I made a list of two columns this morning.
For the first column, I wrote "What success used to look like for me." And I wrote down everything that constituted my 'idea' of how success manifested itself and got some surprising answers in amongst the usual suspects.
What success used to look like for me:
- pleasing other people
- not letting other people down
- being wanted
- approval
- stress
- busyness
- conflict
- backache
- headaches
- drinking
- 'always on' culture
- taking responsibility for everything
- challenging problems
- variety (superficial)
- creativity
- pay off
- online networks
- self justification
- martyr complex
- helping
- needing to prove myself
- making a difference
- management by urgency
- imposter syndrome
- ethically sound
If you're having a hard time of a job, or you share aspects of the same temperament, you might recognise some of these. And there is a mixture of positive and negative in there.
So in what success used to look like, can you see how I sabotaged myself? Well, if it didn't look stressful, or give me backache, or have me 'always on' it just didn't feel like success.
My own personal recipe for success included these negative things. And if it didn't look like that, I didn't feel right. But when I got really stressed and overworked, I wasn't happy either. It was a Lose Lose situation.
Moreover, if success contained all those negative things, I just didn't want success full stop. Which isn't really the way to look at it all.
So then I started a second column:
What success looks like for me now:
- calmness as career goal
- Exchange of value
- Offline networks
- Knowing my story, understanding its trajectory and not needing to explain, justify or seek approval or understanding for it
- comfortably busy
- physical health as career goal
- laughter & fun
- contribution
- backing myself
- creative challenge
- ethically sound
- healthy self regard
- variety & nuance, skill and speciality - depth over breadth
- concordance
- making a difference for myself and others
- contentment
- responding instead of reacting (Full Catastrophe Living)
Outcomes
The exercise has had some important outcomes which is why you might like to try it if you ever find yourself in the same position:
- I've recognised the inherent flaws in my picture of success
- I identified that some things were also right in my view of success and realised it was important to keep them.
- I've acknowledged the negative parts and modified them to something more positive and in tune with my ideals.
- I now have a map of what success looks like for me now.
Replace negatives with positive things to move towards. In the second list, I wrote down the conceptual opposite for some of the negative things (pay off was replaced by exchange of value, stress was replaced by calmness as career goal etc.) as positive things to aim for. It's not just changing words into their opposite - it's about understanding the drive. Pay off basically meant suffering to deserve money. Exchange is a more ecological concept, it implies barter, fairness, giving value and getting it in return. Likewise, making a difference is no good if it doesn't also make a positive difference for myself.
Also, it's not enough knowing what you don't want. Because then you just set yourself into a holding pattern of avoiding that thing. Sometimes that might not be good. Stress is inevitable, so if you try avoiding that always you'll be avoiding a lot of things. However, having some idea of what you positively do want to head towards makes it possible to aim for it, seeing past any temporary negatives that may emerge in going towards the goal. It's a case of "freedom for" as opposed to "freedom from". It's a big difference.
Map is not the territory. When we know where we're going, it's easier to get there. The map is not the territory, but even so, this constitutes a picture of what my new version of success looks like for me. By having it on paper and not just floating around in my head and playing trial and error with it all, I now have a clear idea of what it is I am looking for in my work, what I believe are the ingredients that constitute genuine success as well as happiness and satisfaction.
Change the desirable to the necessary. In my past career, calmness was desirable as was physical health. I didn't have either. 'Desirable' often gets shoved off the list unceremoniously in the real play of life. By making them necessary, the picture changes again. Calmness and physical health are 'must haves' and so now form part of the route map as intrinsic 'career goals'. Because they are now seen as essential conditions for success, they'll start getting the importance they deserve.
This changes a lot of things. Feeling ill? Take a day off and recover instead of labouring on dutifully to spread germs round the office. Not calm? Rather than accept it as a modern necessity of life, you start asking whether it is necessary or unnecessary, temporary or permanent, whether it's something that requires a personal change of outlook, or other changes.
Conclusion
Things look a lot different for me today. A lot of things I can let go of, a lot of new things to embrace, and an ecological view of the ingredients my new career needs to have for me. Though clearly, time will tell exactly how this list changes things.
If you decide to try this little exercise out, please do let me know how you get on, I'd be very interested to hear from you.
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