SUCCESS
See your goal
Understand the
obstacles
Create a positive
mental picture
Clear your mind of
self doubt
Embrace Challenge
Stay on track
Show the world you
can do it.*
There’s nothing wrong with this formula. However, this
quote—and others like it—fail to define success. So what is success? Is Success
the number of
degree titles after your name?
the amount of
money you’ve earned?
the worth of your
stock portfolio?
the new
Mercedes, Bentley or Harley you drive/ride?
the six figure salary you earn?
The problem here is that success is measured in ‘things’
gotten, gained, achieved—the (supposed) outward symbols of success. The
Oxford English dictionary defines success as, “the
accomplishment of an aim or purpose”. Certainly a worthy aim or purpose can be
a degree, a car, a good paying job or “fame, wealth, or social status”. The ditty above proposes a formula to guide us to the goal, to
achieve success.
However, glancing at the “archaic” definition of this word proves interesting. In the 16th
century, success is defined by the OED as the “good or
bad outcome of an undertaking”. It comes from the Latin meaning “to come close
after”. This
is some word evolution! From a “good or bad outcome of an undertaking”, to
“come close”, success has come to mean “attaining things such as fame, wealth, and
social status”.
What
if you don’t own a Mercedes? Your portfolio, your retirement fund, your 401K,
hit rock bottom in the economic downturn or through a Bernie Madoff-like
swindle? Perhaps you couldn’t afford studying at a prestigious university; maybe
you didn’t qualify for a scholarship or had to work 3 jobs just to put food on
the table? What
if the company squandered your pension in a high stake derivatives game or
mergers that failed? The job you love, ‘outsourced’? The company downsized and
you with it? The bank foreclosed on ‘your dream’, with little understanding or
empathy for a repayment schedule? And the MA/MBA/PhD on which you counted didn’t
produce the job of your dreams?
In
a world where SUCCESS is judged on the make and model of one’s car, one’s title,
social prestige or a six figure income, how can we feel successful if we ‘fail’
to meet ‘the’ standard—attaining fame, wealth and social status? How can we
feel good about our choices, our achievements, accomplishments or the time invested
in working toward our goals?
I am not pleading for sackcloth and ashes, neither a steady
diet of dry bread and water. On the contrary, working hard can and should have
its reward—that’s the ‘visceral’ meaning of success. But if the reward doesn’t
measure up to the accepted social standard of success then what? How can we
feel successful when the things that ‘should have been’—the things for which we
created a positive mental picture, embraced the challenge, stayed on track,
showed the world we could do it—offer no brass ring or reward at the end of the
day?
Perhaps we should return to the ‘archaic’ meaning of success—a
meaning in which ‘. . . the good or bad outcome’
is success. In the moment, we may think the ‘bad outcome’, the one that ‘got
away’, represents complete failure—our failure to achieve world renown, to make
the superior income, to affirm the social standard.
Reframing is the key. Ask yourself: When did you last reward
yourself for ‘nearly’ achieving the goal? For coming in second? For having worked extremely hard for the goal? For doing the
right thing, irrespective of outcome or consequence? Rewarding yourself for the
effort, for doing well—learning for inherent joy in the process?
Rating
and defining success in
terms of things which can be measured reflects an evolution in the term’s
meaning. Clearly, there has to be more to success than the measurement of
things we have or don’t have.
Defining
success in terms of values is a start: Values like ‘the greater good’, doing
‘for the other regardless of outcome’, having a ‘bad outcome’ in the moment,
only to reap the rewards later in deferred gratification. Better yet, what if
success is marked by NOT making IT, whatever IT might be?
Defining
success as the journey, the growth, and the processes we’ve uncovered in knowing
ourselves and others can change our perspective on a host of life losses and
gains.
Let’s
define success in terms of ‘intangibles’ rather than the latest sport car,
diamond ring or six-figure income. There’s nothing wrong with dreaming and
striving for the goal. But success can not—alone—be about reaching the end product.
I
hope you are successful however you define success, to whatever you put your
mind. Here’s a quote from a great mind that—by any definition of
success—succeeded!
Try not to become a man of success,
but
rather try to become a man of values. *
I’ll
edit Albert Einstein to say ‘human’. He, too, would agree: Success—no matter
how it is defined—is a journey not marked by collected things.
*http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_success.html
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