A little foretaste for you:
- Why doesn’t more success mean more happiness at the same time?
- How can success affect our health?
- 3 good tips that will help you deal with success in a healthy way.
Why is this a GooodTopic for you?
We all long for success, for that feeling of happiness, that euphoria that flows through us as soon as we have reached a long-awaited goal. And so, full of hope, we strive for success in love, at work, and in other areas of our lives. Consciously or unconsciously, many people equate success with happiness, and after all we all want to be happy.
In sharp contrast is a society that has created definitions and standards of success that do not sit well with many of us. Because sometimes the psychological price of success is high, mental health suffers and the hoped-for happiness never materializes.
But why exactly is that and what can we do about it?
What exactly is happening here?
Our society quite rigorously divides people into two groups: successful and failed. At the same time, many people are told that you have to work hard for success, even fight for it. It is often suggested to us that we are not “enough”, that we have to achieve more, higher, further, faster. The perfect relationship, more money, the next promotion. If you don’t want that, you’ll quickly be accused of a lack of ambition.
And suddenly it’s there, the pressure to succeed that brings us to our knees, the fear of failure that keeps us from sleeping at night and the feeling that no matter how much we do, it just won’t be enough.
How do we relate to success?
For example, a survey by the Harvard Business Review found that one in two executives struggles with feelings of social isolation. With growing success, there is often the feeling that you are not allowed to show any weaknesses or that you have too little time for yourself.
So more success does not automatically mean more luck . But when does success actually make us happy and when does it have the opposite effect?
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What are the GooodTips for you?
1. The measure of all things – How do we measure our success?
We don’t measure temperature in kilograms, nor do we measure time in centimetres, but when it comes to the topic of success, we like to use strange standards.
Suppose you hope that success will bring you more joy, more happiness in your life. It would make sense to measure success by the joy you feel. Socially common measures of success, on the other hand, tend to be money, fame, possessions or the famous ring on your finger. However, these standards do not always say something about whether success is actually good for us or not.
A lot of money and reputation can be a success, but it doesn’t have to be. The question is always what was the price for it?
If you for your success
- suppress your feelings
- ignore your needs
- disrespecting you and allowing others to overstep your boundaries over and over again
- are not true to yourself
then achieving your goal will almost certainly not make you happy.
Success is not happiness, at least not automatically. Loneliness, stress and anxiety can also hide under the guise of success . We don’t always want success for its own sake. Perhaps the desire for success stems from the hope of compensating for self-doubt by finally feeling enough or worthwhile.
In order to make decisions that are good for you on your way to success, it is important to find standards that really measure what you are striving for.
For example, Maya Angelou once defined success as “ To be successful is to like you, to like what you do and to like how you do it ”.
2. Find a definition of success that is good for you and suits you
In order to find a suitable and healthy approach to success for you, it is worth taking a look at how you currently feel about success.
- How do I currently define success? Is this definition good for me or not?
- Does my definition of success constrain me or does it inspire me to thrive?
- How do I want success to feel? In which situations was the last time I felt good and successful?
- Are there things that I am currently trying to compensate for successfully, if so, which ones and why?
The better we know each other, the easier it is for us to make decisions on our way to success that do us good instead of harming us.
Because we are true masters at destroying a happy moment by applying false standards. We lose ourselves in how things should be, our focus on the lack, on all that we are not but think we should be.
Those who measure themselves without thinking by the standards of others may mistake their successes for failures and failures for successes.
3. Success also means making sacrifices
Success doesn’t always have to be the obvious things. Quitting a job that isn’t good for you or ending a toxic relationship can also be a success.
It can be a success to try something new, something you’ve always wanted to try, or to just put the phone down and enjoy the day. There are countless small and large successes that we should celebrate more instead of rushing on. Just press pause for a moment, enjoy the moment and be proud of what we have achieved.
Ultimately, it’s about developing an understanding of success that feels good to you, that brings you joy and motivates you.
Don’t just read it, do it! 🙌🏽
Would you like to put what you have read into practice together with others? Are you looking for people for meaningful conversations and experiences that are good for you? Then you can now easily post and find GooodTalks and GooodExperiences on goood.life.
