Sure, it would be great if you could just leapfrog over the people in front of you. If you could skip making the investments of time, energy and money into skill and credential building and go straight to the rewards. As Jack Kerouac once said, though, "Walking on water wasn't built in a day." What's more, the learning process itself can be very rewarding.
Theater maven Harold Clurman, whose life reads like a cultural Who's who, calls the American fixation on fast results "dementia Americana." In The Collected Works of Clurman warns against the mania for instant success. "Everyone wants everything so fast," he writes. "They should realize, these impatient ones, that often what one gathers on the path to accomplishment is more re warding than the goal itself."
Indeed, it's wiser to think more in terms of "everyday successes" or little wins rather than to focus on some giant jackpot. Little wins (which eventually add up to big wins) include such satisfactions as receiving a compliment from a happy customer, gaining a new skill, improving on an existing ability, developing finesse in handling your boss, learning to cope better with constructive criticism and negotiating a better contract with a vendor. Such successes are easier to come by, but can make the difference between a good day and a bad one. Having more good days than bad is certainly one valid definition of a successful life.
If you think success involves more than that and you want to fly higher, you'll have to dig a little deeper. When clinical psychologist Charles Garfield first researched super achievers in business, he wanted to know what made them different. In his book Peak Performers (1986, New York: Avon Books), Garfield reveals the secret that enables these executives to achieve consistently impressive and satisfying results without burning out.
Says Garfield: "The bottom line for peak performers is that they went and pursued their dreams."
If you're a pragmatist, this theory may sound absurdly idealistic. Yet it's true that ideals are powerful motivators. As Hans Selye, a prominent researcher on stress in human life, says, "Realistic people' with 'practical aims' are rarely as realistic or practical in the long run as the dreamers who pursue their dreams."
Why? Because dreamers who are committed to making their visions come true often keep a close eye on anything and anyone that might interfere with their ability to bring the dream to life. Their intense ambition can make them incredibly pragmatic when it comes to achieving their goals.
At the heart of every peak performer, Garfield found a de sire to excel at something the person truly cared about. In these achievers, economic self interest combined with other, more spiritual, values involving creativity and service. These values became leverage points to excel.
Having such a spiritual tie in enables you to meet some of your deeper needs. Without it, you become highly susceptible to burnout, no matter how talented and ambitious you are.
A Turn for the Worse
Burnout is a sign that something has gone amiss in your work life. For a highly successful 32 year old real estate agent in Chicago, burnout was more a crisis of the spirit than body (despite her very long work hours). Having labored so hard to get what she wanted, she discovered that she actually wanted something else.
At first, she couldn't quite put her finger on the problem. Activities she had once enjoyed, such as following up leads, showing houses and closing deals, now felt tedious and boring. Her beeper which she had once prized as a personal symbol of indispensability became a nuisance at best. More often, it seemed like an electronic jail holding her captive.
Pretty soon she found herself saying that she no longer cared if she sold "one more stupid house." She preferred a long weekend with her husband. She had the Sunday blahs and the Monday blues, and could barely drag herself out of bed in the morning.
Maybe she needed a vacation. Her life was out of balance. She reasoned that no one can work seven days a week under that kind of pressure without burning out.
A week in the Bahamas was helpful. But the Sunday they returned, she had the Sunday blahs and Monday blues all over again. Financial success notwithstanding, she longed for a different kind of work experience. She wanted a job that would be less about making money and more about social service. But poverty didn't appeal to her, either. Financial compromise, not sacrifice, became her war cry. Armed with a better understanding of her own needs, she found her answer in corporate social work (aka, employee assistance counseling), where she could use her business skills in a more helping profession.
Find Your Own Meaning
Different careers are meaningful to different types of people. A real estate agent, for example, may feel that he or she is making a contribution to the economy of the country by bringing together buyers and sellers. Meanwhile, a social worker might feel that the real estate agent isn't doing anything valuable at all. On the other hand, a real estate agent might view a social worker as an idealistic do gooder with ridiculously altruistic motives.
Knowing your values and preferences prevents mistakes. A person with the heart of a social worker who ends up as a real estate agent is unlikely to feel fulfilled by that choice and vice versa.
Some of the most satisfying career choices emerge when you do for pay what you'd do for play whatever that might be. Prizefighter Sugar Ray Leonard once told a group of Harvard University students that his greatest talent (and pleasure) came from "beating people up." Now who would've thought that drive could be turned into an honest and lucrative career? Former Wall Street trader Laura Pedersen, whose escapades are chronicled in Play Money (1991, New York: Crown), converted a love of games and strategy into an uncanny knack for making money.
By the time she was 12, Pedersen who admits to a misspent youth at the racetrack was already well on her way to mastering the art of handicapping. She parlayed this talent into a remarkably successful career as one of the youngest millionaires on Wall Street. But she recognizes that it takes most people longer to find (and convert) their passions into dollars.
