How do you know you are growing?
Everyone of us are after success and growth. If you are reading this, then you are an ambitious person who wants to rise high, earn money and be successful. But the question is how do we know if we are growing. Lets start with an organization example. I can relate everything with organization analogy and this always works!
What does the people of organization do?
Obviously they generate the money. Thinking on much higher level, organizations and their people make the improbable thing probable. Ride hailing company like mine gives you a vehicle at your location to take you somewhere when you press the book ride. This is an improbable thing to happen. Making the improbable thing probable. We are improbable to probable conversion engine.
Defining Growth
Same goes with our growth. If you can make your improbable tasks probable, then you know you are growing. The real challenge is answering what do you want to happen? Defining and having this wish list is the first step to measuring growth.
Say if I learn a new framework or language and it happens, then it does not always imply that I am growing. My growth comes from converting my desire to reality. If learning this made it happen, then yes I am growing. Its a success. Else it might be an activity.
Also making these things happen is not a 100% probable. So how do we measure success. 50%+ rule. If out of 10 desires, 6 are fulfilled then yes I am growing. More desires fulfilled than not is a success. If you are ambitious and are unclear about your desires, then you will chase and accomplish random things like money, position, titles and with each passing year still feel empty. Its a really bad place to be in.
The burnout of big ambitions
All of us want to be the next Zuckerberg or Musk. All of us want this much success and fame in such early age. But knowing the odds, lets say if it does not happen, then what do we do? Keep trying and not the burnout. If you burnout the probability of going there drops to zero. When you have this kind of ambition, then we should know that there may be chance that we are 70 and still have not achieved a fraction of it. The statistical probability of that happening is very less. The whole point is appreciating what you have achieved. Do it in a sustainable way. Maybe you just achieved 1% of them, but you are at 99.999% of percentile. Because they are at 99.999999% of the percentile.
Ambition
Ambition needs to be fueled. Its not something to destroy us. Its something we use and channel it. The first step in channeling is — we need to know what our desires are. If we wish for something, then we should know what we are wishing for. If we don’t know what we wish for we would live with a constant nagging sense of dissatisfaction. This can eat us alive. It is okay if we are getting 4/10 (less than 50%) but if we don’t even know if we are getting 1/10 or 6/10, then we are just destroying ourselves. 4/10 is bad but there will be no guilt.
This is based on a talk given in GO-JEK Core Engineering Bootcamp 3 by Sidu Ponnappa.
You may contact the author at me@abhinavrai.com
