How to be successful? Perhaps first define ‘success’, and then learn from failure.

 When we’re not feeling particularly successful it can have all kinds of negative impacts on us, such as constantly feeling like we’re failing, or that we’re disappointing others. Perhaps having low self-esteem, or feeling a need to always do more, be more, or have more.

One of the core causes for feeling unsuccessful can be our definition of success, and really, if we think about it, ‘What is success?’ Well, that depends. For me today, success might simply be finally publishing this blog post. This one has been a long time in the weeds; I started it over 6 months ago! What’s been the hold up? Probably that I’m stuck on how to define success, and my intent in writing about it. While the topic is ‘success’, what I really set out to do was write about the disconnect between what we traditionally mean when we talk about success, and the type of success that comes when we become more intentional about where we put our energy and how we focus or direct our efforts.

One of my favourite conversational definitions of success came from a friend who would be considered ‘successful’ using the type of criteria generally accepted in our Australian society (great job, earning good money, nice car etc). They said that for them, success means ‘a sense of accomplishment and achievement, and attaining a goal, small or large, that is important to me, for example beating my 6-year-old nephew at connect 4!’

 I like this explanation as it lines up with the view of Dr Russ Harris (best-selling author of The Happiness Trap) who says that ‘True success is living by your values’.  It follows that success will look different for different people, depending on what those values are.

However, many of us are working to someone else’s definition of success and don’t link it to our own values. For example, living up to our parents’ dreams for us, or the generic (and often unrealistic / unhelpful) ideas that society projects as success. This is becoming more problematic for many, with social media giving so many ‘insights’ into successful people, without the reality check that what we are seeing are carefully curated and filtered views of their lives; they’re generally not putting the unsuccessful or unflattering stuff out there! And this can translate to some unrealistic or meaningless goals for people. For example, I worked with a client who was very focussed on their stories; on what they could post on their socials to get the most response. Once they hit their goal of a certain number of reactions, they felt successful for a short time, but then become really deflated. When we talked this through it turned out that they had expected the online likes would make them feel liked, but what they truly valued was connection, and the feeling of having people who were ‘in their corner’.

Once we dug into what they valued and what they were really seeking, their definition of success became very different, and so their goal changed too and became more about connecting with people. In addition to being more meaningful, this goal had more chance of success simply by being much more within their own control. By re-working the goal and definition of success, to align with the client’s values and what was actually important to them, we set them up for ‘success’ in building meaningful relationships.  

Success, control and goal setting come up quite a bit in counselling. When I ask new clients what brings them to counselling, and what their counselling goals are, sometimes they will respond with things like ‘I want my mum to understand how I feel’, or ‘I want my partner to change and be more romantic’. The chances of success for these goals are not great, as the client can’t control the outcome. There is no focus on what action they themselves can take; what they will actually be doing differently.

When I change the wording and ask a question more like, ‘what will change if our work together is successful – what will look different or what will you be doing that’s different?’ the answer often falls into one of two categories; the achievement goal – “I want to have / have done’, or the action goal, how I would like to be – for example ‘I’ll be spending more time with the family’ or ‘I’ll be studying / exercising / running my own business’ etc; whatever it is they want to focus on.  And these goals we can work on; as there are clear actions to take, and clear outcomes to measure our success; enabling us to see and feel the difference.

Of course, even with a better definition of success and better goals, things don’t always go to plan. This can be hard to deal with, but it seems that an important element of success is learning how to cope with failure. In a piece published in the British Psychological Society Research Digest in March 2021, Emma Young notes that everyone feels like they have failed at times, but that responses to these feelings vary, and that responses some are more helpful than others. Particularly self-compassion, resisting “socially prescribed perfectionism”, not taking failure personally, and embracing ‘productive failure’

Self-compassion is about being gentle and non-judgemental with yourself when things go wrong. It's essentially about being kind to yourself; described by Brené Brown as ‘being warm and understanding toward ourselves when we suffer, fail, or feel inadequate’.

‘Socially prescribed perfectionism’ is when you absorb the idea that others expect you to be perfect, and that you’ll be subject to their judgement if you don’t meet their unrealistic expectations. There are a few ways to tackle this issue, including focusing on your wellbeing, and using grounding strategies to bring your attention back when you notice you’re focussed on how others may perceive you. I believe that the strategy I talked about above, of setting your own goals according to your values, also helps dial down an over-emphasis on the expectations (real or perceived) of others.

Productive failure, as described by Young, is the idea that ‘instead of carefully teaching people how to do something, you let them loose on a new task with only the minimum of guidance … those people who prefer to throw themselves at a new task rather than carefully reading the instructions first may well “fail” more (and anyone who’s ever tried this approach with a piece of flatpack furniture knows how bad that can be), but learn more and do better next time’.  

As we’re currently in a brief (hopefully) lockdown in Brisbane, this could be a great opportunity to reflect on what success means for us, think about our values, and set some more meaningful goals and direction for ourselves. And perhaps also a great time for some productive failure; I’m thinking a bit of no-recipe lockdown baking might be a good way to have a go! And then learn more and do better next time :)