As a creative, I know how hard creatives work to achieve some measure of success and how often creatives feel as if they won’t or can’t make it. I’ve been there. The life of a creative can be the most rewarding experiences of one’s life but they can also be the most soul-crushing. The unfortunate things is that most of us do the soul-crushing for ourselves without even knowing it.
What is Success?
Before we begin, take a moment to think about what success means to you. How would you describe it to someone else?
Webster-Merriam Dictionary defines success as
1a: degree or measure of succeeding;
b: favorable or desired outcome (also:the attainment of wealth, favor, or eminence);
2: one that succeeds; and it lists an “obsolete” definition as the third option “outcome, result.”
So by that definition, we must be able to describe the degree or measure of our success, the attainment of wealth, or the favor or eminence we have, and can only be favorable. Only then can it be a label we or others give ourselves.
Why You Don’t Feel Successful
Wow. The very definition has strong connotations that those who can’t describe their success as achieving some measure or degree, or as wealth, or favor, or eminence, then you aren’t a success. No wonder so many creators (and many others) feel less than successful. But don’t overlook all the other reasons you don’t feel successful.
Societal Influences
The internet and social media have done great things and some not-so-great things. Sixty-seconds of film or a paragraph of words can make anyone’s life look far more glamorous, favorable, and desirable than it actually is. If you see that text or post or video and wish you had that kind of success, you’ve fallen for the ruse. Yes, we all know that some people really are that famous, or rich, or glamorous—but it’s not as many as you think. And, just because a person has fame or riches or glamor doesn’t mean that person feels successful. While the reasons you don’t feel successful are unique to you, you aren’t the only one who feels they aren’t a success.
Personal Mindset and Expectations
Are you chasing perfection? Are you frozen, unable to proceed because you’re afraid you might fail? Maybe you have a voice in your head that says you can’t do this, or you’re not doing it right, or you’re just not good enough. You could feel overworked and overwhelmed. Or maybe your dissatisfaction is so big that you forget to be grateful for your little wins.
Each of the mindsets listed in the previous paragraphs are their own individual mine-fields full of traps to keep you there. Your mindset can insist you see the situation clearly when you don’t.
For example: the perfectionism trap. There is no perfect. There is perfect for now or close to perfect. But if you’re not happy because it (whatever it is) isn’t perfect, you may need to look deeper. Why must it be perfect? Who says it must be perfect? No, the correct answer probably isn’t “you,” go deeper.
Lack of Recognition and Support
You may believe that you won’t feel successful until a specific someone is proud of what you do. But that person you care about belittles your craft or what you’ve done. It’s disheartening and makes it an uphill struggle to keep creating. You feel unappreciated. Alone. Eventually, even the heartiest of souls will become demoralized and lose motivation to continue.
Misconceptions
The most common misconception about success is that it is a destination. Many people believe that once you are successful, you and everyone else will know it and you’ll feel all the good feelings. And that those feelings will last indefinitely. Unfortunately, even those who appear to be a great success often do not feel successful right away, and certainly not indefinitely.
Other misconceptions include things like success means the same thing to everyone or only certain types of people (extroverts, enthusiastic, etc) can succeed.
The misconception that gets many creatives is that simply by follow your passion and you will be a success. But passion alone rarely gives on success.
The list of misconceptions continues with success depends upon your upbringing or only the lucky ones are a success. Another one is: success only happens if you will step on other people to get there and only people who don’t make mistakes get to be successful. And finally, success happens overnight. It may happen quickly, but it rarely happens overnight.
If any of the above is part of your understanding of success, re-examine that belief. Who told you that? Is it what keeps you from creating? Why do you still believe it?
Not Knowing Oneself
We often lump what success looks like with how it will feel when we “make it.”
If you don’t know who you are at your core, what your core values are and aren’t, and cannot allow yourself to sit with your emotions…you can be a success, but you’ll never feel like one.
Knowing oneself isn’t taking the easy path. People who suppress their feelings often do it because it wasn’t safe to feel them earlier in their lives. So it takes hard work and time to figure this out, no matter how well-adjusted you might think you are. You’ve got to put in the work, to examine yourself deeply, before you can be your true self. When you discover and act on being your true self, you will no longer be under the spell of all the external things success appears to be.
What is Success?
I asked you to think about what success looked like to you. Did you list things like riches, a nice house, great clothes, or fame? I did when I first did this exercise. I’d like you to think about something else for a moment.
Writers are told that to write a good story, your main character must have an external goal. But to give your story the best chance of being great, your main character must also have an internal goal that explains why that external goal is a worthy one. Great stories are about an internal goal or need that makes the external goal or need worth the effort. The same is true with success. In order to feel successful, that success needs to start from an internal goal. But wait, you say, I have a goal—and you name it. Maybe you have many goals. Most of us do. However, many of us are quite skillful at hiding our internal needs and wants from others and even more skillful at hiding them from ourselves.
How to Feel Successful
Who Are You?
First, figure out who you are. You may need professional help to do that. And that can be very scary and costly. So start small and work your way up.
Even if you already know who you are, if you haven’t done this self-examination in a while, you may find value in exploring these things.
Here are some questions to answer. Take your time to think about them deeply. It’s only when you are totally honest with yourself that you can make the journey toward feeling successful.
- Who are you?
- What have you been?
- What have you accomplished?
- What is your life about?
- What do you want your life to be about?
- Whose version of success are you chasing?
- What part(s) of you have you ignored or suppressed in order to achieve success?
What You Can Do.
The problem with defining success with external things is that it completely ignores the internal. If you do that, external successes will never satisfy you until you align your goals with your internal needs and values.
You want to feel like a success. So, after you better understand who you are, answer: a. How would success make you feel?, b. what can you do to feel those feelings now?, and c. What do I need to stop doing?
Example
If your goal is to lose 25 pounds, ask yourself how you would feel if you were 25 pounds lighter than you are now. Answer: I’d feel more comfortable in my clothes, be healthier, and have more energy.
What can I do to feel these feelings now? I can choose healthy foods to eat, exercise more, focus on getting more and better quality sleep, etc.
What do I need to stop doing? Binge eating, using high-calorie foods to “stuff” my feelings, and stay up late less often.
Granted, this example and answer may be more simple than the ones you’ll ask yourself. But the key to making this work for you is to use S.M.A.R.T. goals, and to make your goals small enough that you can accomplish them, and to track and reward your successes.
If your goal is to choose healthier foods to eat. You need to make it small enough to accomplish. You can start by making a goal of “For the next eight weeks, I will choose a healthy vegetable instead of a high calorie side dish one meal per week. I will track this by placing a gold star on my calendar each day that I choose a healthy vegetable. Every time I reach my goal two weeks in a row, I will allow myself to (insert an action that will celebrate this).”
You can track your progress with journaling, or stickers, or whatever floats your boat. Note, only track the positive results. This means you’ll enjoy seeing that gold star on the calendar. It will make you feel good. So, in eight weeks, you look back at what you’ve accomplished. Well, look at that. You’ve got two gold stars on every week. You move your goal up to three gold stars for the next eight weeks.
If you don’t meet your goal, you either didn’t make your goal small enough or you need more time to change that behavior. There are no punishments, no judgment for not making a goal, only a re-assessment. Maybe that goal wasn’t in alignment with your true self. Maybe you need to re-evaluate why you want that goal. Then choose a goal that aligns with who you are and who you want to be, and repeat the process.
True Self + True Feelings = Feeling Successful
When you act on the feelings that align with your true self, you’ll feel more motivated. You won’t need those external things or other people to feel successful. Feeling truly successful and satisfied comes from three key things: knowing your true self, acting in alignment with your true self, and celebrating your small wins. It may take a while for you to feel successful, but if you do this you will feel more and more successful. Every small win you celebrate reinforces those. So focus on those three keys and and learn to feel successful.
What small win will you celebrate today?
Read more about tools for your creative life.
References
Image Credits
Featured image purchased from DepositPhotos.com
Last image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay