The price of success: how much we are willing to pay

Many men and women, especially under the age of 5, are puzzled by the question of how to become more successful. At the same time, everyone understands this task in their own way. Someone, for example, wants to achieve success in business and enjoy the interest of the opposite sex.

Another is to make a career, become famous, amass a fortune. The third is to successfully marry, have children and settle in a country house.

There are many success formulas, books on the subject and trainings that develop the ability to achieve goals. Achievement motivation is one of the priority areas of psychology. But does everyone need it?

How success works

Not every achievement is a success. Success has three characteristics.

1. Success Is What I Planned, the achievement of my dream or the realization of my plan. Not someone else’s, mine. Of course, I can work on the overall result. But if I don’t see anything of my own in it, then most likely I will treat it as my help to another person (a team) or as a well-executed assignment. But not as a personal success.

2. Success is different from luck and luck. We consider success what is achieved as a result of our efforts, calculations, work. Moreover, a subtle psychological law is known: “The more labor and time something cost me, the higher the subjective value of the result for me.”

3. This is success for me, and this is the third feature of success. Success is very subjective: what is success for me may be failure for someone else. Whether the result will be a success, I determine myself. Psychologist Eric Berne believed that among people there are winners, non-winners and losers.

The criterion is as follows: in life everyone sets tasks for himself, calculates how to become more successful. Based on this, at the end of life, you can sum up whether he achieved what he wanted. If yes, the winner. And if you wanted the best, but it turned out as always – a loser.

I wanted to, but did not reach the goal, stopped halfway or one step away from it – a non-winner. According to this theory, a person who wanted to become president, but became prime minister, is just a non-winner. And the one who dreamed of raising three children and did it is the winner.

Components of success

One of the most important and non-obvious truths about how to become more successful is the following: a person cannot guarantee one hundred percent success. As long as we do something, we cannot be sure of anything. Only half of the success depends on our efforts and abilities.

The second, little respected by arrogant people, is not subject to human will. In industrial relations, in business, it is bad form to talk about the latter. Not everyone has the courage to accept that man is not the creator of this world.

And if so, one can only hope, wishing a fair wind or good luck. We can prepare the conditions for success, try and learn how to become more successful, but we cannot guarantee anything. For success, no matter how you look at it, is the result of two components – diligence and luck.

The other side of success

Can I? What is my plank? Will I reach my limits? In other words, personal effectiveness is what a person constantly checks if he takes himself and his life seriously.

Accomplishing the task of “become more successful” means that we not only accepted the challenge, but also proved to be worthy in the face of it. If we cannot realize our projects, we feel bad.

So bad that we begin to need a quick and bright success. And the worse our affairs are, the less satisfied we are with ourselves, the more success we need. And we are no longer so attentive to the choice of means, because we need success more and more.

For some people who have not experienced success for a long time (whether they actually had it or went unnoticed), the need for great success develops into the phenomenon of “waiting for a miracle.”

A person no longer hopes for himself, but he acutely feels that fate owes him a lot and justice can be restored only if a miracle happens. Therefore, he decides on an adventure, ceases to see the situation realistically, and it is so easy to deceive him.

Dependence on success is the surface part of the big problem. This is an example of a psychological addiction similar to a drug or alcohol addiction. But if drugs and alcohol are the lot of people with a weak will, then dependence on success is dangerous for hardworking and strong-willed people.

As a rule, these are those who do not know how to fairly evaluate themselves. And he is looking for external evidence of his viability. For them, self-worth is determined by the external attributes of success: position, brand of car, belonging to the prestigious and accomplished.

It is these people who come with their problem to the best psychotherapist, because they deserve the best.

Successful patient

Here he is – a respectable, ambitious and sometimes cynical man with money. He talks about emptiness, the crisis of the genre, depression. Sometimes this is presented as a midlife crisis: you have already proved everything to yourself, but you don’t know what’s next.

Such people are very reserved in their feelings, so their favorite word is “discomfort”. I work a lot, but the excitement is not the same. I am considered an outstanding and tough leader, but what is perceived from the outside as my charisma is a heavy burden from the inside: you need to meet expectations, radiate enthusiasm and confidence, carry your image.

These people have a lot, but they do not have a sense of happiness. They do not immediately manage to admit that they are constantly experiencing anxiety before failure, which they now cannot afford.

Every year, stress grows, tension from the fact that only a new task, more difficult than the previous one, fascinates – easy tasks have become boring.

Uncertainty in your own good attitude towards yourself, in the fact that you will not become an empty place if you are left without positions, you will lose your fortune, your beloved woman will leave … A specific defense mechanism that masks this uncertainty is the need for one hundred percent control.

Whether it’s a job, a partner or a partner, children or fate – nothing should be left to chance or another person. Everything should be on a short leash.

Achieve success

But also be yourself! First, try to change your attitude towards success. Agree: there are forces that are not subject to anyone. An unfavorable set of circumstances can turn a fully prepared success into a failure.

How our will and forces independent of us combine into favorable circumstances is still a miracle. We can not only change it, but also understand it. But the more we strive to promote this secret process, the more we disrupt it. What is the real recipe for success?

How to become more successful and not lose freedom? Success refers to that amazing side of life, which includes joy, happiness, the gratitude of children and grandchildren, and that deepest feeling of fulfillment. But there is a detour leading to it. By all means trying to experience an orgasm, a person blocks its achievement.

Determined to have fun tonight, a person will look tense. So is success: for it to become a natural consequence of our lives, we must pay attention to something more – the meaning of our lives.

And then we can allow ourselves to be pleased with ourselves, justify ourselves and respect ourselves, even if we do not succeed. After all, we have worked hard for the sake of the value that we serve all our lives.