Success Is a Byproduct, Not a Goal

A few years ago, I was working with Jason Lavin, the founder of GoldenComm, and Lynn Guerin of The John R. Wooden Course to explore the possibilities of bringing Coach John Wooden’s teachings to a wider audience.

Those of you who are UCLA basketball fans will recognize Coach Wooden’s name. He’s widely considered the best coach of all time. Among other things, he led the UCLA men’s basketball team to 10 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) championships in a 12-year period, including a record 7 championships in a row.

Wooden was an amazing coach, noted for inspiring incredible teamwork. His influence on players was profound, and he remained lifelong friends with many of them, including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Bill Walton.

By pretty much anyone’s standards, Coach Wooden was a huge success. Yet one of the core tenets of his teachings was the importance of creating your own definition of success. Wooden spent considerable time developing his definition:

Success is peace of mind attained only through self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to do the best of which you’re capable.

For Coach Wooden, success was never about winning. Winning was simply the byproduct of playing your best and being a true team player.

Feeling Successful?

I wish more coaches ascribed to Coach Wooden’s definition of success. And, to be honest, I wish it were easier for me to believe it, too. Not that I’m intent on winning, and especially not on winning at all costs. I’m much more focused on finding win-win solutions to every problem.

Rather, the issue seems to be that I’m never content with “just” doing my best.

And I’m not sure that I’ve ever actually “felt successful.”

I’ve gently explored these tender inner spaces over the years, as I’ve worked to restore harmony to my system. I’ve done lots of “shadow work” to welcome back unloved pieces of myself.

And yet, I still have some “stuff” around success.

Conditioned Beliefs About Success

I’m being shown that it’s difficult NOT to have “stuff” around success because the cultural conditioning is pervasive.

In fact, most of the beliefs we have about success are not ours. They’re beliefs we’ve picked up from family, friends, teachers, movies, media...

For example, I still have a lingering belief that I must own my own home to be successful. Since I currently do not own a home, I have some grief and shame lurking in my system.

Other common beliefs include:

• We must earn a certain amount of money or have a certain job title to be successful.

• We have to drive a certain kind of car or send our kids to private school to be successful.

• We need a certain amount of recognition from others — or perhaps the approval of a parent — to be successful.

My sense is that most, if not all, of these beliefs do not serve us. And it’s time for us to allow them to gently fall away.

Redefining Success

Let’s focus now on creating — and installing — our own definition of success.

Over the years, I’ve found some really inspiring definitions. The one that prompted this article comes from Christine Arylo, author of the wonderful new book Overwhelmed & Over It, just published by New World Library. Christine begins Chapter 1 by saying:

Success isn’t a status you attain, a prescribed path you take, or an image you model your life after. Success is having the courage and clarity to choose what’s aligned and true for you.

I wholeheartedly agree. We’re each utterly unique. It’s time to follow our own unique path. And it’s most definitely time to stop comparing ourselves with others.

I also appreciate what the late George Sheehan said of success:

Success means having the courage, the determination and the will to become the person you believe you were meant to be.

By this definition, George certainly seems successful. An MD who had been a track star in college, he stopped running for over 20 years. Then he returned to the sport at age 45 and became the first person over 50 to break the 5-minute mile. George inspired millions as a senior athlete and through his writing about running, including for Runner’s World Magazine and as author of several books.

Putting Success in Its Place

To be clear: The point of all this is NOT that we need to “become successful.”

Success isn’t the goal. Success is more like winning was for Coach Wooden:

Success is a byproduct of doing what we’re here to do, and doing it with great love.

(Hmm, I think I just crafted my own definition of success!)