Success is often defined by a finish line such as a job, title, amount of income, or recognition. The challenge for high performers is the finish line is constantly moving. Often there’s an insatiable drive and once a goal is accomplished their sights are set on the next one. This can lead to burnout and a lack of satisfaction because high performers feel like it takes months or years to achieve something then the moment they get it they are back to the grind running towards a new goal. To be a sustainable high performer and accelerate your growth, you must redefine success. Don’t get me wrong, you need goals and the results matter. However, you are more than a win or a loss. Growth happens in the journey and if you don’t lift your head up to see growth along the way, you are likely to lose motivation and miss opportunities to leverage what you learned.
Here are some things to consider when redefining your view of success:
- Build your development plan– What are the skills you need to develop to accomplish the desired outcome? Develop a plan to build those skills with check points along the way to evaluate growth. Your wins are worth celebrating!
- Define your why– Why does success or accomplishing the goal mean so much to you? For high performing, competitive people it’s easy to get sucked into being validated by things that don’t really matter. Whether you finish first on the leaderboard or earn a promotion with a higher title, what made you better is the work that you did to get there. And if you do the work and don’t get the result, you have permission to sit with the negative emotion for a few moments, but then turn it into motivation for your next goal.
- Identify your milestones– What are the subgoals or other accomplishments that accompany the big goal? Ideally you achieve the goal, but if you don’t, there are likely meaningful milestones to recognize.
- Acknowledge your impact– Who did you impact along the way? For example, you are in sales, and you finished second in the sales rankings but the work you did made a significant difference for your customers. What does that mean to you?
- Leverage your learnings– How will this experience better prepare you for your next goal? What are the strengths or learnings you will leverage?
I acknowledge this can be a hard shift to make. I remember the pressure and stress I experienced on my journey to become the Rookie of the Year. The road to get there was grueling. I enjoyed about 24 hours of high fives and celebration then I was chasing a new quota. I remember feeling almost silly that I put so much energy into one goal. Do I regret it? No, but I did learn from it. I work hard to focus on growth and impact knowing that if I do those things the promotion, goal achievement, recognition, and rewards will follow.
In my coaching experience, I’ve helped people redefine success so they can hit their goals while increasing fulfillment and accelerating growth. You may not always have control over your goals, but you can control how you get there and your experience along the way. Embrace the hunt – your growth and power happen when chasing down the goal. When you master this, the finish line becomes that much better! Book a free discovery call to learn more about how coaching can enable you to reach new levels in business and life.
