There may be a time in your life when you start collecting statistics of your life. You will keep record of many things, for example, such as:
- How much money you made last year
- How many trophies you won
- How much return on investment you got on your stocks last month
- How many friends you have on your social media accounts (i.e., Twitter, Facebook, etc.)
- How many A’s, B’s and C’s you got in your report card for this semester
- How many minutes on your cell phone plan you used the last month
This measuring stick of your “accounts,” in many cases from my observation of people’s behavior is how you will live your live. You will establish standards of excellence to achieve with the measuring stick. You will use this stick to push yourself harder, work harder and be the best you can be. You will define success as meeting the goals of the measuring stick or not.
To some of us failure is defined as the inability to achieve something that you are setting yourself out to do that you have initially set as a target.
What happens to us in this world that we live in is that records of “so-called” achievement are marketed publicly. I don’t mean our personal records but records of others in general. In U.S. News and World report there will be a number one university providing reasoning why the institution ranked first. In Forbes Magazine, the number 1 billionaire will be identified presenting his or her net worth. Time magazine will name the Man of the Year showing the “number of events” that led to why they selected that individual.
You may be getting my point – we are consumed in this world by the personal achievement of others that we lose sight of what our personal achievement should be. Moreover, we set unrealistic measuring points to define what success really is.
So, we go about creating Olympic records of achievement for ourselves that we try to break. The basis of these could be drive from deep inside but in a lot of cases the reasoning just because “we want to be like them.” They way magazines portray people, the way your neighbor behaves, the way people act in the golf club. We don’t define success by what our personal strengths are, but by what society markets our strengths should be and we hook ourselves on to this idea.
We say we will earn more next year and set a goal. We say we will save more money and set a goal. We will try to get more A’s to get better grade point average and set the goal. These are just some examples but what is evident in each is that a clear, quantitative goal is established that is targeting to be achieved within a particular time-frame.
Let me make a point clear here that I am an advocate of setting goals and targets. These are great to have at a very personal level. My main concern is the concept of beating ourselves up, because we didn’t meet a goal. This is where our inner peace can be jeopardized.
What happens if you set the goal in American Football to drive down the length of the field to score a touchdown and come just short of the goal line? What happens if you don’t score by inches? Is it really the end of the world if you don’t meet a goal? To be specific, if the goals you set to be attained next year are not achieved, can you call yourself a failure?
My personal opinion of this is – no – for the very fact that recognizing that a goal should be set for the betterment of your situation in the first place is the start of success. This is one intangible thing we overlook. Just the thought of getting yourself out of whatever situation you are in to better it – is success!
The reality of goals is that while they can be clearly stated they are actually living targets. Goals sometime change based on circumstances. Goals once we think we have met them grow into more goals. They are ever-changing, evolving and morphing themselves along with the way that you think.
So, while being goal-oriented is a great thing in my mind –becoming goal-consumed can be dangerous in my opinion. Constantly thinking about a goal and doing everything in your world to achieve a goal takes energy from other things that can contribute to your personal growth and situation. Our human life leads us to play several roles and in these roles you may have different goals. For example, if you are working you may have career-minded goals. If you are a parent you may have child-raising goals. If you are a coach, you may have teaching goals. If you are student, you may have academic goals. Goals are defined personally, not by looking at others.
My point is this – the so-called lack of meeting one goal in one area doesn’t make you a failure. In fact if you don’t make any of your goals it doesn’t mean you are a failure. Failure is temporary, a wrinkle or kink in the chain. You can easily overcome failure by thinking of solutions to your problem. Remember, life is evolving. Goals are evolving. Change is happening all around you. Nothing is in your control.
You may set targets to lose 50 pounds by next year and you only lose 20. So what? Are you going to beat yourself for this? You set a goal to get promoted on the job and you don’t get it. So what? Does this mean you will stop trying?
Then there is the other side. You meet your goal. What’s happens then? Why do we get depressed when we achieve something? I see this all the time. We think we will be happy when we meet our goal but we are not. In my view, this is driven by the idea that the whole journey to get to goal achievement is overlooked.
Look at it this way. Meeting a target is likely not achieved alone. You may think you did it alone but you may have had the help of a variety of mediums – friends, family, self-help books, teachers, YouTube videos, seminars, etc. – to help you get to your goal. You need to be most grateful for everything and everyone that comes in between the time you set a goal to the time you think you achieved it. This is where you will find joy.
Here are some suggestions regarding failure:
- Remove the word failure from your vocabulary. There is no such thing as failure. There is no such thing as not being successful. Don’t compare yourself to others. Stop looking at magazine articles for comparative achievement and trying to be like someone. Be yourself and set targets that can help you learn along the way.
- Define goals as targets. Targets have a bullseye. You may not hit the bullseye with the goal but you may come close. Realize accuracy is much better than nothing.
- Realize what’s important along the way to your target. It’s not about meeting the goal at the end that you will realize what will give you joy – it will be all the little things that happen along the way that build satisfaction. So what if you didn’t get promoted at work – perhaps you picked up new skills, worked with some cool people to build your network, or got a new client. Some of these things may be more important in the long run than getting promoted.
- Realize personal growth is continuously evolving. I understand you may be a salesman with a particular quota and you didn’t’ meet your target. The question is what did you learn through the process? Is the company the right one for you? Do you enjoy what you sell? These are things you learn from not making a target.
Every person out there has their own definition of success and the path they worked on to achieve this success is sometimes unclear by marketing organizations such as newspapers and magazine editors. They don’t look at the journey but only the result. The definition of success is unclear
You never have the big picture about what make’s people successful. Those with big homes may be in broken marriages. Some of the people making lots of money could be depressed. Those individuals that are career-minded realize they don’t have any time to spend with family. You may have all of these things and here you are setting yourself out to be like them.
Success is not one-dimensional. It’s multi-faceted. Success is balance of your well-being without jeopardizing yourself, your family, your friends or anything else you are in touch with. Happiness is the best measure of success in my mind – and even happiness is relative.
Setting and breaking Olympic records is a temporary achievement using tangible targets. Eventually what you will realize is that the most successful targets are those that are immaterial. In a 100m dash we can keep breaking records and reducing our time. In our conscious mind, we will always be short of breaking the ultimate goal.
The unconscious goal of breaking the 100m dash is getting to the point of “infinity” where you realize that the start is the finish, and the finish is the start. Once this is realized, setting targets and failure becomes non-existent. These targets we are trying to set become immaterial and what is most importing is realizing being, attaining consciousness, and finding bliss.