Overcoming Success
The Olympic Games are in full swing as I finalize this week’s post, a perfect backdrop for our topic. In the weeks after the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro, I was startled to read several articles about the high rates of depression among medal-winning athletes in the months following. In an interview, the greatest Olympian of all time, swimmer Michael Phelps, opened up about his own thoughts of suicide following the 2012 summer games. He said the physical preparation was never the problem, “…it’s hard work, dedication, not giving up.” It was the unrelenting pressure–both from others and from himself–along with the insatiable allure of success that he found overwhelming. “I was always hungry, hungry, and I wanted more. I wanted to push myself to see what my max was.”
While that led to unprecedented success in the pool, that yearning for more and better meant that each Olympic success was followed by a series of what he terms emotional “explosions,” including addictive behaviors and thoughts of no longer wanting to live. This week, the greatest gymnast of all time, Simone Biles, withdrew from competition because her mental health did not support the focus needed to perform incredibly dangerous routines with a high risk of serious injury. Being “the greatest ever” creates a burden few, if any, can carry well.
We might use these examples to reexamine our mental models around success. To begin with, we have a hard time even defining success. The textbook definition is “to accomplish one’s aim or purpose.” An elite athlete has a crystal-clear purpose–to win the championship, to bring home the gold. Yet even when they do, there’s the likelihood that it won’t deliver enough satisfaction or meaning or sense of identity. The purpose of a life, a career, is rarely as concrete as “winning the gold.” That makes it nearly impossible to know if or when we’ve fulfilled our purpose.
This is why the decision to begin a transition after a successful first career is often the hardest part of the whole process.
I had a coaching client who “wanted” to retire. Yet he seemed excessively worried about his financial situation, claiming that as his primary reason why this was not a good time to pass the baton to his successor. He then shared his net worth, a number so big it made my heart stop for a second. He kept saying, “I’m worried that it wasn’t enough.”
“What does your financial planner say?” I asked.
“He says to quit worrying and start enjoying my life. But I can’t. Not yet.”
So we kept exploring. He finally admitted that money just felt like a safer topic than the real reason. Once he paid attention to his hesitation, he was able to say aloud just how much he loved the attention he received, the thrill of accomplishment, being in the limelight, in the company of other successful people. His real concern was not money, but whether he could be fulfilled without the other things that had defined success. He had to wrestle with a different question, how much success is enough?
That’s why I sometimes speak of being held hostage by our success. If we’ve not done the deeper, inner work to understand ourselves, we can stay tethered to a career much longer than what might be healthy simply because we are looking for a sign that doesn’t exist.
What, exactly, is success and what is my relationship to it? It’s an important question. We adapt our initial definitions from other people. Parents might have defined it for us, or spouses or bosses. It’s amazing how few people have actually wrestled with their own definition.
Initially, ,my clients most often think of success as some combination of financial achievement and lifestyle, viewed through a lens of well-being or self-satisfaction. The first two can be measured quantitatively. The last two seem to be where we get stuck. Time and time again we discover that what we wanted really doesn’t give us the long-term satisfaction, the meaning that we expected from it. So we try harder.
Perhaps the problem isn’t even success, but rather with the popular understanding that success is a destination, that somehow, we will just know it when we get there. Or maybe the problem is believing success is our means to an end, only to discover that success is an illusion that’s always just out of reach.
Consider this for a moment, what if success is not the goal or the end point. What if it’s merely a stage we pass through on our way to a destination that’s imminently more satisfying? That’s our working premise here at Second Rodeo. Understanding oneself, understanding those very personal things that create experiences and memories of significance is a more dependable way to determine how to invest the currency of our life–our time and energy.
A favorite professor used to end each lecture by saying “Deep stuff.” It was less a commentary on his lecture than a signal it was time to stop. Whether you think this is deep stuff–that’s up to you! But I’m convinced it is important stuff, and if I can help you process this, let’s connect.
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Originally published at https://www.yoursecondrodeo.com/blog