Success Is a Dead End
Success Is a Dead End
Consider this quote from author Dan Millman (The Way of the Peaceful Warrior):
"If you don't get what you want, you suffer; if you get what you don't want, you suffer; even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can't hold on to it forever. Your mind is your predicament. It wants to be free of change. Free of pain, free of the obligations of life and death. But change is a law, and no amount of pretending will alter that reality."
The problem with achieving 'success' derives from the fact that, as an adult, your definition of 'success' is too limited. However, this realization doesn't really hit home until midlife. If you've been successful, there's a good probability that you're going to (or already have) run into one of two unsettling situations. These come upon you when you've achieved a certain mastery in your field. In the first scenario, the pressure is immediately on you to surpass yourself. Not only do you have the face the onset of boredom ('been there, done that, bought the tee-shirt), but you also quickly become aware that there are younger, brighter, even more ambitious people than you chasing behind you. What happens to your success when you've been overtaken by people more successful than you?
The second scenario can be even more painful. It occurs when your drive to succeed allows you to attain your highest goals. Only then do you have the opportunity to stop and look around. You may even allow yourself to feel your feelings about what you've achieved. Those pesky emotions tend to flood in around the onset of midlife. What happens to you when you look at your success and feel only disgust? Very often, when people have achieved their goals they discover that the achievement didn't bring them what they thought it would or, even worse, that it did bring them what they thought it would, and it wasn't what they really wanted, after all. The French have a great word to describe that feeling: ennui. It describes a feeling beyond boredom — all the way to emptiness.
Is there a cure for ennui? I think so, and midlife presents exactly the context we need to embark on it. You can only break open the dead end of success by redefining it for yourself. The superficial definitions that you inherited from your childhood need to be revisited. You need to go much more deeply into the bigger questions of life. This is essentially a spiritual quest, and can't genuinely be satisfied by anything less. Until you're prepared to take a serious look at the core purpose of your life, you'll be left chasing after one unsatisfying 'success' goal after another. Your real purpose (I prefer the term 'destiny') can't be confined to a simple definition because, as Millman suggested our opening quote, 'purpose', 'destiny', and 'success' are all dynamic terms: they evolve even as you pursue them.
It takes courage to undertake a spiritual quest because it means giving up forever the hope of finding 'the answer'. Every choice you make in life changes the question. Yet, on a truly spiritual quest, there's no possibility of ennui because there's no fixed 'goal' to attain. You can never become obsolete and surpassed by other younger, brighter, and more ambitious people, because your spiritual path belongs to you alone. You are the one and only expert in being you. Do you have what it takes to face the midlife challenge: to become the person you were always meant to be?
Success Is a Dead End - To learn more about this author, visit Les Brown's Website.
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'Be careful what you pray for, 'cause you just might get it.' Have you ever heard that saying? In my opinion, it so perfectly describes the pitfalls of adulthood. Keep in mind that I have what I think is quite a unique definition for 'adulthood': childhood without the parental constraints. The dreams of the young adult are very often a mixture of the soul's passion with a child's naieveté. It's the latter that can land you in an emotional soup around the onset of the midlife transition.
Consider this quote from author Dan Millman (The Way of the Peaceful Warrior):
"If you don't get what you want, you suffer; if you get what you don't want, you suffer; even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can't hold on to it forever. Your mind is your predicament. It wants to be free of change. Free of pain, free of the obligations of life and death. But change is a law, and no amount of pretending will alter that reality."
The problem with achieving 'success' derives from the fact that, as an adult, your definition of 'success' is too limited. However, this realization doesn't really hit home until midlife. If you've been successful, there's a good probability that you're going to (or already have) run into one of two unsettling situations. These come upon you when you've achieved a certain mastery in your field. In the first scenario, the pressure is immediately on you to surpass yourself. Not only do you have the face the onset of boredom ('been there, done that, bought the tee-shirt), but you also quickly become aware that there are younger, brighter, even more ambitious people than you chasing behind you. What happens to your success when you've been overtaken by people more successful than you?
The second scenario can be even more painful. It occurs when your drive to succeed allows you to attain your highest goals. Only then do you have the opportunity to stop and look around. You may even allow yourself to feel your feelings about what you've achieved. Those pesky emotions tend to flood in around the onset of midlife. What happens to you when you look at your success and feel only disgust? Very often, when people have achieved their goals they discover that the achievement didn't bring them what they thought it would or, even worse, that it did bring them what they thought it would, and it wasn't what they really wanted, after all. The French have a great word to describe that feeling: ennui. It describes a feeling beyond boredom — all the way to emptiness.
Is there a cure for ennui? I think so, and midlife presents exactly the context we need to embark on it. You can only break open the dead end of success by redefining it for yourself. The superficial definitions that you inherited from your childhood need to be revisited. You need to go much more deeply into the bigger questions of life. This is essentially a spiritual quest, and can't genuinely be satisfied by anything less. Until you're prepared to take a serious look at the core purpose of your life, you'll be left chasing after one unsatisfying 'success' goal after another. Your real purpose (I prefer the term 'destiny') can't be confined to a simple definition because, as Millman suggested our opening quote, 'purpose', 'destiny', and 'success' are all dynamic terms: they evolve even as you pursue them.
It takes courage to undertake a spiritual quest because it means giving up forever the hope of finding 'the answer'. Every choice you make in life changes the question. Yet, on a truly spiritual quest, there's no possibility of ennui because there's no fixed 'goal' to attain. You can never become obsolete and surpassed by other younger, brighter, and more ambitious people, because your spiritual path belongs to you alone. You are the one and only expert in being you. Do you have what it takes to face the midlife challenge: to become the person you were always meant to be?
Success Is a Dead End - To learn more about this author, visit Les Brown's Website.
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Dianne CramptonDianne Crampton is an executive leadership coach, team consultant, author and president of TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Dianne has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down go here. - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
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Leanne Hoagland-SmithAre your sales where you want them to be? Will you be one of the few who achieves sales or business success or one of the many who have failed to change? Are you tired of being told you are like everyone else? Then you may find my first book on sales of interest. Be the Red Jacket in the Sea of Gray Suits, The Keys to Unlocking Sales available at Amazon or at http://www.processspecialist.com/red-jacket.htm. This book is a reflection of my no-nonsense approach to improving sales to overall business results. If you are truly committed to making sustainable changes, then I can help you secure a positive return on your investment because I focus on executable solutions not telling you the problems you already know you have. From training to corporate (group) coaching to executive one on one coaching, my approach is to assess, create awareness, build a goal driven action plan and then execute. The bottom line question is "Not do you or your employees know it, but do you or they want to do it?" Please call for a free strategy session at 219.759.5601. - Visit Leanne Hoagland-Smith's Website |
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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