Miss Mandie

If this is true, how can success and happiness co-exist?

Is there a difference between doing something we don’t want to do because it makes us feel anxious or it’s boring or it requires energy and effort, to doing something that doesn’t resonate with our core essence/truth/soul?

How do we know the difference?

This has been an interesting conversation in my head lately.

Particularly as I watch myself procrastinate the shit out of completing my studies.

It’s as though I have to drag myself kicking and screaming through the last remaining modules of this course.

A course I have been doing for twelve months.

A course where most of the work has already been done.

A course I could have finished months ago.

A course I wished I had finished months ago.

So what’s my problem?

Albert Gray wrote a speech about his search for the common denominator of successful people. His discovery?

“Successful people formed the habit of doing things that failures don’t like to do”.

Now I just need to say here that the use of the word ‘successes and failures’ makes me cringe. I am a believer that it’s all a journey, so things that may be considered as ‘failings’ are more learning opportunities in my warm’n’fuzzy world.

But for theoretical sake, let’s consider success as destination A – that place we want to get to, whatever that looks like to us.

For me at the moment, success will be completing my god damn course.

According to Mr Gray, to be a success I need to form the habit of study, when what I really want to do is read interesting blog posts, communicate on twitter, chat to my friends, sit in the sunshine and read a book, scour second hand stores and markets, or daydream on the couch.

I am willing to admit that I suck at forming this habit.

Not a spare day goes by in my life that I don’t say “I have to study”.

And most of those days, I don’t.

I start out with great intentions. But I notoriously get side tracked with shiny, glittering things that seem soooooo much more interesting and important.

It’s not the course’s fault. The materials are awesome.

My jubilant feelings and exclamation of “I love this stuff!” are enough to convince me that this course really resonates with me.

I love the ideology of life coaching; the belief that everyone has all the answers within them, and it’s just a process of uncovering them.

So I definitely think my disdain for this course has been prompted by how much effort it’s taking to cross the finish line.

Which brings me to the realisation that Mr Gray may have been onto something.

The fact is, there a whole array of things that we don’t like to do, or when it comes to the crunch, we would rather put off to another day because we’ve just gotten tired or side tracked or bored with the task.

According to Mr Gray, success is actually “unnatural” and not to be achieved by following our natural likes and dislikes nor be guided by our natural preferences and prejudices because most of us will naturally choose to feel ‘comfortable’ and comfortable doesn’t push us into doing the things we don’t want to do.

After witnessing this first hand with my lack of determination to complete my studies, I’d have to agree with him.

So how do successful people push themselves into doing the things they don’t want to do?

Or more importantly, how can I push myself into completing this course?

Another snippet of Grey wisdom to help me understand:

“Successful people are influenced by the desire for pleasing results. Failures are influenced by the desire for pleasing methods and are inclined to be satisfied with such results as can be obtained by doing things they like to do”.

Ahhh, so the pleasing method of indulging my whims on a weekend is the cause of my current ‘learning opportunity’.

So to become one of those successful people, I need to cultivate enough of a passion for the pleasing result of finishing this course – strong enough to make me form the habit of doing the things I don’t actually want to do in order to accomplish this purpose.

My desire to finish this course and what it will mean to me has got to be big enough to drive that passion in me for the result.

It makes me think of all the things I’ve missed out because I haven’t been passionate enough about the end result to push through when it starts to feel hard:

-          The fitness goals in the past because I gave up on training

-          The health goals because I gave up monitoring what foods I put in my body

-          The financial goals because I couldn’t be bothered saving anymore

I am sure we’ve all got our string of “shoulda, coulda, woulda” in our lives based on this same failing; that we give up pushing ourselves through the tasks when we don’t feel like doing them.

So what would success look like?

For me, it’s sitting down each morning and opening my study books and doing the assessments.

Success might be dragging yourself out of bed when the alarm goes off an hour earlier in the morning to get to the gym/pool/jogging/yoga to help you reach your fitness goal, rather than ignoring the alarm and rolling over back to sleep.

Or organising your taxes. Putting money into your savings account.

Or having the difficult meeting with your staff member that has been late three times this week.

Consider even on just a local scale, success at keeping a house in order means doing some things we don’t necessarily want to do.

I don’t particularly care about cleaning my toilet, dusting the bedroom, weeding the garden, doing the dishes.

I can imagine as a parent it’s cleaning up vomit, changing nappies, dealing with wet beds, discussing safe sex with your teenager. All things that perhaps you would prefer not to spend your time on, but things that constitute successful parenting nevertheless.

And that brings up a point.

Why is that many of us are willing to do those small things because we feel enough passion about the result (the clean house and clothes, a tidy front garden, decent looking kids), but we don’t get passionate enough to create the results of a completely satisfying and fun life?

Why will we put off resigning?

Or put off the overseas trip we’ve been dreaming about?

Or avoid signing up to that course we’ve always wanted to learn?

Or procrastinate on doing the next thing needed to grow our business?

Grey has his own takes on this: it is easier to adjust ourselves to the hardships of poor living, than adjust ourselves to the hardships of making a better one.

I realise that forming this habit of success is going to take some effort.

It’s going to feel uncomfortable.

I love that my newfound internet friend, Slackermom, spoke about this very thing when tackling the #2500 word challenge. She so eloquently describes that moment when you know you made a promise to yourself to complete something, and despite all the uncomfortable feelings, pushing yourself and following through.

So I’m on a mission. To push through my habitual levels of comfort and follow through to success.

I will study and complete my course.

I will train and complete my first 10km race in two weeks.

I will write the required number of words in the creative #2500 word challenge.

What about you? Do you have to do things you don’t want to do in order to accomplish things you want? Tell me about your experiences and thoughts in the comments!