How would you define success? What is that point in life when you can call yourself successful? Are you easily satisfied and do not aim for higher? You had the potential and looking back feel that maybe you could have achieved something more?

Have there been people in your life whom you felt were destined for great things? Maybe in your school or college, your neighbourhood? Were you surprised with their career choices?

Something similar happened to me a few years ago during one such reunion. I found myself quite perturbed about the career choices taken by people in my neighbourhood whom I had admired greatly in my childhood. Friends who were toppers in school and colleges. Who had such plans in their life, such potential when growing up, were struggling for money while still searching for a suitable profession or their particular niche in the world. I found it difficult to connect this new version with the individual whom I had looked up to and admired greatly during my childhood.  Could there have been another outcome for these smart, intelligent individuals?

What is success?

While success is dynamic and its significance does vary from person to person, the following categories give an overview.

Being Rich

Having money is usually the most popular definition of success. This can be for fulfilment of personal desires or being the source of livelihood for others.

Achieving Popularity

Being popular among peers, within the industry. Recognised for knowledge, humour, talent and more. Achieving a group of supporters.

Feeling Proud

Feeling happy with the position achieved in society. Achieving an educational or career milestone. Buying a house. Living a life that others look up to. Overcoming bad times.

Overcoming ill health

Anyone who has achieved this milestone can vouch for the feeling of success this brings about. It’s a heady feeling knowing that this particular challenge has been left behind.

Achieving peace

Making peace with all around us. Living a life as desired with the highest good is also a mark of success.

Success can be defined by many more ways. We have also seen that not all can achieve all they set out to do. Many books and speakers talk of the ways success can be achieved. However we need to also discuss the ways success inhibits us.

The heady feeling and full of excitement phase is addictive and causes many people to be content with the place they are in. This feeling causes a kind of comfort zone, a place where they feel like kings or queens.

What change does achieving success bring about?

The good old comfort zone

Getting recognition at an early age causes many to fall into a comfort zone. They wish to be associated within this zone and lack the ambition to move onto larger things. They would rather be a big fish in a small pond than move in to a larger pond where they could lose this popularity and recognition.

 Inability to adapt

Times keep changing and in order to continuously keep achieving success it’s important we all keep adapting ourselves to change. It’s difficult for many to let go the behaviour and attitude that brought about success for them in the first place. The focus that brought about success in the first place seems lost and they end up getting stuck in a time zone. We see this happening with actors where they keep reprising their acting skills from their most successful roles.

Striving stops

The earlier zeal and attitude to keep trying gets diminished. There is no hunger to achieve more. To look around for more opportunities. For seeking out newer avenues. To discuss further possibilities.

Low hanging fruits

I recently met a couple of old friends who had been clearly destined for great things. Growing up I remember them as smart, intelligent and brimming with ideas. They had wanted to make a difference in the world. They had both wanted to set up their own businesses and give livelihood to others. One of them now had a small home run business making chocolates while the other was a gym instructor.

While both these professions are respectful, I could not reconcile them with the person they were growing up. It soon came up, their choice had depended on the easiest way to make money. While initially this was to be a stop gap, it soon became their way of life.

Teenagers eager to start earning and living their own life, prefer leaving studies and taking up jobs that do not require them to stretch. A friend’s son working as an intern in a CA firm, recently announced he would be starting a business with his office colleague. Their current company was scouting for an outsourcing company to delegate non-productive jobs and they wished to take up this work. While this would have been an excellent opportunity for someone, my friend was not too convinced. She felt that her son would lose focus on his studies.

When asked for my opinion, I asked the budding entrepreneur if he could make a list of what he would like to achieve in his life. We started prioritizing his list and with no input from me, he himself realised that starting this business at this time would not be a priority for him. This was a low hanging fruit and could be achieved at any time. What was important for him at that moment was to complete his studies and his internship to be more qualified for handling a larger role.

Being happy with earning a stipend so early in life had made him want to start earning early. He realised it was important to wait. To achieve higher qualifications and relevant work experience would open up further avenues for him.

Small successes make one complacent and doesn’t allow for larger goals. It’s important not to be satisfied with smaller goals. Instead to focus on the larger ones yet to come.

Complacent Mode

As per a pact I have made with myself, I try to enrol for minimum one training program / certificate course / any new learning each year. This had to be self-sponsored as I felt in case it was sponsored by my company I would not give it the correct amount of importance and focus. I have by and large maintained my focus. However there have been lapses. Mostly in those years where I have changed jobs. My highest enrolment for such skill development courses has always been post 1 to 2 years after starting a new job.

With hindsight I realised that starting a new job made me complacent and changed my focus.

I saw a similar behaviour in my son’s life. He is simultaneously completing his CA professional course and appearing for his M.Com degree. At the end of each M.Com semester, his sense of complacency over his studies grew. This started impacting his focus on his CA studies which are much more difficult to clear than M.Com.

It would take him a longer time to recover from his M.Com accomplishment than actually studying for the same exam. The post exam relief would impact the momentum gained by him in his professional studies and it would take him a long time coming back to his earlier focus.

All this made me realise we need to find ways and means to recover from success. Recovering quickly from these achievements makes us able to envision other goals that will take us further. While it’s easy to bask in the happiness of the success moment and appreciate all that was accomplished, it’s important to plan out a recovery plan.

What can be done to recover from success?

Goals written down

The recovery system works really well when we have all goals for the coming 2 to 3 years written down. These can be monetary, personal achievements, family oriented, career milestones, anything that makes you happy. I usually make a point of evaluating my overall goals every 6 to 7 months with small additions every 2 to 3 months. All long term and short term goals mark the way for me to proceed and lets me measure how far I have come. Well written goals ensures we keep stretching ourselves and not fall into the complacency trap.

Stay disciplined

All successful people have a discipline that they strictly adhere to. With regards their health, the food they eat, their habits, their exercise regimen, the practice they put in honing their craft. Any successful sport person will tell you about the number of hours spent daily practicing their craft. Singers and musicians spend a large part of the day doing riyaaz (practice). They realise the importance of keeping the engine oiled so that it doesn’t rust and works at an optimum level. Any skill and talent only gets better when it’s sharpened and honed at a regular basis.

When studying, it’s not enough to study and learn the subject matter. What differentiates the best from the rest is the amount of practice sessions they put in. While this was important initially before achieving the milestone, it’s more important post achievement to quickly get back to routine.

Quickly get back to the same routine and become the same person you were prior to achieving the success. Living in the success world makes you forget the earlier reality and the earlier sharp focus that helped you achieve the milestone in the first place. Getting back to the familiar routine ensures recovery mode is getting activated. It’s a good idea to now relook the goal and action sheet made earlier to figure out what are the other milestones that need to be achieved.

Inculcate a humble mindset

Keeping ourselves humble in our minds, inculcates a certain uncertainty and keeps us grounded. There are many more goals to achieve. Many new vistas to see. We need to keep learning. Why you should hone your skills when at the top of your game? It is more important now than earlier. Regular practice makes you ready to accept change. Doesn’t let you stay in the ‘I’m the best’ mindset.

Keep a time target ready for recovery

Success stunts growth. Hence it’s of primary importance to keep a time target for recovery. For a student, post every semester keep a target of a week to celebrate your accomplishment. Then it’s time to start planning for the next milestone. A job change, great. Give yourself a month to fit into the new workplace and culture. Relook your goal sheet, get back to the discipline of your normal health and fitness routine. Give yourself a fixed time to celebrate success and then get back to normal.

Stay hungry for success

I’m reminded about an excerpt from the book Sachin Tendulkar: The Definitive Biography written by Vaibhav Purandare, where Sachin Tendulkar and Vinod Kambli were batting in the match between Shardashram School and St. Xavier College in 1988 at Mumbai. They had together achieved an enviable score of Tendulkar 326 and Kambli 349. Their coach Ramakant Achrekar could not attend the match that day and the assistant coach Laxman Chavan made the batting duo phone him during interval. Ramakant Achrekar told them to declare and exit the match. Sachin Tendulkar and Vinod Kambli could together have easily achieved a total run score of over 700 that day but their coach was adamant that they needed to exit the match. In later years Ramakant Achrekar was known to say that he wanted both players to stay hungry. Achieving that easy victory of 700 runs would have made them complacent.

Don’t be complacent at smaller victories. Stay hungry for all the other major successes you can achieve.

While not everyone can become a legend in their respective field, it’s equally important to remember that we are all capable of reaching our potential. We just need to keep stretching, keep learning and reinventing ourselves. To become the best that we can be. To achieve all those goals that were a part of us growing up.

When setting goals, can remember the power of five.

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