If success hurts it isn't success
“People with success aren’t allowed to be unhappy with their lives is a lesson we refuse to learn. ”
This is something I heard the other day on a podcast that struck me as a lie, not something that should be normalized.
We refuse to learn this thing because it isn’t true. If you are successful but unhappy, you aren’t successful. If you are winning but feel like you are losing, you aren’t winning at the right things. If you have a list of accomplishments but your regrets haunt you, you didn’t accomplish the wisest things.
But I understand why the perspective would resonate with folks. Because if I am doing the things I think equate to success but I still don’t feel good. It’s more comfortable to believe I am unhappy for a reason other than because I didn’t achieve the correct version of success.
I prefer to ask others to be empathetic to my pain rather than to ask myself the more challenging self-exploration questions, which may cause me to discover I have been winning at the wrong things.
We need to differentiate mental illness. It can and does impact people from all walks of life. It is sad. If you need help reach out for help. There is no shame in working hard to be mentally healthy. But this was not the context of the statement in the podcast.
I have a different perspective.
You can achieve a pile of results, accolades, or achievements but still not be winning.
When you score a goal in soccer in your own net they don’t disallow the goal, and you will be reported in the news as having scored a goal, but scoring the goal probably didn’t feel the way you thought it would. You may even score the goal that causes you to lose the game.
A different approach for a different perspective
Winning at life requires you to have overall well-being. Well-being is being personally healthy physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and relationally.
This requires three things
An intentional approach to defining success. A definition that you pick for yourself.
Ask yourself where your definition of success came from?
Ask yourself why this definition of success matters to you.
An intentional plan for achieving the results that help you achieve your definition of success.
Ask yourself what results you can achieve to feel successful?
Ask yourself what you need to do to achieve these results?
Healthy relationships.
Ask yourself if you have 2-5 close personal relationships.
Ask yourself or the other person how good the relationship is going?
Long term winning also requires you to have habits in place to help you achieve your definition of success in a sustainable way.
Ask yourself what habits you need to start?
Ask yourself what habits you need to stop or change?
Conclusion
Truly successful people are achieving a definition of success that they develop for themselves, and they are intentional about the way they achieve and measure success. Truly succession people are filled with joy, not regret. Truly successful people aren’t comparing their success against others because they don’t care; they know success can’t be measured in comparison to others only through comparing today’s version of you to yesterdays.