What is your definition of success?
Going through business school and working in Corporate America, I realized that the meaning of the word “success” has been clearly and narrowly defined. Shad Helmstetter summed it up best.
“even the wonderful word “Success” too many times has been used to mean “winning” rather than playing, being wealthy, being Number One, or driving an expensive foreign car and living in an exclusive neighborhood…But because we have been told time and time again what success is, many individuals who have been successful in their own way, mistook that definition. As a result they saw themselves as “failing” rather than succeeding.”
Defining success in this manner, as I’m learning, is detrimental to your psyche. Business schools are notorious for perpetuating this definition of success. They’re in the business of school so I get it, but by praising and elevating students who land that coveted banking gig or consulting job or earn those do$$$ar bills, schools in essence are saying we should all aim for the same goals because this is what success look like. When you buy into this and live your life to meet this definition, you continue to promote this very misguided idea of what it means to be successful.
For those who do not achieve at the same levels or choose a different path, start to see themselves as failing. Judging yourself this way is very sad and dangerous. You can quickly spiral out of control either by becoming a workhorse to earn the higher paycheck or working at places that don’t really give you what you want out of life or continuing to cater to the materialistic aspect of society.
This is something that I struggled with quite a bit after I graduated from business school. I went to school with a plan. I knew exactly what I wanted to do and for the most part where I wanted to be. But the future held a different path for me. And this path was not the one I envisioned and compared to others I had not landed the coveted job. So in my eyes I was a failure. That’s right. The girl who went to an amazing undergrad, amazing business school, worked at Fortune 500 companies, traveled around the world, has amazing family and friends thought of herself in a very negative light. Just writing this makes me feel ridiculous but it is the truth.
I continue to work through these negative feelings of failure to redefine reality. Which is that I am an AMAZING person who has achieved a lot in life already and will continue to do so because I have dreams and wishes to fulfill. Going back to the grateful exercise, I remind myself that I am grateful for all the opportunities I’ve had and I have achieved them on my own.
I continue to remind myself of the success that I’ve had. Professionally I have yet to reach my full potential (and I am working on it) but I have succeeded in many ways. I moved to a new city all on my own and established a life, made new friends, participated in new activities and overall learned to thrive outside my comfort zone. I grew as a person because during my summer internship I wallowed in misery. So this change was a HUGE success. The fact that I became self aware and realized that there was a healthier way to deal with isolation and loneliness is succeeding.
What I continue to grapple with is letting go of the noise of how other people think I should live my life, how they define a “successful” life for me. This is the harder part for me because growing up in a culture where parents have high expectations, especially of their oldest child, and being part of an immigrant class that is well educated and wealthy and therefore has a mentality to show this wealth as a sign of success, learning to let go of these expectations and tendencies is proving to be more difficult than I ever anticipated.
The messaging we receive is that we need to find our way in life quickly. We need to figure out our path and in most cases this is an upward path. This is the old mentality of thought. Success is upwards mobility in career, family, money, real estate so when the reality does not match up to the messaging, it makes people feel like failures. And this is what I am learning to overcome. Life isn’t just one path, its many paths. And you have to work to lay down the cement for that path. While painful I would rather do this backbreaking (or mind breaking) work now then look back years from now and feel lost.
Before I spiral into using more metaphors, the point I want to get back to is… success isn’t “winning”, its trying. It’s playing the game. And I intend to continue exploring my life and listen to my voice, not others.