Stop Treating Success Like a Destination

(Transcript edited for clarity.)

Hi, I'm Wes. Welcome to Stop Treating Success Like a Destination. This is something that I read and studied years and years ago, and it's something that's really important, and it took me a long time to actually start seeing and believing the advice that I read and studied years ago.

I've been working on success for most of my adult life, over 30 years now, probably closer to 40 years, and I remember reading this and thinking about this.

The advice that I read was that success is not a destination, and usually along with that advice is, you need to learn how to enjoy the process of working towards success instead of worrying about ever getting to success like success was some final destination.

And I remember when I was younger thinking, well, that's stupid advice.

Of course I know what success looks like.

I know exactly what I want, and when I get this, that will be a success.

And there's some of that that's true, but there's a couple big things here.

And this is a big warning that I'm hoping that I can help a lot of people with because it's something I had to learn through experience.

Even though I did receive this advice early in my adult life of searching for success, I'm trying to help you avoid some of the same mistakes I made.

And you might listen, you might not listen.

You might be like me, and you might have to learn on your own, and maybe that's part of the secret, I don't know.

But that's my hope here today.

So anyway, there's a couple things about this, about the destination and success and enjoying the journey that I've come to see and understand much deeper later in my life.

But one thing I had to learn on my own is that even if you have a goal, and you know exactly what you want, and that's success to you, our lives change.

Success to me today looks completely different than it did 10 years ago, definitely 20 years ago, definitely 30 years ago.

It's completely different.

My definition of what success is, it used to be, at the beginning, success for me was almost completely focused on finance, money.

Because my theory was that, you know, if you earn enough money, make enough money in any way, shape, or form, that with enough money you can handle a lot of the stresses in life.

And money won't solve quite everything, but the truth is, life is much easier in many ways if you have the financial resources to use to help you with the difficulties in life.

I mean, I've heard people say that money's not important.

Well, I guess money itself isn't important. What it can do is important.

But I will never say that financial well-being's not important.

It is.

I mean, think of some simple things like health care.

If you need a surgery or some medicine and you have the money to afford it, that makes life easier than if you don't have the money to afford it.

Or if one of your loved ones or someone you care a lot about, a child, a grandchild, a spouse, something like that, needs a medical procedure and you have the financial resources to take care of it, then that makes life easier than if you don't have the money to take care of it, right?

So I'm not here trying to tell you that money's not important.

But what I learned was, and what I started with here, is my first vision of success was really monetary.

Now, I still have monetary goals in my life, but I've learned that that's not the be-all-end-all of success for me.

And that's one thing I like about success, is each one of us gets to choose what success is or means for ourselves.

Whatever I view as successful for myself might not be viewed as successful by you.

Or maybe what you want to accomplish or success for you might not mean much to me.

And that's fine.

The thing is, though, that I have learned over the years that I would set a goal and I would think, that's what success looks like to me if I reach that goal.

And I'd reach that goal and I'd find that it was good, but I'd also find that it wasn't as good as I'd hoped.

And even if it was great, that wasn't the end.

And the easiest way to envision this is monetary, but there's other areas of my life and other success things in my life that have followed the same track.

But examples I'm going to use here are monetary because they're very easy to explain, and it's very easy for most people to understand what I'm talking about.

So let's say success to you is making $75,000 a year.

So you improve your skills, you start businesses, whatever, however you get there.

And you end up reaching that, and you're making $75,000 a year.

Do you stop right there?

I've found that I've never stopped.

Every time I've reached one, especially monetarily, it was like, great! I was able to do that. What's next?

And I think that is shared by a lot of people that study and work for success throughout their lives, like I've been focused on most of my adult life.

And I think most people think along the same lines that try to be more successful, that are successful.

It's almost always, what's next?

Now that can be good or it can be bad.

To me, I've always viewed that as good.

So, for example, if your goal is to get to $75,000 a year, and you get there, when you say what's next, I do think you should take a few moments or a little time to celebrate that you've reached your goal, and you have been successful with that goal.

But I also think that it's a good character trait.

I think it's good if you keep working towards success when you say what's next.

So you get to $75,000. What's next?

Probably $100,000.

Well, let's put that plan together.

Let's put that system in place.

Let's get to $100,000.

Then, once you get to $100,000, what's next?

Ask what's next.

I'm not saying you shouldn't enjoy when you are successful, and when you reach the goals that you set out.

But I think it's healthy, once you reach them and celebrate them a little bit, to ask what's next, because that's what keeps me going.

That's one of the big reasons I enjoy every day, getting up every morning.

It's what's next.

What am I working on today?

What am I working towards today?

Now, I said this was in many areas of my life, and your life too.

It's not just monetary.

Sometimes it can be family things.

It can be health goals.

It can be anything that's important to you.

But don't be afraid of asking what's next.

And let's get back to what I said about the advice that's usually connected with stop treating success like a destination.

And the advice that's usually attached to that is, learn to enjoy the process while still pursuing meaningful outcomes.

Now, I don't always enjoy all of the processes that I have to go through to reach the successes that I want to.

There's always a cost with everything you do.

Sometimes you have to pay a cost, or there's some pain associated with reaching the success or the goals you're trying to reach.

And that's fine.

So it's not all happiness and roses and sunshine, especially if you're working towards a big goal or something very important.

It's not always easy.

But I also have learned to build the processes towards the success and the goals I'm looking for or working towards with some things that are enjoyable to me.

And again, this might be an experience thing, and maybe this is why I struggled so much understanding this message when I was younger, that I understand it more now.

But through experience, I know what I like.

I know what I don't like at this point.

So every time I'll try to build a plan or a system or put a goal worksheet together, I know what I like and what I don't like.

And I always try to make sure that I plan ahead so that I do things I like associated with whatever this goal is so that I can enjoy the process.

And I've learned to enjoy the process of working towards success more and more the more times I've tried to do it.

So I have a few key points here before we close.

I would appreciate it if you'd subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes.

So stop treating success like a destination.

Here's a question that you can ask that might help you have a breakthrough here.

What changes in your life when you stop thinking of success as somewhere you eventually arrive?

Why can't we look at success not as a destination, but as a process of learning and growing and improving, and that's success along the way towards our big goals?

I'm a big believer in big goals.

You should have big goals.

What I'm saying is, why isn't it viewed as success when we're getting closer to the big goals?

If you break a big goal down into a thousand steps, there might be, you know, ten huge steps along the way.

Each huge step takes a hundred little steps to get there.

Each of those ten huge steps you reach is a success because it changes us.

It changes what we know.

It changes things in our lives.

It changes our understanding and it changes how we do things in the future.

Even these small successes compound over time as we keep building.

Here's a few more key points.

Success is something to build and maintain.

It's not always a finish line, and it's okay to build and maintain success or momentum.

That's success in itself.

Reaching one goal usually reveals the next challenge or opportunity.

That's my question, the what's next question.

If happiness depends on finally arriving, you can spend years postponing satisfaction.

I think this might be a big point here.

Stop tying your happiness into arriving at whatever you think success is.

Try to find your happiness in the journey to reaching your goals.

Measure success by the direction, progress, and alignment, not only completed goals.

So I hope this helps you.

This is Wes, Your Life Systems.

Again, please subscribe and stop treating success like a destination.

I'll see you soon.

What's Next?

·        Write down what success means to you today, not what it meant five or ten years ago.

·        Identify which current goals matter because of the result itself and which matter because of what they are supposed to provide.

·        Choose one recent accomplishment and take time to recognize it before immediately moving to the next target.

·        Ask what the next meaningful challenge or opportunity is without treating the previous goal as meaningless.

·        Look for one way to make the process toward an important goal more enjoyable or sustainable.

Measure this by direction, progress, and alignment as well as completed outcomes.

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