Do you find success elusive?

(originally posted Tuesday, March 20, 2007)

Often we can be thwarted in our goals by habits that are counterproductive, or by not having developed productive habits.

Today I was reading a career blog by a man named John Anthony. His entry was entitled, 9 Reasons You Are Not Successful.

The reasons he offered to explain the elusiveness of success were good ones: not thinking positively, not taking action, not setting concrete goals, ignoring the neccessity of life-long learning, not being persistent, ignoring details, not being efficient with time, being afraid to be different, not communicating effectively, failing to lead by example which, in order to do successfully, he emphasizes being honest, dependable and responsible.

Now this is a good list. I heartily endorse every single point on it, and I recommend reading it. But there are a couple of things about it that concern me.

One is the excessive zeal with which this sound, good message is pitched. It is almost as if the author lacked sufficient faith in the value of his message and feels compelled to sell it. This is particularly evident in his use of absolute terms. For example, he says that when it comes to success, "How you think is everything."

Now, I believe that how you think is very important. There is a whole field called cognitive-behavioural therapy which focuses on how the ways people think, and behave in response to their thoughts, affects their lives. It uses interventions, such as cognitive restructuring, to help people think in new and more constructive ways. But to say it is everything simply overstates the case. For starters, if that were the case, then his other eight points would be unnecessary.

He also says, "If you are not 100% sure that you are capable of becoming successful, you won’t." I frequently find that kind of all-or-nothing thinking in many of my clients, and I find it very counter-productive. Yes, people actually do stress over whether they are confident enough if they are only 85%, or 90% sure that they will succeed. I think that it is self-deceptive to shut our eyes to the possibility that we may not be able to succeed. Thinking about that possibility is not only realistic, it is helpful. If things do not turn out as we wish, if we do not, for some reason, have the ability to rise to this particular challenge, then contemplating that possibility beforehand helps us to prepare for and to cope with it.

There is a wonderful line in the movie, "Batman Begins." Young Bruce Wayne’s father tells him that the reason we fall is so that we can get back up again. I think there are very few habitually successful people who do not know how to cope with failure and get themselves past it. To do this, it is only necessary that your belief in yourself outweighs your self-doubt.

"To be successful, you can never follow the herd." Again, there’s that word "never." Surely, there are successful people who knew when it was time to hop on the bandwagon as get as much as possible out of the ride. However, if your only strategy is to follow the herd, then you risk the same fate as the lemming.

About being honest, dependable and responsible, he says, "If you do not have these 3 qualities, then nothing else matters." Well, again, why bother with the rest of the list? I think that these three qualities are extremely important, and I try my best to live them in my own life and practice. But haven’t we all known honest, dependable, responsible people who never rise above mediocrity?

I am not dissecting these points to be fussy. My reasons have to do with the other reservation I have about this article. While I approve of John Anthony’s list, I think it is flawed in the way that most of the material on this topic is flawed. While these nine habits are essential to success, they are not a formula for success. It is possible to do all nine of these, and do them well, and still not succeed. They do not guarantee a successful outcome. There are no guarantees of success.

The world is a complex place. Scientists keep discovering that it is much more complex than they ever imagined. That is the whole reason for the development of chaos theory in physics. The universe is so complex that it looks like total chaos to a human observer. Finding order in the chaos is difficult, and requires something that seems in short supply these days: an appropriate level of humility. By that I mean a recognition that sometimes even our very best is not enough, that no amount of preparation can assure the outcome we want. The world is much, much bigger than we are. That we can achieve as much success as we have, and do, is a good basis for pride.

So, we must not cease from striving for success. But the fact remains that it is still possible to do everything right, be the best that we can be, and still not get what we desire. It is important not to lose sight of that as we struggle to make improvements in our lives.

(I think I’ll work on an entry about the use of absolute terms. Thanks for the inspiration, John Anthony:)