Win your challenges with our unique solutions

Resource Mentioned in Video

Karmic Ally Coaching’s The Workaholic’s Guide to Managing Stress

Prefer to read? Here’s the transcript

Success is often seen as the ultimate goal in life. Many people spend their entire lives striving for it. However, this pursuit can include some negative consequences.

Because, in our quest for continued success, we might find ourselves turning into raging workaholics and even forget what we had started out to achieve in the first place.

In this short video, I would like you, as a professional who is on the quest for excellence and success to consider these nine reasons about whether you’re becoming obsessed with success or what.

The first one is that success isn’t very easy to define.

Even our idea of success can change based on our age or life experience. It’s a subjective concept and differs from person to person. And the ethereal aspect of success means that it can seem like an endless and frustrating pursuit because what worked earlier for us may not be our idea of success later on.

The pursuit of success can lead to burnout.

Now when you’re constantly striving for success it can impact your mental and physical health. Any obsession with success can also mean that you might prioritize success more than your own well-being.

Success might not make you happy.

Now success is often portrayed as the key to happiness, but this is not necessarily true. There is no guarantee that success will fix all your problems. In fact, there are times when people have regretted that the pursuit of success made them neglect other areas of their life which were important which went a toss.

Then, success can also lead to selfishness.

Now while success may feel great, it is balanced by the damage we did to our relationships and our reputation. Because, we are simply working in a silo, without considering other areas of our life.

Success also comes at a cost.

Success is not always synonymous with wealth. Many people have lost everything on their journey toward success. They may have made some wrong decisions or sacrificed things that really should not have been sacrificed to begin with.

It can also create complacency.

Because often what happens is when people reach a certain level of success, they stop pushing themselves towards growing and improving further.

It can also lead to temptation to do unethical or illegal behavior.

Especially if they feel that they are not achieving that same level of success that they had, it’s become an addiction. They will go out of their way to do whatever it takes which may not necessarily be a good thing. This kind of behavior can ruin your reputation, at the best, or end up having much more serious life-long consequences.  We know what happens when illegal behavior is done in the profession and you end up in jail. And that’s not a good idea, is it?

Funnily enough, success can also foster a fear of failure.

Because when we become obsessed with success, we risk developing a fear of failure. Thinking of failure is terrifying when our whole persona is wrapped up in the idea of success. And, you know, this can lead to fear of even pushing ourselves further because we’re scared.

It can also hide our purpose.

Now, when we pursue what we think we want, while what we really want slips away, that’s not going to help you. This can lead to a lack of fulfillment even if we achieve success. And many times, a lot of other things get compromised, and one has seen that in historical cases also where freedom fighters have been fighting for the freedom of their country and in the process they created problems within their own family structure or ruined their relations with their families.

One great example is that of Gandhiji and his eldest son. It’s been documented also. I’ll try to share a link with you in case you are interested in reading about it.

So what can we do?

Well, I’ve got 3 action steps.

The first one is to Practice gratitude.

And, you know when we focus on being grateful for what we already have, we tend to raise our vibrations and we tend to have a more balanced perspective of things. And in return, we tend to attract success for sure but of a kind that is of good use to us.

Secondly, I suggest you set yourself meaningful goals.

Instead of focusing on external markers of success, set yourself goals that are personally meaningful and aligned with your values.  That makes success that you do achieve much more precious.

And thirdly, cultivate healthy habits.

Because, when you’re chasing like a mad person, it can lead to burnout and neglecting your physical and mental health. In which case, I suggest always make sure that you prioritize self-care.

Now, I had mentioned becoming a workaholic in your quest for success, and I’ve got a resource that can help if you feel that you are heading into the realm of workaholicism.

And that is, Karmic Ally Coaching’s Workaholic’s Guide to Managing Stress because that will also show you what you need to do to prevent getting into situations where, you know, you might be behaving like a workaholic and how to keep your work life balance. It’s a free report and I encourage you to download it.

So, this is Vatsala Shukla from Karmic Ally Coaching signing off. I hope that you succeed in you quest to achieve success but you don’t turn into a mad person running after success and you avoid unnecessary pitfalls.

Additional Reading for the discerning professional