I’m tired of seeing the word “success” or “successful” in the titles of blog posts, Medium articles, newsletters, and podcasts. There, I said it.
It’s not that I don’t think people should chase goals, hustle, take risks, and make sacrifices. We should do those things. They are a pathway to growth. Notice that I said “growth”, rather than success. I have a feeling that we’ve been conflating those two terms. Just search the term “success” or “successful” on Medium, and see what pops up.
Most of the pieces that use the term “success” or “successful” are merely trying to give advice about how to improve. The problem is that that more subtle message gets drowned out by claims about “success”. Because, what if this one thing that Elon Musk and Bill Gates do doesn’t make you successful by the year’s end? You probably feel like you failed, and not in that sexy way, where you still have backing from other VC firms for your next startup — more like that way where you feel like everyone is doing better than you.
The Right Goal
I hate it when people succumb to the pressures of a wayward society — one that prioritizes status above virtue. So when so much emphasis is placed on success, rather than improvement, I cringe. I cringe because I don’t think that’s the right goal. I don’t say that because I think success is a mirage or because I don’t think people can achieve it. I just think that success is a goal in the same way “being awesome” is a goal — it’s nebulous, poorly defined, and nobody will define it in the same way twice. That’s probably why it’s so easy to use “success” as a kind of pseudo-clickbait word. Everyone likes the sound of it, but no one can really tell you what it is.
So how about we aim for a different, more practical goal: work on being better. Not better than anyone around you, or better than some media icon, but better than you were yesterday. Look at the things that others have told you you need to work on them, develop a simple plan to do better at them, then do it.
Stop for a minute or two each day and see if you are doing better — even by a little bit — especially by a little bit. It’s those really small changes — the ones that are hard to perceive day to day — that will ultimately lead to sustainable growth. And sustainable growth is the only kind of growth we should be interested in. 10x growth is likely not sustainable. 10K to 10 billion in one year is likely not sustainable. What is sustainable is that you were able to be less impatient today than you were all last week, that you made those around you feel more appreciated than you usually do. Because you know the simple way that you did it, you stand a better chance of sustaining it.
At the end of the day, if you made any kind of gains — be it monetary or otherwise — but you can’t sustain and build off of them, you gained nothing. You didn’t grow. It was a blip, and you’re none the better for it.
Not Always “More”
One more thing to keep in mind: sometimes, improvement is not done by addition, but by subtraction. Scratch that, many times, improvement is done by subtraction. The fewer things you focus on, the more likely you are to make sustainable progress on those things. The less complicated things are, the more likely you are to stay engaged.
The pursuit of more is a vacuous one. Improvement and accumulation are not synonyms. We can, and do, grow by avoiding accumulation of things, money, jobs, and other things. We improve by simplifying, eliminating, purifying.
I am not aiming to be successful — whatever that means. I am just aiming to be better, because I know that means. Come join me.