In our super-fast, need-more, gotta-get-it world, many people live with a good bit of chronic anxiety and fear that they’re not successful enough or that they’ve failed (among other things). Others may be apprehensive because the success model that they think they should chase requires costs they’re unwilling to make or growth they’re unwilling to suffer through. The bottom line is that a lot of us worry … a lot! Too much time is spent in fear of things over which we have no control or, in hindsight or the reality along the way, things that just really aren’t that important.

Physician, researcher and author Dr. Elisabeth Kübler Ross, and others who have spent years working with people who are dying, have repeatedly heard what people regret about their life as they face death. Guess what? The regrets of dying human beings, when they’ve got time to think about it, are far more about qualitative matters than quantitative things. Most worry not about the promotion they didn’t get, the deal they didn’t do, the money they didn’t make, the number of employees they didn’t have, the stock they didn’t purchase or the car they didn’t buy. Instead, their attention and concern – if they have a concern at all – centers about the way they didn’t act, the people they didn’t serve, the relationships they didn’t build and the things they didn’t say. They feel best, not about the trinkets, wall plaques and bank accounts they collected, or the companies they conquered, but about the less tangible contributions they made that benefited someone else’s quality of life.

What to do?

The dilemma is not that setting and driving toward goals or enjoying the material fruits of our labors is something awful, but more that we view it as "The Point" rather than a vehicle which we can, toward the end of our lives, believe has been truly valuable. In business, we can and should take care of the quantitative matters payroll, revenues, profits and the like – not as an end in and of itself, but to foster viability that, in return, allows us to somehow be of service or do something of real value in our world. And we can define our success accordingly.

Many people make the mistake of interpreting perfectly normal feelings of discomfort as failure, and give up prematurely. But business owners who have been in business long enough to experience several cycles know that being expanded beyond your comfort zone is part of the terrain. You may never get completely comfortable with being stretched, but perhaps that’s why humans created the term ‘growing pains’. Yet for many, the temporary discomfort that accompanies growth is much more desirable than the false comfort of a status quo that they’ll later regret, and most likely feel along the way as the soul gently nudges them towards the various opportunities along the journey.

Think about it as if the quality of your life, as you judge it at your end, depends on it. How often do you worry about your success or failure, measured against external, culture-defined standards? Are those standards even is aligned with your real lifestyle preferences, priorities and needs? How can you know something or someone else is successful without being privy to the vision and goals of his business, for instance, or the heart, mind and happiness of the individual involved? The person whose apparent success you covet may be killing himself from the stress of pursuing goals that mean nothing to him, but that never enters your mind. This is a critical flaw in our wonderfully abundant culture —to assume someone is successful and happy because they have specific tangible tokens of accomplishment, and yet, as outlined earlier, research shows that pursuing and owning these things doesn’t in itself deliver happiness or meaning, and can actually increase depression and an inability to sustain relationships.

Is a quantitative definition of success truly success if it ultimately leaves you sick, lonely, dissatisfied or unfulfilled? Perhaps it would be better, and more meaningful, to ask yourself what you could learn, how you could refine your skillfulness, and what wonderful thing could you do for someone else – today. If nothing else, reflect on and create your own definition of success, so the standards that you set and the actions that you take in striving toward and accomplishing it are rewarding and meaningful.

This article is adapted from the book Big Vision, Small Business by Jamie S. Walters, founder and chief vision & strategy officer at Ivy Sea, Inc., and publisher and editor-in-chief for Ivy Sea Online, recognized by Inc.com, Harvard Business School, CEO Refresher and other business portals as one of the best sites on the internet for entrepreneurs, small-business owners and organizational leaders. The hardcover edition of Big Vision was published in October 2001 by Ivy Sea. The paperback edition will be published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers in Fall 2002. For more info or to order your copy of Big Vision, Small Business, check out the Big Vision page.

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