I’ve been reading Seth Godin’s The Practice this week and thinking about the extent to which we define success inside of parameters we have no control over. I’m not sure I’ve ever defined success any other way. The grade in school. The praise of a boss. The promotion or raise or accolade. The esteem of friends or the affection of a loved one. So many boxes to check and cards to punch.
Seth’s notion of the “practice” is that the discipline is the measure of success in itself. That a successful day/week/job-of-work is best measured by the extent that you lived into what you say you’re about. That the criteria for success are not external, not outside your control.
None of this means to say that the reception of your work doesn’t matter. It might matter quite a lot. It matters what your boss thinks of the report. It’s important what the client thinks of your proposal. Categorizing the criteria for success as an inside job requires a deep detachment from the reception the work receives and a willingness to receive whatever response comes back.
That’s a paradigm shift that requires a radical reorientation and constant assessment of the feelings involved. Sure, I can make the claim that I’m measuring success by my own yardstick, but is it the fact of the matter if I still feel like a failure and take it to heart when the world fails to agree with me?
I think that, too, needs to be the subject of persistent, workmanlike labor. Can we remain unattached to our own reactions? We can try. And if we fail, we can do the work to detach from our reaction to that.