We all have our own ways of measuring success in life, and they may shift as we grow older.

For Bill Gates, it's an "end-of-year assessment" of his personal and work life — a tradition that he says dates back to his childhood. "Some people think it is corny, but I like it," the Microsoft co-founder wrote in a 2018 blog post.

Gates also noted how different his assessment looks today, at age 63, than it did in his 20s. "Back then, an end-of-year assessment would amount to just one question: Is Microsoft software making the personal-computing dream come true?" he wrote.

Of course, Gates still assesses the quality of his work, but he also asks himself a whole set of other questions about his life. "These would have been laughable to me when I was 25, but as I get older, they are much more meaningful."

Our year is more than halfway over, folks. Perhaps you've accomplished more than you expected to. Or maybe you feel you haven't done enough, and would like to push yourself some more. No matter what your journey has been like, now is the perfect time to pause and reflect on how 2019 has shaped you so far.

If you don't have your own metric of success, it's worth starting with the three questions Gates asked himself at the end of 2018: