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The meaning of success and failure

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            Most of us probably go through life without giving a lot of thought to how we define “success” and “failure.” I certainly never gave much thought to it for many years. It seemed like common sense to aim for the former and try to avoid the latter. However, I’ve found that the way we relate to the concepts of success, excellence, mistakes, and failures makes a big difference for the way we relate to work and life. It can mean the difference between feeling beleaguered, depressed, and defeated, or feeling deeply curious, open to learning, and genuinely engaged. Exploring our assumptions about these things can help open up possibilities for satisfaction, innovation, and true learning.

 

 

Our relationship to our academic and professional work

            

            Even if we haven't thought much about having a relationship with our work, it turns out that most of us have one. It might be mostly positive, negative, or a mixture. And, as is true of a relationship with another person, our relationship with our work can be complicated--it can be fraught with intense meanings and feelings, many of which are long-standing and involve assumptions, hopes, thoughts, and feelings. Sometimes what appears to be simple stuckness, resistance, boredom, or even laziness turns out to have more to do with how we relate to the work. But, perhaps even more than an interpersonal relationship, our relationship to our work is amenable to change – we can take steps to make our work less stressful and more invigorating, meaningful, and productive.

 

 

Procrastination

 

           Many of us procrastinate. Or at least we think we do. We aim to finish something by a certain time, and we don’t do it. Maybe we don't even start. Some see that kind of thing as a failure of will or a reflection of a character flaw like laziness. But I've come to understand procrastination differently; this isn't a problem of laziness or weak character. We procrastinate for many reasons, some of them complex and, yes, even reasonable. If procrastination were a simple thing, we would have fixed it long ago. The good news is that often our procrastination patterns are amenable to change. 

 

 

Perfectionism

 

           Why not aim high, right? Many of us assume that, in order to get great results, we should aim for perfection, or close to it. The best we can imagine. But, as many people know, that kind of perfectionistic goal often backfires. It can create blocks to working, actually making it harder to get good results. And it can even lead us to avoid working toward goals. Developing a more complex, more sophisticated relationship to our goals, while keeping standards high, can make a big difference in how we feel about our work and how much we can actually achieve.

             

 

Listening and responding

 

           Most of us know that good communication and listening are important, but how do we really practice that? Even though good listening is a learned ability, how do we learn it? We rarely have many supportive places to carefully explore and practice dealing with difficult conversations. Using real-life situations and step-by-step increases in difficulty, it’s possible to develop skill at listening and responding--incredibly important abilities when we're dealing with emotion, interpersonal tension and conflict.

 

 

Team building

 

          It can take only one or two negative interactions to change the tone and effectiveness of a team. But, even when we try hard to navigate team conflicts and difficulties, we can be powerfully affected by them. Yet we rarely have opportunities to meaningfully learn how to work well within teams. For example, we tend to hide our mistakes and emphasize whatever we think are our "successes," but that makes for some tense team relationships.

 

Fortunately, through skill-building, practice, and personal reflection, team members can learn to deal effectively with differences, to identify and articulate their own goals, and to support one another’s. And this makes for a stronger, more effective, and more satisfying team. 

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