Success is Not Always 'UP'

"All men should strive to learn before they die, what they are running from, and to, and why." - James Thurber

There is so much that has been written about the word, 'Success.' It seems that 'Success' gurus are everywhere, urging us to greater achievement, to climb higher than before and to do and accomplish more.

While there is nothing wrong with these goals in and of themselves, focusing on a narrow view of success can give us lives that seem satisfying on the outside but that are not satisfying on the inside.

Think about this: When most people are asked for their definition of success, they use words like 'more,' 'up,' 'greater,' and so on. What they tend to refer to are things like more money, up the corporate ladder and greater responsibility.

These ideas are really talking about success in terms of Achievement and Acquisition. If we look at a CEO for a major company, we might SAY, "He's a successful businessman," and MEAN, "He's got a beautiful home, takes 4 vacations a year and is worth $10 million.

But success is about much more than how far UP the corporate ladder we have traveled or about how much we have acquired; it is also about character and values, relationships and being. If these elements are missing from our personal definition of success, we may have the external trappings of success while missing the other elements that can help us both enjoy our success while retaining our integrity.

There are too many examples in the news today of executives whose major definition of success seems to be based solely on how much income and bonus money they can acquire. Many of them come across as lacking deeper values of community responsibility, commitment to the greater welfare and humility.

Much of what is going on today may be telling us that as a society we have been chasing career success on too narrow a definition, i.e., doing and having.

Success is also about being: being satisfied; being connected to friends, family and community; being aware of our connection to ourselves and our deepest needs for a meaningful career.

How many of us have seen a talented individual who is great at their job be offered a promotion, often into management, only to find that they are not good at the new job, don't like it and find that it doesn't feed their soul the way their former job did. Maybe you are one of those.

Or, if they are good at it, they find that the job consumes so much of their time, they have no time to enjoy the acquisitions and achievements they are creating. They don't see their family much; they take the computer and Blackberry on vacation; they take short vacations for fear of being out-of-touch too long and so on.

The problem is, while they worry about being out of touch with work, they are becoming out of touch with themselves and with their friends and families. Seeking career success on such narrow terms is causing them to fail in other important aspects of their lives.

We love work even when we complain about it. Jobs can be mesmerizing and addicting. But we need to understand that work success is only one part of the definition of success.

The answer is not to give up career success and career meaning. The answer is to make career satisfaction PART of our overall definition of success; to make sure we know, as James Thurber mentions above, what we are chasing and why.

I've found that those who define success in terms that take into account ALL of who they are, are much happier and FEEL successful than those who focus only on doing and acquiring as their definition of success.

Try to look at success more as a balance wheel, where career success and acquisitions are only two parts of the wheel. There should be family success, relationship success, friendship success, community connection success, adherence to values success, living one's vision success and so on. You can come up with the categories.

But when you look at your career life in the larger context of ALL your life, you may begin to adjust where you are going and why.

Good luck on your journey!

Seed Newsvine

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