Successful ageing is a mainstay of the gerontological literature, but it is not without criticism, including the often-limited way that it is studied and measured, and the exclusion of older adults’ perspectives in its development and understanding. This study sought to address these issues through a qualitative investigation across multiple countries, in three regions of the world. Participants, 65 years and older, were asked to describe what successful ageing means to them in an open-ended survey item. Summative content analysis was used to investigate the responses from 1,994 people. Six themes and 20 subthemes were found. In contrast to much of the early literature that suggested successful ageing is solely or predominantly related to the avoidance of disease and decline, the most prominent theme in this study was “active, independent, and engaged” as the main characteristic of success. While health and health maintenance were present in other themes, these findings support a multidimensional definition of successful ageing that importantly promotes the perspectives of older people. Our findings support a paradigm shift away from the discourse of successful ageing being biomedical and based around health and/or disability. Governments and policy makers should consider including psychosocial and environmental aspects, as well as resilience, independence and financial security into their future policies and practices for successful ageing.