Individual Success: Made of Goals or Sudden Awareness?While achieving the goals we've always dreamt about can make us successful, goals accomplished are not the key factor to be happy with our lives because of the uniqueness of success, the adaptation of achieved goals, and the sudden awareness of our abilities. Most people agree that if you want to live a successful life, then you certainly need a future plan, in other words, set a goal. And once you set your goal, make your way through the obstacles, and then accomplish your dream, you become successful, or… you think you have. What most of us forget while going after their goals is the reason why they're doing so. Some say to be happy, others claim to be successful, and lots are confused.If you're thinking I'm going to show you the shortest and obstacle-free way to accomplish your goal(s) in life, you're mistaken. Today, you can find numerous ways to organize, set, and execute your goal(s) with the help of professional books, seminars, or even cheap software found on the internet in easy and fun way. While these rich sources can make it easier for you to attain what you always wanted to be or do, they do not guarantee you success. Pleasure and joy are all they make you feel.Jennifer Hautman surely summarized everything by saying, "Every human that has ever existed has had happiness as their ultimate goal in life" (2001). When you focus on the word "ultimate" you'll know she's correct. Because whichever goal you set and plan to achieve is a route to the ultimate destination…happiness. Therefore, the more routes you walk on, the more confused you are from which route should you select. In other words, setting sub goals and going after them distracts people from the ultimate goal instead of leading to it. The good news is people are managing their way through success in almost all fields, socially, financially… etc. by achieving well-set goals. The bad news is that people lose perspective why they're doing so. Before jumping into conclusions, some concepts should be re-defined. Page(1)-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We set goals because we believe that by achieving them we are successful. They're supposed to make us feel proud of ourselves either by making us more confident, or so can others point to us and say, "I want to be like that successful person"; meanwhile, it is happiness that all of us seek through life, and it is happiness that will bring us success, and not necessarily vice versa. It is important to put into our perspective that happiness has only one definition; on the other hand, success has many definitions depending on the angle that success is seen from. If you think your social or financial success is going to make you reach the ultimate happiness, read my short interview with my father:
- Have you had any goals in life, dad?
- Well, It was actually one… to be rich.
- Do you think you achieved your goal?
- Apparently, yes pretty much.
- So are you happy now?
He stopped there for a while and said "I'm not sure". I couldn't get a full answer there because I understand it must be hard for a father to say, "I'm not happy with what I've become" to his son, but I know that he feels happy when he watched his children grow up, when he worked for a company he hated only to make us live the best life. People tend to reach happiness in their unique ways. You'd be fooling yourself if you think people are the ones who determine whether you're happy or not; happiness is one of the few emotions – if not the one and only – which is generated from the inside of you. Only you can tell how happy you are. It is hard to describe happiness in literature; thus, a web statistical association found a way to describe “happiness” by ranking the first five words associated to it. The number one word associated to happiness was "joy" (nameless-uk, 2004). There's no easy way to determine our unique success but to dig deep into ourselves and answer the question "What do we really want in life?" sometimes, a father finds himself most happy when he sets a good example to his children. A teacher might find the continuous joy of passing the knowledge through generations his ultimate success. And the list goes on and on. Generally speaking, people tend to feel most happy by making others happy. And that is when we start to seeing success from the right glare-free angle.Page(2)-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
People shouldn't talk about success in relative terms anymore; instead, they should focus more on the relation between their own success and what makes them happy. People need to find what makes them happy the most, and when they reach happiness, they have therefore obtained their unique success along with their happiness. Hearing people talking about your fame or fortune – means of success in relative terms - behind your back lets you dose a good full spoon of pleasure, making you more confident and proud of yourself. But how long will that feeling of momentary joy last? Pleasure is found in throwing a party, buying a new car, or having a crush on someone. Once the party has finished, a scratch on your new car is visible to everybody, or your crush has faded away, the pleasure is all gone. On the other hand, happiness is a permanent feeling coming from inside of you; your satisfaction about your decisions in life no matter how wrong they might have been is the source of your happiness. It is quite difficult to achieve ultimate happiness, for it requires people with strong belief in their selves and in what they want in life. But the fact is most people don't know what they are after; nevertheless, people still pursue their happiness thru following their goal(s); believing that by achieving them, they become successful, and therefore happy. Those who don't know what they're after must not follow the same path of those minority confident people. In other words, setting a goal might not be as easy as the majority would think; in fact, it might be dangerous.If we all agree that pleasure is a small portion of happiness, then lots of pleasure will somehow be equal to happiness. Therefore if we have fun with our lives consuming the moment, seizing opportunities, and hunting pleasure, we might be actually very close to happiness. All we have to do is to give up our goals because we never know whether our decision to do something or be someone is what we really want, or might change in time. This will give us more space of time and much less stress of thinking about tomorrow, and surrender to faith waiting for it to reveal what surprises it might be carrying for us. Page(3)-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In addition to the importance of understanding our unique success and where it comes from, there's the strange overwhelming feeling when we finally achieved a goal. Louis Binstock once said, "When all is said and done, success without happiness is the worst kind of failure" (n.d.). You can tell that Binstock knows that success -which the majorities believe that it's made of goals-, has nothing to do with happiness, negated by Earl Nightingale who said, "To achieve happiness, we should make certain that we are never without an important goal" (n.d.). Let's stop there for a moment and discuss what Earl has said there. Although it is clear that goals are important to most people whether they follow a process to achieve their goals or not, goals have nothing to do with happiness. They do guarantee us a feeling of pleasure, joy, and pride in the short-run after maybe suffering the long road to the goal, not mentioning the loss of other joyful momentary things we could have felt during the accomplishment of the desired goal. Thus, we give up lots of joy and sometimes important things like a daughter's birthday, a son's football game, or an anniversary for the intended "greatest success" that will bring us ultimate happiness. A famous wealthy businessman, who probably had to save a lot of money to become what he desired and didn't spend the money when he should have had, will eventually end up asking himself, "Then what?", like what Coleen Sykora said in her article "Live for the Journey, Not the Destination" (2001), where she defines goals as obstacles to success and true happiness. As she mentions, she's done exactly what most of famous books say on achievement of goals, to write her goal down on paper and work on it. She continues, "I quickly reached my goal and did receive that brand new car to drive… sadly it was an empty goal" (Sykora, 2001). Sykora thinks her goal drove her to the road of failure because she made a wrong goal. But what if you actually reached the right goal? Isn't all the time you gave up was worth the wait? Page(4)-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is true that you have missed a lot and gave up a lot of things just for your goal, but now that you've achieved it, you're happy for your success. But how long will that feeling last? The greater problem after accomplishing the goal is to live it! Actually, this is where the hard part begins because now you have to give up also more things than before to maintain your position whether it is associated to fame or money. You can never maintain your goal and be as happy as the time when you first achieved it no matter how hard you try. Simply, it is a human nature. Your body will get old after you've done the impossible to become a model. You'll always find someone who's more wealthy and famous than you are. Your car will no longer be the coolest on the road. The point is, people’s lives will gradually come to an end with no real goal achieved…happiness. Also, Most of the time we feel we've made the right decision to be somebody and to do something; meanwhile, we wonder how will our life would've been if we have decided something else, and it's impossible to shift our lives and take another course at this point. This is what I mean by the strange overwhelming feeling of achieving a goal, which is one of the reasons why we shouldn't think of goals this seriously in addition to the uniqueness of success we talked about. Not underestimating the uniqueness of success and the adaptation of goals achieved, but there's an ignored truth of reaching happiness without going through a single goal. Discovering our abilities is that truth. We just have to keep our senses awake whenever a chance is offered from life. Why do you think a lot of doctors retire early and go sailing for the rest of their lives? I'd have to say because of their sudden awareness of their ability to sail! That's right! Discovering your ability to do something might be your way to unlock your ultimate success. All you have to do is to be aware that you might feel happy by doing something more than the other because you're better in doing it! If happiness is what you care to have, then either explore your abilities or wait for life to give you a hint. Life is generous. Page(5)-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A comparison between two people on how they measure success won't be enough to conclude results; therefore, two significantly different cultures will be taken into consideration… Arabs and Westerns.People in the Arab World tend to be happier than people in the West part of the world. Regardless of the hasty generalization just made, there are reasons made me think so.One reason why I think the Arab World is much happier than the Western World is their way of thinking. Unlike Westerns, Arabs tend to use their heart to think more than their brain which makes them more emotional and maybe irrational in making their decisions, but thinking through the heart often leads to better results. In general, Arabs' source of happiness is everything related to religion, family, and food. While a poor Arab family won't prohibit itself from eating good quality food, a poor western family will just try to eat what's enough to survive. Also, Westerns seem to plan for the future more than Arabs do by saving more money in their bank accounts. While it's true that it is an irrational way of thinking to enjoy the money you have now and not plan using it for the future by saving it, saving money is the best way to sacrifice momentary pleasure and the worst way to reach true happiness.Religion has a definite strong emphasis on people and how they make decisions in life. Taking the Islamic religion into perspective and its effects onto Muslims which are a major part of the Arab World; happiness depends also on one's believes. The higher level of satisfaction about ourselves we reach, the happier we feel in our lives. And to have a strong belief that there exists one God who rules all and people are all the same in the eyes of his makes Muslims feel more confident and satisfied about the fact that the ruler of the world is fair. Justice from God generates a feeling of deep happiness to Muslims because it seems to ease their troubles and sorrows. Because true Muslims surrender their will to God, they're content for what God has to offer them in life; and therefore, pretty satisfied in their life without going through all the hassle of setting and accomplishing goals. Simply, the more belief in God there is in any religion, the more content people are in their lives. Comparing Muslims to Christians which are the major two religions in the world (adherents, 2002), there's no less belief in God in neither Islam nor Christianity, but it seems Arabs are more likely to follow their religion because it provides them with clear guidance on how to run and live life happily; whereas, Westerns follow physical means of happiness throughout setting goals and going after them. Page(6)-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brian Tracy does a magnificent job teaching people how to achieve their goals faster than they ever thought possible (2003). Consisting from more than twenty steps beginning with "unlocking potential" and ending with "persisting until success", Brain's steps to goal-accomplishing are fabulous in a sense that if people follow his steps, they'll surely reach their desired goals. But what's missing is what's beyond goal-achieving. What's the point of achieving a goal if we're not sure whether our desires are going to make us happy or not? Where's the link between our desires and purpose of existence? To avoid confusion, it is not asked from people to forget about their dreams or be less ambitious, but people should not forget to link their desires altogether with their believes and their purpose of existence; that will be the perfect combination to feel happy or at least what is close to happiness. For example, if your goal is to be a successful doctor, your goal shouldn’t only be the medical degree but you should also pursue your need to make people feel better, because then, you would make God satisfied about you for helping the human-kind and therefore you'll feel right because God, people, and yourself are all happy about what you're doing. Goal pursuing should not be a selfish mission. Page(7)-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Does that mean you should totally surrender to faith and never make plans for the future because goals are a doubtful step to happiness, can be waste of effort, and can hinder from seizing the moment and exploring yourself? No, but if you are one-hundred percent sure of your decision of making a certain goal, you are aware of how painful losing perspective is, you are a super human to maintain your goal after achieving it, and are ready to answer the question "Then what?" after reaching your dream, then yes, you should be considering plan-b which isn't diminishing your self-esteem or your abilities, in fact, plan-b is exhorting you to discover your abilities. Instead of thinking about goals this seriously, you should have the most joy and pleasure you can get out of your life; you don't need the best car, the best job, the best looks, all you need is to be satisfied about yourself, of what kind of happy person God made out of you. You can have a plan for the future, but not strictly adhere to it, because you never know when an earthquake can ruin your beautiful relaxing seaside hut, at a quiet sunset afternoon. Why put all of your effort for one dream where you can enjoy numerous pleasurable moments bringing you steps further to happiness everyday.Page(8)-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
References List
Adherents. (2002, September 6). List of World's Major Religions. Retrieved December 27, 2004, from http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.htmlBinstock L. (n.d.). About Success. Retrieved October 15, 2004, from http://www.yourquotations.net/Louis%20Binstock_quotes.htmlBrain, T. ( 2003). Goals! How to get everything you want. San Francisco, Ca. Berrett- Koehler Inc.
Hautman, J. (2001, March 28). Happiness is Everyone's Goal. Retrieved October 16, 2004, from http://www.selfcreation.com/happiness/happiness_is_the_goal.htmNameless-uk. (2004). Happiness Statistics. Retrieved December 27, 2004, from http://www.wordassociation.org/words/happinessNightingale E. (n.d.). Goal Setting Guide. Retrieved October 15, 2004, from http://www.goal-setting-guide.com/quote-goal.html Sykora C. (2001). Live for the Journey, Not the Destination. Retrieved October 16, 2004, from http://www.wahm.com/goals.html