Redefine your success story — Positive Psychology way!
Stop Trying So Hard. Achieve More by Doing Less
says Bethany Butzer , a mental health & wellness adviser. This post is a sequel to my previous one on the same lines why success shouldn’t be ‘Inbound’ but strictly ‘Outbound’. Do not let the people around you to stamp ‘Success’ tag on you, instead you have to figure out what it really means to be successful for your inner self. Because, it significantly contributes to our *circle of influence (*Courtesy — Stephen Covey) on our life designing process.
Let us try disproving two common myths revolving from our birth to death beds!
- The purpose of life is pursuing happiness.
- To pursue happiness, we need to attain success.
Believe me, disproving is Fun! :P
Let us start drilling the second hypothesis first —
From toddling days, we have been educated to strive for the magic word ‘Success’ by preparing, desiring, chasing after and choosing for it. We have been nurtured to create an addiction towards ‘Accomplishment’ which most probably inclined to either academics or career. To achieve this, the process undoubtedly demands an excessive hard work. We set a goal, work hard and burn out. Again, we reset a goal, work harder and burn out. The cycle continues until our hair turns completely grey. We evangelize the experience gained from such exercises assuming we have demonstrated a true success story. This induces negative psychology from our admirers when we fail to attain the same recognition resulting in cordial depression which in turn engenders an illusion of poor performance embedding in us.
We end up being an average individual seeking for an identity to get inspired or to follow throughout our life but not realizing our individual capability to become one. Eventually, our well being and health also goes for a traumatic toss getting us nothing beyond a bundle of dejection & disappointment. I recommend to give a damn and pack this negative attitude to your daily biodegradable garbage bag.
Bentazy calls it as ‘upstream’ effect wherein we try hard paddling a boat against water current. We burn so much of efforts throughout the activity but may not end up reaching the destination due to lack of energy towards the absolute goal. We gain false motivation to struggle with this upstream effect due to widely seen societal encouragement and rewards.
Let me take you to the world of positive psychology where everything matters and success is inherent and outbound!
Bentazy coins ‘downstream’ effect analogical to this positive psychology. Even in this case, there is a goal to accomplish. We are indeed working towards it and burning efforts consistently. But, not very tightly gripped unlike the previous case. It is all about paddling the boat towards the direction of water current. The sweet spot in this context is to go with the flow of life and enjoy the journey towards the destination rather being restless throughout to attain the desired destiny.
If you happen to experiment ‘downstream’ effect, your restricted perception of success to money, a big house, a luxury car or a weekend expensive shopping would dilute. Because, these materialistic goals may not hold authenticity to majority of us and hence the bubble of happiness blasts, nevertheless the obesity of your bank account lasts.
A good amount of inner work is imperative to pave a distinct way for yourself and walk over it. The value to which our ‘self’ prefers obsession is the cue here to identify authentic success. This is the bedrock of ‘Inward journey’ what Zen philosophy says. Let me write exclusively about this in a separate post.
Success needn’t solve your quest for life but the journey towards it might do the job! Hence, disproved as we fail to inscribe authenticity in success most of the time.
Do not get influenced by the world around you until you smell authenticity in your success criteria.
Let us unearth the second hypothesis now—
‘Chasing happiness makes people unhappy!’
says Emily Esfahani Smith (a Philosopher & a psychologist) by highlighting the fact ‘There is more to life than just being happy!’
Although life has been objectively becoming easier in the last decades with the advent of technology, there is a spike in the number of suicides across the geographies and evolution of ‘Emptiness’ across age groups. You need not be clinically depressed to sense this emptiness. If you encounter it, I hope there won’t be a demand to justify this oxymoron while you read this.
As per the definition from the books of psychology, ‘Happiness’ is a momentary state of ease & comfort with a flavor of feel good factor. Although, so much of obsession about happiness is in our culture, that doesn’t patch the real gap. If we go with this definition, Charlie Chaplin and Laurel & Hardy should have been worshiped globally for their laughter trigger skills. But, never happened because momentary happiness is hardly even considered as a methodology to propose.
So, the purpose of life is not just pursuing happiness but something beyond and hence disproved.
Emily calls this ‘something’ factor as the ‘Meaning of Life’. It is more about how we can live meaningfully fills our emptiness than how happily we live. After a thorough deep psychological study of different sets of people across different origins & backgrounds, Emily recommends below as the four pillars to lead a meaningful life.
- Belonging — This stems from the value you give and the value you are given in your relationships. Creating a selfless belongingness towards friends, family, a community always fuels the fulfillment. Solidify the belongingness around your personal and professional network.
- Purpose — Find the purpose of your life. What is the purpose where your courage and heart collide to support you? It can be as simple as care taking of your parents or spouse, feeding pigeons in a public park or it can also be personal asset building. Figure out and franchise it.
- Transcendence — It is a state where you lose yourself to dedicate to an activity or exercise. It is an act where you can give absolute focus and engagement with zero degree of compromise. It can be painting a picture, traveling to a new place, playing rummy with your pals, hitting the gym, playing Tennis, conversing with an old school friend, going to a religious sanctum or writing a post like this.
- Story Telling — Everyone’s life is a story. We encounter sufferings, struggles, fame, failure and many more throughout our journey. Start shaping your story with optimistic lens and always try to inculcate excitement while you share with your audience. The more exciting you construct your stories, the less will be your emptiness. Start spreading positive waves in your world with your powerful stories.
A short and sweet story for you —
One evening, Thomas Alva Edison returned home from school and handed over a letter to her mother saying “My teacher gave this letter to me and asked me to only give it to you”. His mother glanced it with teary eyes and read it again loudly to her son. My dear Thomy, you teacher has written, “ Your son is a genius. This school is too small for him and doesn’t have enough good teachers for training him. Please teach him yourself.” Then, Edison was home-schooled under the teaching of her mother. Edison had emerged as the greatest inventors of the century.
After many years, Edison’s mother was dead due to sickness. After her death, one fine day, when Edison was cleaning a drawer of a desk in her room, he had found a piece of folded paper. It was the same letter written by his teacher to his mother. It was actually written: “Your son is addled [mentally ill]. We won’t let him come to school any more.”. Edison cried for hours after witnessing that and told this world in his diary: “Thomas Alva Edison was an addled child that, by a hero mother, became the genius of the century.”
Thomas Alva Edison also followed ‘downstream’ effect to enjoy the journey of success and evolve as an fabulous inventor. He has quoted,
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”
His story tells the power of “story telling” and how it can impact our lives. And, the success story is rewritten by Edison’s mother with the power of Positive psychology.
Also, if we happen to read his biography, he has demonstrated all the pillars of meaningful life to emerge with authentic success and hence we admire him.
Let us develop a resistance against our peer odds to crave for authentic success with a meaningful life. Perfect framework is ‘Positive Psychology’!
P.S : Of late, I have started reading, listening and watching about Positive Psychology. This post is just a piece of my inference from couple of references. It is indeed an ocean to dive into, where oxygen is plenty to breathe. Let me see how deep I can scuba dive and share more insights unless my readers experience boredom.
