Beware of The Success Passport
If you want to have an amazing life, you also want to make sure the goals you’re setting aren’t just stamps on a success passport.
Success and fulfillment are very different things, but they often get conflated.
If the only goals we set for ourselves are based on our culture’s idea of success, rather than based on what uniquely feels joyful to us, we run the risk of ending up successful but UNHAPPY.
And if we’re unhappy, then what’s the point?
In other words, we may pursue success thinking it will make us feel fulfilled, believing “if I can just accomplish X, then I’ll be happy.”
When in reality, there is not much correlation between commercial success and feelings of happiness and fulfillment-once we’ve surpassed meeting our basic needs.
In our western, capitalist, commercial, material culture, there’s an attitude of “excess is best.”
But when you really look closely, there is so much evidence demonstrating that success doesn’t = happiness.
For example, many highly wealthy people (not all) have a crippling fear of financial insecurity. Unsurprisingly, getting more money doesn’t fix that for them. Many also have great freedom to do whatever they want, but don’t experience that freedom joyfully because there’s always more to obtain (more success, more money, more power, etc.)
Likewise, many celebrities are widely loved by fans, but have no real deep or satisfying relationships, because those around them see them as an opportunity to enhance their own reputations rather than someone to have a genuine relationship with.
Another example: many athletes achieve peak physical performance at the expense of their actual health and wellness, or at the expense of their ethics, or at the expense of other people (Think Lance Armstrong).
Put simply, more success does not equate to more happiness/fulfillment.
While it can help at times, it’s not some sort of secret ingredient that makes everything good. Ironically, it sometimes can instead contribute to stress and misery later down the line.
This is great news for most people, because it means we don’t have to “do better” than others to love our lives and ourselves.
Part of why success diverges from fulfillment is because a lot of people are pursuing AN IDEA of success that culture or other people label as “high and good”. Rather than pursuing what genuinely feels good to them. They pursue this idea of “goodness” without really checking in with themselves and asking “Does this feel good to me?” “Is this my idea of what a great life looks like? Or is it someone else’s?” And “Will I actually feel good in a lasting way when I achieve this?.”
There are SO many goals out there that we are socialized to want, which may not actually be the thing our souls deeply yearn for.
If you only ever pick the shit that sounds good on paper, you’ll feel empty at the end of the road.
If you pick the stuff that feels good in your body and soul, then the joy you feel will help release you from the clutches of culture’s “pre-approved paths” that claim “this is the limited list of acceptable ways for a human being to live their one precious life.” But few of us have people who teach us to listen to what feels right to us, to trust our intuition or follow our curiosity (Although coaches are great for this).
Luckily, there are infinite ways we can choose to live our lives and multiple paths and options that could be fulfilling and wonderful for us, regardless of whether they match up with society’s idea of success.
And we can pursue any of them IF we start by dumpstering the idea that pursuing success is the only ticket to fulfillment.
There are too many cookie cutter, multiple choice options for life. Many of which are just stamps on a success passport.
Many of them are not actually capable of providing us with fulfillment: the beautiful, passionate, joyful aliveness that we all so deeply desire.
So don’t just pursue things because they sound good, find things that somehow correspond to your values, your story, your curiosity, your creativity, your YOU-ness.
Otherwise, we end up pouring everything we have into something that just ends with a moment of “okay, I did that… now what?” A stamp, a pause, and a never ending pursuit.
Did this post resonate with you? If so, I’d love to hear from you! Leave a comment or send me a message to share your thoughts. For more uplifting content, check out some other posts on my blog or follow me on instagram @morgan_barbret
Cheers,
Morgan Rita Barbret
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