Pondering on what success is…is your ladder leaning against the right wall?

I’ve got a confession to make... I’ve got a bit of a celebrity crush. Ever since I listened to the Audiobook of his autobiography “Greenlights” I’ve had a bit of a crush on the actor Matthew McConaughey.

I’ve suddenly taken more interest in the films he’s been in both older and new (most recently in the True Detective series...wow what a performance). I guess there is something really compelling about getting the behind the scenes insight into who someone is and how they think and the journey that has got them to where they are now; it turns out that Matthew McConaughey is something of an adventurer, a soul searcher and a philosopher and it was quite a surprise to me and I found his recounting of his life, travels, and discoveries fascinating, sometimes outrageous, often funny and surprisingly relatable.

I recently came across the graduation speech he gave at the University of Houston in 2016. It’s a whistle stop tour of ideas and wisdom and much of what he said really chimed for me. One of the questions he asks is “what is success to you?”.  It’s interesting for me to think about this question because it’s something I ask coaching clients when I first start to work with them. And it’s such a thought provoking question when one really allows space to ponder it – when we perhaps put to one side the standard societal definitions of success - money, good job, nice house, happy family… and tune into the question of what really is success for me.

As I sit here now I notice that I’m finding that I don’t automatically know how to answer that question for myself – and I wonder if what I regard as success now is what I would have thought of as success 20 years ago... I guess for me success for me is partly around doing what I regard to be “valuable” work – work that has a positive impact on people and society; it’s about being able to navigate the challenges of life and still being able to laugh and be hopeful; it’s about being really seen and understood by friends and bringing the best of myself to my relationships even when it may be hard. I notice that also it’s hard to ignore the financial element of success in so much that for me it’s about earning enough money to be able to live in a nice place, surrounded by nature and to have the money to pay for enriching life experiences.

To think about success we also have also to think about who we are and what matters to us – and Matthew touches on this in his speech too. I agree with what he says – it can be hard to work out who we are (I’m a work in progress in that department for sure)….I love his suggestion to make life easier for ourselves by starting from the point of working out “who you are not” and beginning to eliminate that from our lives; his belief is that as we begin to do that who we truly are has the space to emerge.

All this makes me think of the expression “People may spend their whole lives climbing the ladder of success only to find, once they reach the top, that the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall.” (Thomas Merton). No matter what stage we are at in our lives I think it’s worth asking ourselves what success is for us… asking: is my ladder against the right wall?

Warm wishes

Sarah

P.S. Does this chime with you – do you want a co-pilot to really get under the skin of who you are and what success is for you? Please drop me a line – I’d love to hear from you