“Don’t aim for success if you want it; just do what you love and believe in, and it will come naturally.” – David Frost
Success is one thing that most, if not all, of us constantly aspire for. When, for one reason or another, we fail, we look outwards for reasons for the failure, and we also seek advice to succeed in the future. If you have ever tried to find tips to succeed on the Internet, I am sure you have found an abundant supply of advice on the subject.
But has that worked for you? If not, maybe you are looking at the wrong picture.
I realised a truth about success a while back when I was reading Viktor Frankl. He writes, “…success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it.”
Most of the times we are so desperate to succeed that we lose focus of what we are doing. Success, therefore, can be viewed as a function of Performance and Appreciation.
While you have a certain degree of control on how well you do a job (perform), you have little or no control on how you will be rewarded (appreciated) for the work you have done. In practice, however we often tend to focus on appreciation than performance. And therein lies our tragedy.
Since appreciation is a factor we cannot control, we get frustrated when our work does not get appreciated. As a result we are not successful even if we have done a job well. The frustration further affects our future performance negatively, and the chances of succeeding in the future also reduce.
On the other hand if we focus on performance, we will not only do the job better, but we will also increase the chance that our efforts get the reward they deserve. Even if what we have done is not appreciated by others, we are satisfied because we know we have given our best in doing what we did. This satisfaction boosts our future performance, and increases the likelihood of our work getting the appreciation it deserves.
What I am trying to say here is not new. The ancient Hindu scripture, The Bhagvad Gita, essentially asks all human beings to focus on their actions and stop worrying about rewards.
We, however, fail to do that because in our rush to get the appreciation, we forget to strive hard to improve our performance.
Do you focus on performance or appreciation?
To me success is more of of a mindset and is definitely more related to performance. To me being successful means being content with what I am doing and how I am doing it.
for me by doing hard work is a way to be success, thanks for your nice article 🙂
Best regards-