关系可以加快你学习创业知识的速度，让你在创业路上走得更顺。

成功后不能躺在功劳簿上

目标和动力会跟随业务提高，要记住今后团队继续成功需要的资源也在同步增长。换句话说，即便你已经获得100位客户，并不意味着你用同样的方法可以获得1,000位客户。

实现一个目标后，记得花点时间与团队庆祝，还要注意迅速设定新目标并制定实现目标的计划。举例来说，要实现收入水平提升到新水平就得招聘更多销售人员，或是改变销售流程。

如果一路高唱凯歌没有挫折，要小心

创业时拼命打造最棒的产品和服务，尽可能高效地售卖是最重要的。如果你的公司一直都能达到甚至超越目标，每天都在庆祝成功，那么就该问问自己是不是应该把目标定高一点了。

多分析竞争对手在市场上的表现，可以更好地判断你制定的成功标准是否够高。如果对你来说，成功意味着每月搞定10位新客户，但你的竞争对手每月至少能拿下50位新客户，就得想想是不是该调整成功的标准。（财富中文网）

译者：夏林