Tag: acheivement

Success, the drug we can never get enough of…

Live & Learn19 Comments

Akitaka ItoDrive. Push. Chase. Finish First. Win. Be number one.

Achieve. Acquire another shingle.  Another degree.  Be the best in your field.  In your industry.  Be world class.

Learn More.  Work harder.  Be more. Be exceptional. Be the most you can be.

Set a goal.  Pursue it.  Achieve it.  Exceed it.

Pick any one above and you’ll find my underpinnings.  My undercarriage.  My foundation.

Yet, this NY Times article Redefining Success and Celebrating the Unremarkable moved me…

…“In our unspoken but not so subtle Darwinian competition with one another — which springs, I think, from our fear of our own insignificance, a subset of our dread of mortality — we have of late, we Americans, to our detriment, come to love accolades more than genuine achievement,” he told the students and parents. “We have come to see them as the point — and we’re happy to compromise standards, or ignore reality, if we suspect that’s the quickest way, or only way, to have something to put on the mantelpiece, something to pose with, crow about, something with which to leverage ourselves into a better spot on the social totem pole…”

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Feeling Blah about work?

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job rainI received some backchannel email blow-back on my last post (10 Most Loved Jobs. And 10 Most Hated) and the related posts on Doing What You Love.  (Whispering to me: Here you go again.  Not everyone is in the situation YOU are in.  Try to walk in someone else’s shoes for a change.  Tired of you preaching about Doing. What. You. Love.  Some of us can’t walk away to a lesser paying job to Do.What.We.Love.  We need to pay the bills.  We can’t relo away from aging parents, family, friends.  We can’t walk away from our house and the mortgage. We need to keep the Don’t-Love-My-Job we have.) 

OK.  I get it.  Yet so many are unhappy.  Feel stuck.  Are unfulfilled. Or are frustrated in their current station. The three articles below share some excellent advice on how to make the most of the current job you are in.  My Cliff-Notes recap is summarized here:

  • Do. (Continue) to do an excellent job.
  • Connect. (Develop deeper relationships with people you work with)
  • Learn. (Learn & apply new skills and knowledge which will fuel higher levels of engagement)
  • Contribute. (Achievement and contribution gives us a higher sense of purpose.)
  • Don’t Complain.  (…And drag down your colleagues and pollute your brand.)

“There’s no justification for an employee to wait expectantly for the organization to furnish engagement, as if it’s something somebody can give you. The key to sustainable high engagement is taking primary responsibility for it. Now is the time to own your own engagement. (FastCompany)

Here’s the 3 self-help articles on the topic…

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