Recently, I’ve pondered and written a lot on the paradoxical tensions we are perpetually faced with as humans. One such tension we grapple with on a regular basis is success and how societal or individual constructs discern it.

In certain spheres of life such as sports, success is subjective and often judged by winning titles or medals. In other spheres of life, success is more objective, somewhat ephemeral or elusive, and difficult to define. Despite the breadth of our vocabulary and language, it is particularly difficult to define what success means for one’s self and as such, we often rely on societal constructs as a measure of success. The pitfalls of relying on societal constructs lie in the parochial way success is defined, particularly in modern culture. Today’s cultural movement of instant gratification which undermines the incremental effort required in fulfilling one’s potential makes the idea of success more difficult to discern for many. The narrow-mindedness of its delineation is deeply misleading as it often infers that success is somehow connected to something tangible like a person’s net worth or material possessions which couldn’t be farther from the truth. It will be wrong to suggest money doesn’t provide some semblance of happiness because it does. However, research asserts with certitude that it doesn’t provide the happiness of a sustained nature. Begs the question, what is Success?

Mindset plays an integral part in understanding the idea of success. The fixed mindset views success (however defined) as having the talent, the gift or inherited genetic personality trait to excel and reach the pinnacle of something. the growth mindset on the other hand acknowledges talent as a contributing factor but focuses more on what we do with talent. People with a fixed mindset typically fall on the extreme ends of the spectrum and are typically confronted with two possible self-limiting risks. They either fall on the end of the spectrum where they think they are so talented and that they don’t have to try, or on the opposing end where they think that they lack the requisite talent to succeed in a particular area of life and as such, they give up or never try. An appropriate example of describing this is perhaps a young talented sportsperson who thinks they have a ‘God-given’ talent and sees no need to put in the hard yards or graft into becoming successful. The antithesis is one that thinks they just don’t have the ‘God-given’ talent and as such gives up on trying to become successful in their chosen field. Both instances of a fixed mindset are equally as self-limiting for any individual.

Conversely, the growth mindset views success as a continuum, something we keep pursuing or aspiring towards. It acknowledges ‘intangibility’ as an element of success by not viewing it as a tangible outcome or endpoint. This is validated by the anticlimax we often experience after achieving a long-held ambition or goal which infers that the outcome is hardly ever as pleasing as the pursuit. This is well documented in research that shows the numerous amount of people who fall into depression even after reaching the acme of their career and then retiring with nothing else to pursue in life. The growth mindset realises that real success lies in the pursuit of becoming ‘better’ not the illusion of being the ‘best’.

Pursuit is what has helped humanity evolve to where we are today as a species - it is what keeps us alive. For there is no feast big enough that you’ll never eat again, no drink so thirst-quenching enough that you’ll never drink again, and there is no success great enough that one can stand in forever. So, perhaps the true meaning of success lies ultimately in the journey to fulfilling one’s potential, as defined by one’s self. Because there’s something incredibly satisfying about focusing on being the best we can be and realising that the idea of success is a pursuit of something intangible, something we may never truly attain, yet has meaning to us and being at peace with that.

Remember - To travel is better than to arrive - Robert Louis Stevenson

Peace, Love & Light.