Tag: success

Good, Better, Best or Quit?

On any given day, should you strive for good, better, best, or just quit? In the past week, I’ve read three quotes that stuck with me:

The first was from Arkansas Razorback Men’s Basketball Coach Eric Musselman:

“If you strive for good, you will get average. If you strive for great, you will get good. Strive for perfect so you can achieve great.”

Eric Musselman

It’s the kind of aspirational statement you’d expect from a coach. It immediately made me think of Michael Jordan. (I just finished watching “The Last Dance.”) Jordan was a great player! He was a great player because he was always motivated to win.

miss target
I can improve but still miss the target.

I can be motivated to win, but I’ll never be a great basketball player. In fact, I can do everything Eric Musselman says and I’ll never be a great basketball player. I could play a lot of basketball and I’m sure I’d improve, but would I be wasting time that could be better spent in some other endeavor?

That question brings me to quote #2 and perhaps an even better question. Is striving for perfection good?

Let me start with a quote from newsman Josh Belzman replying to @EricPMusselman

“Strive for perfect and you’ll give yourself an ulcer and then a heart attack. No thanks.”

Josh Belzman

Obviously, Mr. Belzman believes striving for perfection is detrimental to one’s health. But even if it doesn’t lead to a heart attack, the idea that we must reach an ideal that cannot realistically be attained or sustained prevents some of us from ever getting started. And there’s some wisdom to that. Why put time and energy toward a goal you know can’t be achieved?

So, what’s the best way to be outstanding in your life?

I’m going to go with the idea that it’s more important to be a great human being than to achieve any certain anything. And that brings me to the third quote, one by Marianne Williamson:

“As big as the problems are on the outside, that’s how big on the inside we have to be in order to handle it. Every unhealed place in our lives is coming up for review now, because the more healed we are within ourselves the more healing we can bring to the world.”

Marianne Williamson

Real strength always shows itself in the midst of difficulty. It looks attentive, kind, caring, vulnerable, empathetic, and loving. It feels solid. It does not need to manipulate or mislead. This kind of strength lies within all of us.

The way to be outstanding in your life is to honor, support, reinforce, and display your best self often. If that is your intention, you will succeed no matter what you achieve because you will bring peace to your life and healing to the world.

The one thing you need to quit doing is punishing yourself. Whatever you’ve done is done. Apologize, make amends, learn something, let it go. You cannot be your best until you do.

I’m all for reaching for the stars and pushing yourself and achieving great things. I’m for showing up with energy, focus, and effort. I’m for doing the very best job I can in any job I take on. I just don’t think achievement, as we currently think of it, is the best measure of a life well lived.

Leave the Past Behind

Is Bigger Always Better or Should I Channel My Inner Goldilocks?

Here’s what I’ve been pondering: Is bigger always better or should I channel my inner Goldilocks and learn to be satisfied with just right. I know, it seems obvious that just right is just right and therefore the obvious choice, but I’m surrounded by images, ads, attitudes, messages, and the occasional TEDx talk that imply, or outright state, that just right is somehow failure; that if I do not reach the absolute pinnacle of wealth, status, expertise, or achievement in my field, I will have failed to have a great career or a great life.
Versailles USA
And it seems to be no secret that I’m supposed to feel happiest when I buy a bigger house, fancier car, more expensive TV, computer, phone, coffee maker, iron, and larger lips, boobs, and these days, perhaps even booty. But I know plenty of people who have bought a bigger house or a high end car and now talk as if they’re more stressed than they were before. I have numerous friends who own the latest and greatest everything, look fabulous, and feel anxious, so anxious in fact, that they use daily medication or alcohol to take the edge off. Working in a service business for 25 years, I am also no stranger to the conversation that includes an expression of dissatisfaction with a job or spouse.

But something feels wrong to me. I understand that most of us are our own greatest limiters, so trying to inspire us to be more isn’t a bad thing on it’s own. The hard thing with all the messages encouraging excess is to determine when more becomes too much. Without tools for discernment or a different measure of enough, it’s easy to fall prey to the lure of too much and too many. Once we get on that roller coaster, nothing is enough and we certainly can’t be enough or produce enough or ever live up to our expectations. How can our spouse, our kids, our boss, or anyone, ever measure up? In this environment, how can we help but feel anxious and fearful?
Rev Run
Last fall I went to see Joseph Simmons (Rev Run) speak at a college nearby. He described a scene early in his career when he was experiencing the kind of success we’re told to strive for. Run DMC’s albums had just gone gold, platinum and then double platinum. At that point, Run’s goal became to top LL Cool J, so, his plan was to go to LA, get a presidential suite with a huge Jacuzzi tub, order French toast and smoke some weed. Then one day, he’s in LA in a presidential suite, in the Jacuzzi eating French toast and smoking weed just like he planned. As he described it, syrup was falling in the tub and ashes were falling in the tub. A guy that ordered him a Rolls Royce to rent was at the door. “Rolling Stone” magazine was at the door with a girl for him, and the hair cut guy was on the way. He had everything he had imagined as “winning”.

Then, Rev said, he had a moment of clarity. He realized that he was trying to have everything at once. He was trying to win like we’re told to win and it did not come with the good feeling he expected. That point was the beginning of his bottom, or as he said it when I saw him, his top was his bottom. To quote the way he said it on another occasion to CNN, “At that moment I took a deep breath and realized that there`s more to life than just being No. 1, pushing the other rappers down.” It was the beginning of a journey that led Rev Run to become a real reverend with a real ministry.

When I was reading “Fearless Living” by Rhonda Britten, the book instructed me to choose a list of heroes. In various versions of this list, I chose Burt Rutan, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Ben Vereen, Theodor Seuss Geisel, and Ron Clark. In the beginning, I noticed that most of my lists were full of men and none included anyone I actually knew. Was it possible that the idea of bigger is better had caused me to believe that no everyday person could possibly qualify as a hero? Even more frightening, did I believe that only men could achieve the level of hero?

By the time I’m consciously asking a question, I know I’ve already shifted my subconscious beliefs enough that I can entertain a new point of view. Today my hero list includes Michelle Knight, Elizabeth Smart, and Michelle Wilkins – all women who endured the unspeakable and emerged with a bright, sweet spirit intact. It’s that spirit that inspires me. You can’t buy it. You can’t get a degree in it. You can have it no matter what you look like. It’s available within each of us and it can be cultivated, nourished, and shared. It is a piece of wholeness.

We all have different paths to healing and wholeness. Along the way, some of us will enjoy accolades, win prizes and garner fame as the foremost achievers in our field. Some of us will receive recognition for our contributions as parents or patrons of the arts. For some of us, there will be no overt recognition. We will only know we are having a positive effect during brief moments when we feel it in another’s response to us.

No matter what my job, my social status, or my financial situation, the more whole I am, the more contentment, satisfaction, beauty, and joy I’ll be poised to experience. That sounds to me like the underpinning of a great career and a great life!
coweta
Wholeness does not require wealth, a bigger house, a high end car, a Nobel prize, a larger TV, plastic surgery, a ticket to the Super Bowl, or French toast in a presidential suite. If I am whole, I can be a hero in my life. It seems quite simple, perhaps obvious, that bigger is only bigger and better is only better when it’s just right. Now that we cleared that up, I’ll just sign off – as Goldilocks, of course!

http://www.ted.com/talks/larry_smith_why_you_will_fail_to_have_a_great_career?language=en

http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0810/10/gb.01.html

Removing Our Performance From the Context

Achieving our goals may be as simple as putting removing our performance from the context. Did you watch the World Cup wondering how the players were able to focus in spite of the incredible pressure of competing against the best of the best with the eyes of the entire world on them?
stadium
One of the secrets to success on this level is a training technique used by top athletes. That technique is to remove the task from the context. For instance, the basketball player shooting a free throw in a pressure situation has repeatedly practiced standing at a free throw line which is always the same distance from a goal that is always consistent in height and circumference, shutting his eyes, and making the shot. When he’s at the line in the last seconds of a game with his team two points behind, the player has been coached to remove the context from the task and shoot exactly like he does in practice. Use of this technique minimizes the psychological pressure of the specific situation and allows the player to perform consistently. Players who visualize and best master this concept are those who become dependable winners.

When we watch these winning athletes play, we often describe them as poised, composed, and cool under pressure. We recognize that they possess an air of confidence and we see that this gives them an advantage over their opponent. We also often believe that they are different from us. Not only are they physically superior, they must have mental superpowers or exceptional toughness. Some of us compare ourselves to these winners and determine that we can never compete at their level.

Because we know we are not professional or top tier athletes, we may fail to realize the impact on our psyche of having just compared ourselves to winners and determined we cannot measure up. Those of us who fall into the comparison trap (and to compare ourselves is always a trap) carry this judgement into our own fields of endeavor. We feel inadequate, inferior, shamed, and limited. Without even knowing it, we direct ourselves to feel afraid to step into the fullness of our own power and potential. Even so, we desire to be winners, so we try hard. Then we try harder. We work longer hours. We meet our goals, but we feel no joy. We feel no sense of accomplishment because we do not believe that we’re perfect or the best, so we do not allow ourselves to believe that our achievements count. We keep chasing perfection or promotion. We keep trying to win, but instead bend to outside pressure or begin to believe others’ perceptions of us.

We are aware enough to know that we want to feel better, so we create context designed to accomplish that purpose – We tell ourselves things like: I don’t know why my husband doesn’t realize how special I am and how much I give to everyone around me. I would have reached my sales goals if the company distributed accounts fairly. I work with a bunch of boors who have no taste and aren’t nearly as sophisticated as I am. I was on track for a promotion until my coworker started schmoozing our boss so he picked her instead. None of our assistants ever give me complete work so I spend all my time fixing their mistakes rather than excelling at my job. I always attract cheaters. I need a better job, but no one is hiring. There’s no way to have a full social life if I’m totally gluten-free. I can’t possibly find the time to cook with all the other things my family wants me to do.

This list will grow and evolve and provide the underpinning for the circular road of fear we are following. Our footsteps on this circular path get deeper and deeper. We create a groove and wear it into a smooth chute along which we glide round and round and round forward then backward again and again. Round, and round, and round, we are stuck and have disavowed ourselves of all responsibility for it. We believe we are limited by our lot in life, other’s behavior, and the curves life has thrown us. Seen in the context we’ve created, we have no control over our lives, no power to change, and sufficient reason to believe that we cannot win.

To further seal the fate we’ve created, we do one final comparison: I shouldn’t feel bad. There are lots of people who have it much worse than I do. We have sealed the deal. Since we have it better than some, and we will always believe we do, we tell ourselves we are winning. Even if we are aware that our bar has become so low that we demean, disgrace, and dishonor ourselves daily, we have created a context in which we can defiantly defend our position and hang onto our fear. On the surface, we may even manage to appear humble and noble. Surely you can see how superior we are to be sacrificing ourselves for the good of the family or the good of the business. Never mind that we’re destroying our relationships with anger or our quality of life with depression.

So what can happen if we use the athletes’ training technique and remove ourselves from the context we’ve created? Let’s say instead of pushing back against the sales manager we believe is limiting us by not giving us leads, we get to work 30 minutes early every day, or only take half of our lunch hour, and use the additional time to research and contact new prospects. Like an athlete in training, we do this every day whether we manage to set an appointment or not. We continue to do it when we are selling very little and when we are selling a lot. We are not swayed into complacency when we get the top salesman award and we are not distracted from our path when we have a slow month. Is it possible that training ourselves to keep forward momentum in good times and bad will lead to greater sales over time? Will it possibly make us feel like we have more control over our work situation? Will it possibly contribute to a calmer and more peaceful work environment when our energy is focussed on moving us forward rather than on angrily fighting an unfair system?

I will argue yes because I’ve been that new sales person more than once – the one that didn’t get an account list to work. Did I have a greater challenge than some of my co-workers? It certainly felt that way, but it also made me feel like I’d really won when I landed a good piece of business. It also gave me the training and confidence to leave my employer and start a business. It kept me going as I ran that business when I couldn’t see where the sales I really needed were going to come from. I just kept working, networking, reaching out, building relationships, and it kept paying off…eventually. It still does. While I no longer own that business, I have banked tons of great resources and goodwill that help me even now. The technique is to stick with my commitments and work toward the goal whether the crowd roars for me or against me.

I have enough perspective to know that I am not well suited to all endeavors, that I will fail and learn from that failure, that down time is critical to prolonged success, and that there will always be room for improvement. I feel happy about all of this because I trust my training and my process. These allow me to remove myself from context that would distract me and stay on course to feel powerful, peaceful, and proud of my progress.

How do you tune out distractions and stay on course?

Measures of Success

This week I’ve been pondering measures of success. Why? I have a friend who is struggling. He seems paralyzed to make a change because he believes he recently failed, as he would characterize it, for the first time.

Prior to this “failure”, he had already accomplished great things. He earned a college scholarship, received a Masters Degree, made 6 figures, had a 15-year marriage, traveled extensively, won gold medals, and mentored numerous young men. He still works hard, is an excellent salesman, blogs regularly, writes poetry, loves his children, can do numbers in his head, and behaves ethically in a cutthroat business. I simply cannot see him as a failure. He’s not.

A few years ago, he tried a business venture that didn’t work out and cost him a lot of money. Around the same time, his family situation changed; his work situation became impossible because he refused to lie about his boss. Since that time, his financial situation has deteriorated leaving him feeling powerless to do anything but scramble to try to make the next payment – rent, car, cable bill, electric bill…. He does this by working at a job that he hates in an environment that is toxic. His successes are not celebrated by his boss or coworkers.

From my point of view, he is caught in a loop that goes something like this: I feel like a failure…I could file bankruptcy and be in a better position to make a change…Everyone would see I’m a failure….I feel like a failure…I could get a new job, but it has to pay enough to get me out of my financial hole…I am not qualified for the jobs I see that pay that much so I must depend on someone to give me a break…no one has given me a break…I feel like a failure…I am not a failure…if my ex-wife were more reasonable, my financial situation would be better…she’ll never change and I have no money to legally fight her…I feel like a failure…if I had been willing to lie about my former boss, I’d still have plenty of money…I wouldn’t respect myself, but no one else would see me as a failure…it’s their fault I feel this way…it’s their fault I no longer have that job…it’s their fault I feel like a failure…as long as I   stay at a point where I am struggling, I can blame them for my bum deal…I’m not a failure, I was mistreated…I am miserable, but that is better than me being a failure…I will stay miserable…it is not my fault…I am mistreated…but I feel like a failure…I could take the initiative to change my situation, but then any possible failure would fall directly on me and I simply feel too terrified to fail again…I am a failure.

The seductive part of this loop is that there is some truth in there. He was mistreated, horribly. No one was held accountable for the maltreatment. The internet legacy of uninformed gossip that resulted still haunts him. Why does that result in him feeling like a failure and paralyzed for fear he will fail again?

Some of the blame falls on all of us and how we have come to measure success. The reason that this important is that most of us – me, you, your husband, your wife, your daughter, niece, son, cousin, best friend – run the risk of getting caught in a similar loop. The specifics will be different, but the result is the same. We sacrifice our potential best, healthiest, happiest, most loving and engaged selves to the fear that we will not measure up. We posture, pretend, acquire the outward trappings we (often correctly) believe others use to measure success and we hang onto to those while feeling miserable.

Some of us will make a valiant start out of the loop and then succumb only to start and succumb again. Some of us will attain the culture’s measure of success in our work lives, but fail in our relationships with spouses or children. Some of us will destroy our mental, physical, or spiritual health attempting to appear successful as husbands, wives, bosses, employees, and parents.

I am a less difficult person at work and with my children than I am with a partner. I know this and even now I catch myself behaving in ways that keep me from contributing to a partnership in the way I intend. Why? I feel scared. When I feel scared, I look for outward measures of what is normal or acceptable. Why? I don’t trust how I feel or am simply so caught in fear that I don’t know how I feel. Why? Because I grew up in an unsafe environment.

What I’ve had to, and continue to, learn, and what I hope for my friend to learn, is to no longer measure success in accumulation of money or possessions, working the hardest, being error free, meeting external expectations, having the right answer, having a perfect house, being the most organized, cooking the perfect dish every time, or even in great leaps forward.

My measures of success are now based on whether I stick with my intentions, give myself a break, have compassion for others, manage to be fully present in the moment, learn something when I feel I have erred, live according to my values, stay in touch with my feelings, allow myself to feel fear, practice healthy habits, tell myself the truth, say no when saying no is in line with my intentions, allow others to shift and change, fulfill my obligations, practice courage, apologize when appropriate, communicate my needs from a place of kindness, feel grateful for the lessons difficulty teaches me, celebrate progress, and make baby steps along the journey.

There are still moments I feel like a failure, but as long as I’ve learned something it is hard to get stuck there.

I’d love to hear how you measure success. Let me know in the comments section below.