This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "The Confidence Gap" by Russ Harris. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.
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What does redefining success mean? Do you have a healthy idea of success? How can you redefine your idea of success?
Psychotherapist Russ Harris wrote The Confidence Gap for people who struggle to carry out their life goals and seek to change their thinking to be more empowering. According to him, you need to relate differently to the idea of success to effectively pursue goals in the long term.
Keep reading to learn how to redefine an unhealthy relationship with success, according to Harris.
Relating Productively to Success
According to psychotherapist Russ Harris, to pursue meaningful goals over the long term, you must also relate productively to the idea of success. By redefining success, you won’t become disillusioned along the way and give up.
Harris writes that it’s dangerous to believe that fully achieving your goal is the only way to be successful and to feel good about yourself. Often, achieving your goals is contingent on factors outside of your control, which can make it hard to reach them and thus to ever feel that you’ve “succeeded.” When you feel like your goal is unattainable and that success is elusive, you’re more likely to give up pursuing the goal.
(Shortform note: In perhaps no other field is success more outside of your control than in the creative field. In Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert stresses that professional creatives have little control over their careers because there are so many creative gatekeepers: publishing companies, media executives, and funding agencies, for instance. Gilbert even recommends not trying to earn money through creative work, but instead pursuing recreational creative goals.)
Redefining success is important because, even if you achieve a goal, your sense of satisfaction and success will be fleeting: Soon, you’ll find another goal you haven’t yet achieved, and you’ll feel dissatisfied again.
(Shortform note: Others feel that even if you do succeed in achieving your goals, they might not make you happy in the way you imagined. This is because, often, our goals are the ones society creates for us. These tend to be individualistic and meritocratic—things like making lots of money, having a celebrated career, and owning a house. Many reach these goals and discover—as Harris alludes to—that their satisfaction is fleeting or, in fact, nonexistent. Others might think they’re happy having achieved their goals, but then a crisis occurs, and they discover they’re not spiritually or emotionally fulfilled.)
Redefine Success by Living According to Your Values
Harris instead invites you to redefine success as living according to your personal values as often as possible. He recommends this because living by your values is fully within your control, making it much easier to achieve success. What’s more, living according to your values is inherently rewarding and increases your overall satisfaction in life.
For instance, if you value empathy, you can choose to be empathetic at any time: at the doctor’s office, when talking to a sibling, and so on. Any act of empathy would be a success. Further, because you value empathy, acting on that value makes you happier and more fulfilled.
(Shortform note: Harris believes redefining success as living in accordance with your values gives you full control over your success because you can choose to live out your values at any time. However, others might contest the idea that a values-driven life is one you have full control over. In Awaken the Giant Within, Tony Robbins argues that you don’t get to choose your values: They arise independently based on life events, your environment, the people you’re around, and so on. Not being able to choose your values in the first place implies a lesser degree of control over your life than Harris seems to believe in. Of course, not being able to choose your values in the first place doesn’t change the fact that you can still choose to act on them at any time.)
Importantly, Harris claims redefining success doesn’t mean you shouldn’t set goals at all. Instead, he thinks that you should set goals that stem from your values. This way, even if you don’t fully reach a goal, you derive satisfaction from the journey toward it because you’re acting according to your values. This also means you don’t only experience satisfaction in the brief moment of attaining a goal: You experience it all along the way toward that goal.
For instance, if you value empathy, you can live out that value in your stand-up show by paying careful attention to the audience and using material you think they’ll like specifically. Thus, even if you didn’t feel you reached your goal of having an amazing show, you still were empathetic to your audience, which gives you a sense of success and satisfaction.
(Shortform note: If you hesitate to set goals at all because you don’t want to slip into goal-oriented thinking, consider an alternative perspective on goals and values, also from Tony Robbins: He doesn’t ask you to define separate goals and values, but rather to define two types of values: “ends” and “means.” Ends are the big-picture values you want to achieve in life (like connection, contentment, and joy) while means are the smaller-picture values that help you achieve the ends (for instance, valuing friends as a means leads to greater connection as an end). Thus, by pursuing your “means” values, you’ll live out your “ends” values without having to worry about achieving specific goals.)
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Here's what you'll find in our full The Confidence Gap summary:
- How negative, limiting thoughts and fears prevent you from achieving your goals
- Why trying to ignore negative thoughts doesn't work
- The three steps to detach yourself from your negative thoughts
