Tag: Success

Our Default Measurement of Success

Posted on by jabittan
Through my journey of self awareness and growth I have had to adjust my definition of success many times. As I have had new opportunities and as I have thoroughly reflected on myself and others it has been crucial for me to reconsider what success looks like. In his book Considerations Colin Wright examines the same thoughts and feelings that I have worked through. “In the post-Industrial Revolution world, money has become the default unit of measurement for growth and success and personal evolution.”

Wright explains that we fall back on income as a way of objectively measuring ourselves relative to others because it is a simple and common unit between everyone.  How much money we make, however, is not the greatest measurement to determine success, growth, and the quality of ones life. It is easy to imagine that you have moved forward in a positive direction by increasing your income, but it is possible that the direction in which you moved is limiting you in other ways: creativity, spending time with family, giving back, and maintaining social connections could be limited as one makes sacrifices to obtain more money.

Continuing on, Wright states that using money to judge the success of others is a mistake because not all of us shoot for increased wealth as our main goal. It is hard to judge ourself against others if we define success as a certain income level, the ability to purchase a certain car, or the size of the home we can afford, when those we judge ourselves against view success as increased knowledge, increased visibility in their field, or happiness in their relationships at home. Money also is a terrible way to judge our success because of the vast differences in our backgrounds and family histories.  If having a lot of money is our measure of success, then many people are successful by default thanks to a fortunate birth.

Comparing ourselves to others based on money sets us up for frustration and disappointment. Not having the best car, the biggest home, and the biggest pay check can frustrate us and make us feel inadequate. When we change success to align with our internal values and ideas we begin to work toward better goals. Rather than comparing ourselves based on an external measure that we don’t have direct control over, we begin to judge ourselves based on value that we create for areas of our life that have true meaning.  This means that we will not pursue the car we cannot afford or the house that is too large and we wont flaunt our financial success. Rather than pressuring ourselves into certain boxes, when we remove money from success, we are able to strive toward goals that help us develop in meaningful ways.

The End Goals of our Goals

Posted on by jabittan
Colin Wright focuses on self awareness throughout his book Considerations and he turns that inward focus toward our goals and desires for life.  Specifically he writes about bucket list items and goals we aspire to reach.  What Wright explains is that we often set up goals with the hopes of impressing other people. Our goals are chosen not because we actually want to achieve them or because we desire the things that come with reaching that goal, but instead we choose our goals based on how impressive they sound or how they will make us look relative to our peers. When comparing actual goals to bucket list items Wright states, “…rather than cataloging goals we actually have aspirations to achieve, we list things that are very impressive and intense-sounding for the sake of being associated with those types of activities.” What Wright is establishing is the idea that we are not focusing on ourselves in goal setting, but what others want or expect from us.

 

Wright continues to explain the difference between choosing goals that are for yourself rather than for others and ends this chapter in his book with the following, “in short, make sure your goals are for you, not for others’ perception of your. This applies to all goals, not just those on some sort of bucket list.”

 

I want to share this quote, or perhaps the entire section of Wright’s book, with every high school and college student in the country. So often it is easy to have expectations in your mind about what success is, but that vision of success does not always align with who you truly are, and what you truly desire.  Pushing towards success by achieving what others have decided is a worthy definition of success, as opposed to understanding and creating your own definition of success, can lead you down paths that are not enjoyable and do not lead to happiness.

 

For me, a major challenge throughout college was developing the self awareness to understand what visions of success I had and where those visions came from.  Growing up watching Top Gear had build success in my mind as a fancy sports car, and growing up in a nice house gave me certain expectations for how success translated into a home.  Evaluating myself and what my definition of success was allowed me to understand what was important in life and what was not. Once I decided that I did not need to achieve a certain monetary level of success, drive sports cars, or live in a giant house, much of the stress I felt melted away.  It is difficult to look inward and understand what sets the foundation for the goals we have, and it is even more difficult to begin to develop those goals on our own without feeling the pressure of what society and family expect from us.

High Performers

Posted on by jabittan
Throughout his book Considerations, author Colin Wright provides his audience with little pieces of advice from his observations about the world. His chapters are all short essays about a given subject ranging from branding, to personal development, to habits, and self awareness. What I really enjoy about each essay is that the insights and advice offered is not limited to just the topic being written about. His thesis and his interesting points can often be taken and applied to multiple areas of life.

 

In a short essay titled “Default to Action” Wright writes about how easy it is for us to hear about something interesting and plan to return to that interesting idea, but get distracted and never remember to look into it. He writes that our default when our interest is peaked should be to immediately act upon our interest and (in most cases) to dive deeper, finding more information. By acting in this way we avoid distracting cat videos and push ourselves to investigate and learn.

 

Towards the end of his essay is a brief section that I find to be an incredible idea for one to apply to life, relationships, and ones career, “One distinction between high-performers and those who tend to lurk around the middle or sub-average is that the former are willing to expend energy to pursue that which they’re not told to pursue…”

 

Recently at work I have been working to bring in more self awareness to my actions and habits with the hope of becoming better at what I do. Part of my goals is to stand out to have more opportunities in the future, and part of my goal is to simply do the best work possible.  When I look back at my performance and daily routine, I see areas where my lack of a default to action has left me in the middle or average range as an employee.

 

A way that I have found to motivate myself in changing behavior is to examine the identity that I want to have. If I see myself as a high performer and want to be a standout, it is helpful to imagine that identity and consider my decisions and actions as they apply to the identity I want. If I want to be a high-performer my identity should contain the default to action personality explained by Wright. Eliminating distractions can often be outside of my control, but acting immediately rather than procrastinating is within my control and can push me towards the identity I want. With the goal being to achieve a specific identity I am not driving towards a promotion or good evaluation, but instead I am working on character and habits, knowing that the benefits and rewards will follow.

 

Wright’s book is a philosophy book, but like the quote above, many of the examples and pieces of advice offered can be used and applied throughout life. This quote also fits in with relationships, organization and stress management, and academic pursuits. By reading Wright’s book with an open mind, the opportunities to connect new dots abound.

That Brilliant Idea

Posted on by jabittan
Colin Wright writes about getting great ideas out of our head and into the world in his book Considerations, and he hits on all of the roadblocks that  keep our ideas locked away in our imagination.  He addresses the fear we have with bringing our ideas out of our mind and into the world to understand why so many great ideas never materialize.  When I first read through his book I highlighted a section reading, “…scared that perhaps our secret gift for money-making/cancer-curing/potato-chip-flavoring isn’t a gift at all, but just our own arrogance convincing us that we’re something special, when we’re not.”  I highlighted this section because it shows how easily in our minds we can begin to over inflate ourselves thinking we are special and amazing even though we have not accomplished anything.  That is not to say that the only value and measure of our worth is in our accomplishments, but it takes a level of self awareness to see that we are not special simply for having good ideas, or simply because we like the way we think. What can make us great, standout, and feel a level of accomplishment is taking the ideas we have and building upon them. Once we get those ideas out into the world and start working to actualize our thoughts, the special magic flows.

 

Wright addresses why our brilliant ideas often times stay locked in our heads, “The problem with great ideas is that they feel very valuable, and as such are something we want to protect … Part of why we do this is that we’re very proud of ourselves when we have good ideas, part is that we don’t want a competitor equipped with full financial-backing to steal it before we’re ready to act, and part is that we’re scared.”  With my own ideas I have faced all of these challenges.  I am often afraid of acting on my ideas because they may require additional work for me and that I spend extra time focusing on creating my idea rather than lazy leisure activities.  The fear of extra work and difficult challenges is a fear that I have yet to truly confront and overcome, but it is one that I believe I can change with a certain amount of self-awareness.

 

Wright also addresses the idea that another person may steal our idea before it is ready, which makes many of us think that it is better not to discuss our idea with people.  This fallacy can be damaging because it limits our ability to find those who could help us. When we are afraid of telling others about our idea then we miss an opportunity to have someone connect us with other people who can help us, and we miss a chance to have another person’s perspective on our plan. What we may find when we tell as many people about our idea as possible is that there are holes in our plan that other innovators can help us bridge in creative ways.

 

Wright offers one other thought on ideas and why we lock them away in our mind. He believes that we are often too enamored with our idea to let others poke holes in our theories. He states, “…scared that the idea might not be as good as it seems in the variable-less vacuums of our brains.” In our own minds we cannot see the shortcomings of our ideas, or perhaps we just chose not to see the weaknesses of our thoughts. Locked away in our own mind, the idea is pristine and perfect, but once we begin to tell others about our plan it is in danger of being ripped open.  Successful entrepreneurs would tell us that having others challenge aspects of our ideas is a crucial part of success, but on an individual level this can seem to be too much of a threat.

 

Wright encourages us to overcome this anxiety and fear by looking for abundance. Expecting that we will have more great ideas, better opportunities, and more chances to work on ideas in the future can help us feel more comfortable as we begin to develop our ideas. Seeing the success or failure of any idea as a stepping stone makes it seem smaller, reducing the gravity of a potential failure.  If we can approach an idea as a chance to grow, knowing that we will have an abundance of opportunities to act on another ideas or fit in with an existing idea in the future, then we are not paralyzed by the fear of executing an idea.

Successful Growth

Posted on by jabittan
In the book Act Accordingly author Colin Wright dives into ideas surrounding confidence and surfaces with a unique definition of success.  His views on success leave materialistic desires behind, and escape the common trap of comparing ourselves to others.  The author writes:

     “Wining is a word that has a slightly different meaning for truly confident people.  Rather than it being a declaration of their superiority over others, it’s an acknowledgement that they’ve worked hard and improved upon a skill they’ve been cultivating.  It means they’re better at something than they used to be, and the only comparison drawn is between their present self and how they were before victory.
     In this way every race is against oneself.  Every exam, challenge faced, and successful sale is an indication of personal growth, not one’s place in society.”

My first thought when I came across this section from Wright is that confident people have a different way of defining success by looking at success as personal growth.  What is fantastic about this definition is that it puts success in our own hands, and makes success something that everyone can achieve.  We do not have to decide to the best in the world at any one thing, but if we focus on continually growing, learning, and improving in everything we do, we will have success.

The entire idea of success being our own personal growth is an idea that I find incredibly calming and reassuring.  Wright’s philosophy on success takes the pressure off of monetary gains and external comparisons to those around us and instead turns success into a more personal desire.  When we compare ourselves to others we become envious and frustrated by what others have or do.  It is difficult to see the differences in our backgrounds, and how those differences lead us to unique outcomes.  Some people may be in positions where they can practice more on certain skills to achieve our goals faster than us. Some people will have more money and be able to obtain more material items than we can, but neither of these examples truly shows another person to be more successful and more valuable than us.  We can only focus on our own goals and our own growth, and as long as we improve on something daily, we will be successful.  This requires a great deal of self awareness to be able to examine the time we have, how we spend that time, and just what it is that we want to grow toward.  Knowing where we are placing our time and effort will help us shape how we grow, and where our successes will be.

A Full Life: Challenges, Failures, and Successes

Posted on by jabittan
Writing about facing life’s challenges and accepting failure Colin Wright in his book Act Accordingly states, “Living life to the fullest is not about winning every time and avoiding the aspects of life that prove too onerous.  Its about unabashedly facing challenges, failures, and yes, even successes with a smile, moving ever-forward toward a more ideal lifestyle and a better version of yourself.” This quote addresses progress and maximizing our life by not shying away and avoiding the difficult parts of life that we think we may not be ready for or that we may want to avoid because we know they require a lot of hard work.  Achieving goals and building connections and relationships with others lead to a more fulfilling and happy life, but often times it is a lot of work to reach our goals or put ourselves in situations where we meet new people.

 

In my life I have struggled with the idea of moving toward goals and ideas that I know will require a lot of work and effort.  It is hard to find extra time to put in the work that is required to be engaged in extra projects that help build meaning in our lives.  For me, there have been many times where I have feared the hard work required to overcome a challenge or work toward a goal, and I have instead moved in different directions. I first recognized this in college when looking at what majors I would chose, and it has continued to haunt me in smaller decisions and ideas ever since.  What Wright would suggest for me is that I do not focus so much on the outcome or how challenging it will be to reach the point I am shooting for, but understand that regardless of whether I succeed or fail, the important thing is that I am engaging.  Wright would tell me that in order to grow I need to recognize challenges and understand the difficulties associated with them, and move towards them with a strong desire to perform well. His message is a bit trite as we tell ourselves that not everyone will win every time, but actually applying that and accepting it in our own lives is important if we want to accept that we won’t always be ready to perfectly handle all of our challenges.

 

What Wright explains in his chapter about failure is that it is never permanent.  We hit roadblocks and challenges that we are not always ready for.  We should not expect that we are always going to be able to handle every situation we face, but by putting ourselves out in the world and accepting the hard work instead of running away from it, we will build more skills through experience.  These skills which may develop from failure will allow us to make better decisions in the future. It will be challenging but by not allowing ourselves to quit we can learn and move forward as a better version of ourselves.

Working Hard in the 21st Century

Posted on by jabittan
In the book Act Accordingly, author Colin Wright provides his thoughts on our hyperconnected and hardworking society.  Wright comments on the pride we have in hard work, and how that has translated into praise for those who work 100 hour weeks and toil through difficult paths to reach their journey. Rather than advocate for the traditional path of ever increasing responsibility and hard work, he encourages a different path, which runs in contrast to our thoughts about always being connected and always working. I have come across the idea through multiple podcasts that I listen to with Debbie Millman in a podcast called Design Matters where she called hard work, long hours, and responding to emails at 3 a.m. “a badge of honor”.  What Wright begins to argue is that this work is not the most useful work, because it is often not the most productive.  He writes, “for some reason we treat ‘hard work’ as if it’s an end unto itself, rather than a means to an end,” showing how focused we are on the hard work we do, and not where that hard work takes us or the outcome of that hard work.  He also writes, “Is it noble to work 100 hours a week to accomplish what could be done in 40? Is it virtuous to spend 40 hours hours on a project that could be delivered in 10?”
I think that once we get into the working world and start to build our careers many of us become super focused on reaching a better position and a better salary and in the end we make sacrifices in our personal life so that our work can be the best. This is certainly not a bad thing, and making sacrifices to help grow in your professional life is important, but Wright is arguing that the sacrifices you make should be temporary. Once you adopt the idea that you must always work hard you will have prepared yourself for success, however, hard work in isolation and hard work that does not provide results is not the best use of your time. It is not worth making personal sacrifices to work hard on something that does not reward nor advance your life in a fully rounded way.  As Debbie Millman put it, having a hard work ‘badge of honor’ does not help you if it means that you are getting less sleep, becoming less productive, and losing the ability to be connected to health, family, and spirituality.
The second part of the quote from Wright shows the better alternative to our ideas of hard work. When we value quantity over quality we look at people with incredibly high work loads and praise them. We look at our colleagues who work super long hours  with praise. Unfortunately, quantity does not always correlate with success. If long hours of work diminish the overall value of the final product and if large workloads delay the final product or fill it with errors, then what did the completion of the large workload accomplish?  Wright is encouraging us to not work in a way that places a high value on the quantity of what we do. His quotes show that productivity versus activity should be our main goal, and that we should value those who are able to complete work with high quality in shorter time frames, rather than focus on dragging things out and appearing to constantly be working in a frenzy.

Peace and Creativity

Posted on by jabittan
In his book 59 Seconds psychologist Richard Wiseman evaluated research on how to maximize our time to bring about the desired results that we want in our lives.  He examined everything from creativity, to success, and happiness.  When researching creativity Wiseman found that our environment and emotional feelings toward our environment played a large role in our creativity.  Wiseman writes, “When people feel worried, they become very focused, concentrate on the task at hand, become risk-averse, rely on well-established habits and routines, and see the world through less-creative eyes.  In contrast when people feel at ease in a situation, they’re more likely to explore new and unusual ways of thinking and behaving, see the bigger picture, take risks, and think and act more creatively.”

 

I think this is a powerful section from Wiseman and one that I wish I could share with every business leader. Encouraging employees to be more creative and push for new ideas can help a company grow and succeed, but many employers don’t give their employees a chance to be creative, and they expect them to be in simple boxes where their routine is set and their actions are limited.  Focusing on your employees environment and attitude can help an employer create a place where employees are more at ease and able to think more creatively to build better habits and produce better results. I am currently reading Return on Character by Fred Kiel, and the thesis of his work is that leaders and CEO’s who focus on building an organization focused around integrity, honesty, and forgiveness provide greater returns for their companies, employees, and stakeholders.  When we consider Wiseman’s quote about people becoming more creative in relaxed environments, we can see how Kiel’s CEO’s who create those environments become more successful.  By maintaining a strong moral character a CEO can create a space where employees feel welcomed to perform their best and are not restricted in their actions and approaches to greatness.

 

However, I am afraid that sharing this quote with every business leader could backfire.  Those employers who do not see their employees as being in creative positions may read that quote and think that they can put their employees under pressure to have them focus better on the single task at hand as opposed to being distracted by the people and environment around them.  The quote could be read to suggest that developing well established habits and putting employees into risk-averse mindsets may be useful for employees who work specific and routine jobs.  This idea falls flat when you think about wanting to be a company that excels, with employees that excel at every position, especially if that employee performs any sort of customer service function.  Encouraging the creativity of employees by helping them fee comfortable and relaxed at work will lead to better results when employees are free to be creative and break away from ordinary habits.  When they are worried they will not risk trying something new in their daily routine and will never develop a habit that could drastically improve the quality of the work they produce.

 

In the end, I think we need to try and understand creativity as being something that we all have access to.  Wiseman’s quote shows that building supportive environments and bing at ease helps people become more creative. Those who deal with a high amount of anxiety tend to display a less creative vision and provide less innovation.

Tips for Visualization

Posted on by jabittan
In his book 59 Seconds, Think a Little Change a Lot, Richard Wiseman debunks many myths about how to be effective, institute change in your life, and achieve your goals.  Wiseman is a professor of psychology at the University of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom.  He studied the scientific literature searching for journal articles that outlined experiments related to the ideas in many self help books to see exactly which ideas and techniques had any true value.

 

Early on in his book Wiseman explains an often referred to study done at Harvard University.  In the study young men were asked if they had written down their goals for life, and then they were followed throughout their journey and their success levels were measured.  Incredibly the 3% of students who had clearly written out their goals had become more wealthy and successful than the other 97% combined.  This is a powerful story for visualization, goal setting, and writing out exactly what you want, but Wiseman explains that this study never happened.  He went searching for the research and the actual scientific journal article from the study, only to find out that it was all just a popular myth.

 

Wiseman then decided to look into what goal setting and visualization practices had been scientifically shown to produce results.  His findings for visualization are as follows:

 

“According to the researchers, visualizing the process of studying proved especially effective at reducing exam-related anxiety and helped students better plan and manage their workload.  Subsequent research has shown that the same effect occurs in several different areas, with, for example, tennis players and golfers benefiting far more from imagining themselves training than winning.”

 

The first study mentioned in Wiseman’s quote involved college students and their testing and studying strategies.  Psychologists Lien Pham and Shelly Taylor asked groups of students to either visualize themselves receiving a good grade on a test, or they asked them to visualize themselves studying so that they would get a good grade on the test.  This who visualized themselves acing the exam studied less and received worse grades than those who pictured themselves working hard and studying well.

 

Wiseman continues to explain that visualization has been shown to be even more powerful when we view ourselves from the third person perspective, as if we were someone else watching our actions.  Work by Lisa Libby at Ohio State University showed that individuals who viewed themselves going to the polls to vote were more likely to actually go vote if they pictured themselves from a third person perspective rather than from their own point of view.

 

The research seems to suggest that visualizing the process from a third person perspective as opposed to visualizing the outcome is more useful.  We will all hit hurdles and need a certain amount of grit to persevere, and Wiseman’s research shows us how to incorporate that “grit” mindset.  Visualization practices give us is the chance to imagine ourselves working hard to push past the obstacles and put in the effort necessary to reach our goals.  Focusing on just the outcome may drive motivation, but when the outcome seems to shift or be out of reach we can become more depressed than motivated, and we are more likely to abandon our path. Looking ahead and picturing the hurdles and seeing ourselves press through the hard work is the secret to visualization that gives us the grit needed for success.

The Importance of Happiness

Posted on by jabittan
Following the introduction of his book 59 Seconds, Richard Wiseman starts chapter 1 with an exploration of why it is important to be happy.  He explains a study by Sonja Lyubomirsky at the University of California that reviewed hundreds of studies regarding happiness to find what was common between them all.  One thing her team found is that happiness does not just result from success, but in many ways it actually causes success.  Wiseman summed up Lyubomirsky’s research by writing, “happiness makes people more sociable and altruistic, it increases how much they like themselves and others, it improves their ability to resolve conflict, and it strengthens their immune systems.”

 

Wiseman’s book dives into the science of the ideas and strategies in self help books.  Many of the books are meant to increase happiness, even if their main goal is to help someone in a specific area.  Becoming a better leader, achieving financial peace, and becoming more self aware all have an end goal of helping someone reach a more happy state of mind.  Wiseman starts his book with this quote to show just how important happiness can be, and why we all strive for it.  His quote shows that those who are happy are able to have more personal and engaged relationships, perform better in their career, and live healthier.  The question he sets out to explore is what methods for improving happiness have a scientific backing behind them.

 

I enjoy the quote from Wiseman that sums up Lyubomirsky’s findings because I think it is something we all understand.  I think that we can all vision a happy version of ourselves, and that version does have meaningful relationships with a long and healthy life at the center.  The quote also shows me that it is not a bad thing to try and understand this happiness to a greater extent through reading.  Often times reading self help books carries a certain stigma, but with the importance of happiness, there is no reason not to try and understand happiness and its ties with success.