Reflections of a Serial Failure
Success. The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow; the treasure every single human being, in some way, shape or form dreams of achieving.
For something that is so highly sought after, we find a disparity between the number of material on the “how” and the number of people who have benefited from them.
Now, I don’t identify myself as some self-help guru nor am I overly successful. You see, like most people, I’m a struggler. I struggle to achieve my goals. I struggle to sustain my definition of “success” when I do “achieve” it. I struggle to be motivated 100% of the time. I struggle with maintaining relationships. I struggle to be happy. As a writer, I struggle to write!
Recent events in my personal life forced me to go on a journey; a journey inwards. No, this wasn’t a “self-discovery” journey or some magical bullshit like that. The journey inward was just to determine what mental blocks I had that was keeping me from accomplishing my goals, from “achieving” success and happiness in my life. Why was I so stuck? Why couldn’t I just nut-up and do what needed to done when it needed to be done?
In my life I have been successful at some things and unsuccessful at others; both business and personal. Common sense would say replicate what works and scale what can be scaled. Heck, I even teach this in the entrepreneurship workshops I run and in my many speaking engagements year round.
So why am I finding it hard to follow my own advice?
You’ll never “achieve” success or happiness
The problem with most people, myself included, is that we think of EVERYTHING as achievements. I need to achieve this and that and that other thing; our lives become a collection of achievements. But things like “success” and “happiness” are subjective, and at best, abstract. To universally define either term would be an injustice to the truth. Success is whatever you want it to be, as is happiness.
So if these aren’t achievements then what are they? Simply put, they are states of being. In other words, at this very moment am I happy? Am I successful? Yes I am. I’m writing. I’ve had a pretty good weekend. I have successfully completed the tasks I set out to help me get closer to achieving my more longer term goals. I’m good.
Life is simple, my friends; we complicate it. I have begun to see life as a collection of days, not a collection of achievements. It just makes shit more manageable, you know? Like, “Yeah, today I wasn’t motivated and inspired to get anything done and I binge-watched Sons of Anarchy on Netflix and wasted my whole day” — for me is a day that I failed myself because I had more important things that required my attention. I was not successful nor was I happy, in the real sense of the word. But that’s okay, because tomorrow I will wake up having neither failed nor succeeded and I have the same chances and same opportunities everyone else does to move my life in the direction I want to. I’m not saying “Netflix and Chill” is a bad thing, I’m just saying there needs to be a balance… Nah, screw that. There needs to be an imbalance.
I’ve been tying to become an overnight success for almost eight years now. And to be completely honest with myself, my hustle hasn’t been consistent except in one single area — mediocrity. The difference between being busy and being productive has affected my accomplishments, or lack thereof. I was only willing to sacrifice in short bursts.
But I’ve come to realize that if I want to be successful today, if I want to be happy today, then I need to do something about it TODAY. Not for tomorrow, but for today. Living in the future is just as dangerous as living in the past, if you allow it to be. You can’t change the past and the future has too many variables we either can’t see or can’t control; while not absolute, if there is anything I definitely have control over it is control over right now.
When I started to realize that these were states of being rather than achievements, it gave me more control over my day. Now, if I’m not happy, I can change the things around me that are bringing me down. If I feel like a failure, I can succeed at doing one task or a number of them and change that feeling too.
Which leads me to my next point.
Akrasia
This is a term not thrown around often, yet millions of people suffer from it every single day. I constantly suffer from it. Because it has the same symptoms, we often mistake this for procrastination. In fact sometimes the two terms are used synonymously, but they are truly worlds apart.
Procrastination is like a cold; akrasia is a cancer.
Procrastination is choosing to put off, what we consider, less desirable work to do something more interesting or fun at that given moment. We set aside that task to do it at another time, most likely when we absolutely have to. In other words, we’ll eventually get to it.
Akrasia on the other hand is a complete lack of will in doing what we know we need to do. We don’t put it off to do it later, we put it off indefinitely. Some call it procrastination while others might call it laziness, but it is simply an utter and complete lack of will in doing what you know you need to do.
I’m not a philosopher so I can’t postulate the source of akrasia in ones life, but for me I think it stems from my insecurities; my fears. Despite having achieved success in many spheres of my life, because it has been disproportionate to my hustle I feel like I don’t deserve it, so every now and again I stop trying altogether.
So, what does all this mean going forward in my life?
It means establishing a better relationship with myself. It means recognizing and obliterating the mental blocks that have held me back from achieving my full potential. It means restructuring my daily routines to live a more efficient and effective life; one where I am successful and happy every single day. It means figuring shit out one day at a time. And I think most importantly, it means living in the present, for the present.
It obviously means a lot of things, and all of them require conscious and consistent effort.
