Ideas of Success Morph by Life Stages

Karl Follen, a man of great moral strength and intellectual power said,

“I have found that it is much easier to make a success in life than to make a success of one’s life”.

His words sum up a profound truth that many of us don’t discover until our golden years. But why does it take the better part of a lifetime to define success on our own terms – to see that worldly success comes at too high a price if it is not aligned with how we want to live? I suspect that we unwittingly fall prey to material success but that our initial ideas about success morph throughout our life stages and situations.

Where are you in any of the six major life stages that I’ve defined below?

1. Surviving (hand to mouth)
2. Striving (fire in the belly or climbing the ladder)
3. Arriving (promotion, title)
4. Thriving (accolades, hitting stride)
5. Resigning (over it, burned out)
6. Re-designing (creating, re-equilibrating or re-inventing)

The saying, “life is meant to be lived forward but understood backwards” certainly applies to how I progressed through the life stages that I’ve named according to what it felt like going through them…the alliteration was simply to amuse myself and to soothe some of the sting associated with the struggles of each stage.  Only in retrospect can I understand that my humble beginnings drove a deep-seated need to prove something to myself and others during the striving and arriving years.  I came down with “affluenza” in my 30s (as many do) and sought what Alain DeBotton calls “social love” – promotions, titles, or wealth due to our desire for approval and respect.  I also fell prey to what Paul Stiles points out in his book, “Is the American Dream Killing You?” by having all of the outward trappings but little satisfaction and inner peace.

Striving for success is a very worthy pursuit but we cannot realize success with the mental health and life satisfaction needed to enjoy it IF (to paraphrase DeBotton) when we finally achieve it we realize that it wasn’t what we truly wanted all along.  For me, there would be no waiting for the golden years – at 36 during the pinnacle of my career when I had made a worldly success in life, I was given the tragic gift of perspective upon learning that my 39 year old brother had died.  Overnight, I realized that climbing the corporate ladder wasn’t what I wanted all along.  Suddenly my definition of success was clear – it was always about my core values. I just wanted self-actualization through helping and serving others. This clarity has been fundamental in being true to myself – to live and to work more authentically.

Karl Follen was quite right…it is easier to create success in life. I have personally found it more challenging and ultimately gratifying to live what I define as a successful life. No matter what life stage we are in – just having that perspective can help to provide clarity for living a life of purpose, on purpose.

What life lessons can you share?

• Have you been through several or all of the life stages and back again?

• Do we first need to achieve title, pay, possessions before we can “get over it” or get over ourselves – transcend the desire?

• What hard lessons would you share with those in the surviving, striving, arriving stages or any of the others?

Write, Produce and Direct Your Own Destiny Program(ming)

I counted down the days in anticipation of my first appointment with the junior high school guidance counselor…only fourteen days before the secrets to achieving my goal of gaining admission to medical school would be revealed.

As outlet for my enthusiasm during what seemed like an eternity before meeting with “the wise one”,  I kept busy compiling a portfolio of clippings to demonstrate my credibility and abilities.

When the appointed day f-i-n-a-l-l-y came, I could barely breathe from excitement.  I counted the hours, waited in line and had barely planted myself in the seat before pronouncing that I really, truly wanted to be a doctor.  The counselor was silent and just cocked his head the way a dog might when confused or curious.  He leaned in and broke the pregnant pause with thunderous laughter.  Not the mocking laughter that might just  take the wind out of my sails – a laugh that created the sickening suffocation feeling that you may recall as a kid when you got the wind knocked out of you from rough-housing.

Despite reeling from shock and confusion, it only took moments before I begin peppering him with questions in hopes of understanding.  His reply then was, “Well, kiddo, pretty girls don’t need to work”… while he leaned in and literally patted me on the head!  Ignoring his crass compliment, I continued to press for an answer.  I talked about being an honor student, showed him my portfolio of A+ science essays and the bibliography of healthcare books that I had voraciously read as a hobby.  After this round of pestering and proof he said, “Well… if you HAVE to work, you might consider being a secretary or a nurse”.  He glanced at his watch -  I realized that I was running out of time and panicked.  That’s when I blurted out, “I just don’t understand why what’s between my legs counts more than what’s between my ears”!

The experience may help explain some fierce feminism on my part but to this day, I don’t know where the words came from or who was more shocked; I still marvel that at 13 (or any age) I uttered them;  I vividly recall that this was the first time my ears burned with indignation and embarrassment.  We both stared at the floor – he cleared his throat and rose to his feet.  There was a long and awkward silence as the “wise one” led the “wise mouth” to the door.

It took years before I realized that my counselor was more classist than sexist.  It never occurred to me that my parent’s divorce and my subsequent move to a public housing project was virtually a life sentence.  But I, like so many of us (especially children) had allowed his judgment to “program” my beliefs, self-esteem, goals, and limitations.

A burning desire to learn, stretch, and grow made me too restless to stay tuned to my counselor’s program.  I began to change the channel and eventually tuned in a “station in life” and a program that I owned.  Here, I could be the writer, producer, director, and lead actor in a program called, “Your Lot in Life”.  This melodrama and occasional sitcom is about an underprivileged kid who refused to park on her lot in life and instead, became a JobLife Architect determined to excavate, renovate, and build on her lot.  In fact, this slice of my life helped me begin to create the JobLife Architect philosophy.

We alone must define and design our own success

Or life may happen TO us

Instead of THROUGH us.

You cannot “choose” to change the channel until you identify the programming preventing you from building on “Your Lot In Life”.

What limiting ideas have you gotten from parents, teachers, friends, lovers, family?  They are often off-handed comments stated in frustration by those we trust when we are so young that we cannot filter or analyze their veracity -so, they become a part of our subconscious script.  They often sound like: “You can’t do anything right” – “You’re stupid or bad at math” – You’re lazy or You’ll never amount to anything”. They may be more innocent or far worse but that’s not as important as how we continue to allow the messages to auto-loop in our heads.  We become victims of the unwanted messages like the frequent commercials that we find irritating yet cannot help but recall – argh, like the 1-800- Empire carpets jingle just sprang to mind!  Only with maturity and experience can we examine and question them:  Is every one of the judgments and beliefs about you, your character, abilities or limitations based in fact or reality?  Which have a kernel of truth but became your reality program because they were repeated so much that you lived down to the expectation?  Which still haunt you as negative,  “I told you so” self-talk just waiting for you to trip up? 

Which of these negative beliefs…

• Are not true at all or any longer?
• Inhibit your self-confidence?
• Limit your hopes, dreams or goals?
• Have become a self-fulfilling prophecy?
• Drive you to gain promotions and titles or material success to prove them wrong?
• Need to be censored before they do harm (like an F-bomb or Janet’s wardrobe malfunction)? Do you have a delay mechanism like meditation to allow you to consider before acting on your thoughts?
• Should be edited or re-scripted?

Will you share examples of when you junked the program, wrote your own program, or when you took control of the remote and changed the channel?

Do You Have a Water Cooler Rap Sheet?

When people would complain I would give them an ear, and when the complaints morphed into a bitch-fest, the younger me might even happily join them.  But as soon as the rants turned to gossip, I would disappear.  I don’t think that anyone really knew how I felt about it;  I guess my approach was a bit like the military’s don’t ask/don’t tell policy.  I was blissfully happy not to know about the swirling dirt but I also realized that not being “clued-in” could potentially put me at a political disadvantage.  I decided that I would have to live with the handicap.

The first Christmas after my divorce in 1994, my friend and admin at the time came over to help me put up my tree.  The work was pretty tiring but we kibbitzed about a little of everything, laughed, and drank wine the whole time.  It was well after midnight when exhaustion and a snoot full of wine got her to gossiping.  I was able to change the subject several times but she would return to the next bit of scoop.  On a whim, it occurred to me that if I couldn’t escape the gossip, I should ask what people are saying about me.  To my astonishment, she lit up and said, “Ohhh…yeah, there’s one about you, and it’s a doozie”.  She went on to chuckle and tell me that anyone who knew me would find it absurdly funny or  set the record straight or both, as she did.

Whether you chose to engage in the water cooler gossip or disengage from it,  you cannot avoid making the rap sheet – it’s where your reputation is formed.  Sure, it’s helpful to have friends that will take your back if you are ever a gossip victim.  The more  serious consideration is, “it’s hard to play in the dirt without getting dirty” – and we rarely know who our friends are when careers or promotions are at stake.  If we stay and play in the swirling dirt, we need to be prepared for the water cooler rap to become a messy mud bath.

• Do you stay for the juicy gossip and if so, are you able to resist the pressure to comment or contribute?

• How often does criticism of management get back to them, including who said it?

• Have you ever had something that you said to “trusted” colleagues come back to bite you?