The Trap of Endlessly Pursuing Success
It’s normal for us to want to succeed. But when we blur the lines between succeed and success. Or, even worse, we use them interchangeably. We potentially put ourselves into the trap of endlessly pursuing success.
When we want to succeed in something, we have an objective goal in mind. We have a set target that will determine if we’ve succeeded or not. When we want success in something, we have a subjective goal in mind. And since it’s subjective, the target of our success depends on where we put it. And if we constantly move that target, then success can become elusive.
For example, when we first started training for a marathon, our goal was to just finish it. Regardless of how long it took us if we crossed the finish line, we succeeded. And when we did finish, we felt proud of our accomplishments.
In our second and third marathons, our goals were the same and, again, they were both reached. But, by the third marathon, even though we succeeded in reaching our goal we didn’t feel it was a success.
As we’ve gotten more serious about running marathons, we’ve started running with a marathon club. And even though we finished the marathon, we finished pretty low compared to the other people in the club. So we succeeded but we didn’t feel it was a success.
For the next marathon, we set the goal of finishing in the top ten within our club. And we succeeded by finishing 8th. But we felt that if we had run a better race we could have finished in the top 5. So instead of celebrating in reaching our goal, we were disappointed because we felt that what we accomplished wasn’t “good enough”.
And this is the trap of endlessly pursuing success. When we’re looking for success in our career, relationships, or in anything we’re pursuing, there’s the danger that we’ll always judge the things we do as not being “good enough”. We’ll be pursuing this imaginary finish line that moves ahead of us every time we cross it.
It’s not good enough that we got a raise, we should have gotten a promotion. It’s not good enough to have gotten a promotion, we should have been promoted to manager, and so on. Instead of celebrating and being proud of our accomplishments, we’re left feeling that they’re not “good enough” so we look for something more.
Success is subjective. It’s a judgment of “good enough”, regardless of whether we succeeded in reaching our goals or not. By feeling that things are never “good enough”, we put ourselves into the trap of endlessly pursuing success.
Even worse, we can allow someone else to pass judgment on what’s “good enough”. And if we’re looking to someone who has already judged us as never being able to be “good enough”, we’ll be pursuing success with no possibility of ever being able to find it.
But the weakness of success is also its strength. Since success is subjective, it’s up to us to decide what’s “good enough”. If what’s “good enough” is trying our best, then regardless of whether we succeed or fail, we can always have success by simply trying our best.
