Summary

The article discusses the importance of not equating personal identity with success or failure, emphasizing that one's efforts, not the outcomes, should define self-perception.

Abstract

The narrative centers on Saeed, a man who faced personal and professional setbacks, leading him to view himself as a failure. The article argues against adopting failure or success as identities, suggesting that such labels create a self-fulfilling prophecy that can lead to a negative spiral or an inflated ego. Instead, it proposes that individuals should focus on their efforts and view life as a series of experiments, learning from both successes and failures without attaching personal worth to the results. The author encourages readers to maintain a balanced perspective, taking responsibility for their actions and continuously striving for improvement, regardless of outcomes.

Opinions

The author believes that identifying oneself with failure can lead to a vicious cycle of negative self-perception and actual failure.
Conversely, the article suggests that identifying oneself with success can lead to internal conflict, overconfidence, and ignoring one's shortcomings or the contributions of others.
It is emphasized that personal identity should be separate from the success or failure of one's endeavors, as these outcomes do not define a person's worth or capabilities.
The article promotes the idea that viewing life as an experiment allows for learning and growth without the burden of self-judgment based on results.
The author advocates for gratitude and recognizing life's blessings as a way to foster positive thoughts and attract more positivity.
Saeed's story serves as an example of how professional help and a change in perspective can lead to personal fulfillment and enjoyment in one's pursuits.
The author encourages readers to support writers by becoming Medium members or by offering direct contributions, indicating the value of content creation and the importance of compensating creators for their work.

Don’t Praise YOURSELF For Your Success

Would you blame yourself if you had failed?

In 2016, Saeed went through a divorce.

He was not doing well in his job either. Saeed was hating every moment in the bank he was working for.

Saeed started to question himself. He remembered that the same thing happened during his bachelor's. He started very well but then with time his results went downhill.

These three thoughts and incidents made Saeed realize something.

He was a failure.

Why couldn’t he save his marriage when everyone else can?

Why couldn’t he enjoy a banker’s life when other bankers do?

Why did his academic results fall?

Most importantly, why did HE fail three times? The only answer in his mind was — He was a failure.

Was he right?

Failure as an identity

The moment Saeed, and many others like him, start believing that they are a failure, they start writing their future.

Our mind works in funny ways. It keeps on looking for proof for any statement. If in our mind, we believe that we are a failure, it will remind us of that statement every time we fail.

We would successfully complete 10 deals and our mind would ignore it.

But we will stumble with the 11th one and our mind will be there to say — see, you failed because you are a failure.

This creates a vicious cycle of failure and we turn towards a miserable life.

What if we turn this around?

What if we start saying that we are not a failure, but are successful?

Success as an identity

Positive thoughts often lead to more positivity.

When you start feeding your mind positive thoughts, your mind also looks for affirmation for those. With gratitude, you open your eyes to life’s blessings.

So, it’s a better idea to associate your identity with success and abundance.

But it’s easy to go overboard with this approach. There are some problems to this approach too —

If your endeavors fail, and you keep telling yourself that you are a success, you will create internal conflict. That will just make you confused.
Success and failure are part of the same coin. If you tell yourself that YOU are a success, then you open the door for failure as an identity as well

The solution: None of them can be part of your identity.

If you try something and fail, you don’t become a failure.

Your endeavor fails. You can try again and change that. There’s a big difference between your effort not resulting in a positive result and you becoming a failure.

You take part in a car race and don’t win. You didn’t win (or failed to win). But that doesn’t make YOU a failure. You can always try again. Even if you regularly fail at a car race, it doesn’t matter. There’s way more than that in your life.

Similarly, your startup works out.

That makes your startup successful. If you let yourself think that you are a success then you will be blind to a lot of mistakes. You will start feeling pride, and you will miss why you succeeded. You will also start ignoring others’ contributions.

What you worked on, worked. If you replicate the processes, you will be able to emulate success again. You have uncovered a formula or way of succeeding. That’s valuable, but don’t let that get to your head.

Don’t blame YOURSELF for your failure — Don’t praise YOURSELF for your success

Every time you win, you win because of your efforts and circumstances. You can praise yourself for the efforts you put in. But you shouldn’t let your win define you.

Because when you let your wins define you, you will also let your failures define you.

Instead, if you focus on your efforts, think of any work as an experiment, fix your mistakes and move on, you will be in a better position in every aspect.

Take responsibility after each failure and success. Check what can be improved. And keep working towards your goal.

You will get there.

What happened to Saeed

Saeed talked with professionals who helped him see the truth.

Yes, his marriage failed, but that happens.

He didn’t do well as a banker as that wasn't his passion. He is now doing a Ph.D. in behavioral science and thoroughly enjoying it.

His academic failure is in the distant past.

He sees life as an experiment. Not everything will go his way. But he knows that he needs to learn from his mistakes, take responsibility, and try again.

There’s so much more to do in life.

All of those become possible when we can consider life as our playground and keep moving forward.

If you like this article and want to read more such articles without any restrictions, you can consider becoming a Medium member (if you are not one already) by using my referral link below.

Join Medium with my referral link - Mofrad Muntasir

As a Medium member, a portion of your membership fee goes to writers you read, and you get full access to every story…

kmofradm.medium.com

I get a portion from your monthly fee at no extra cost to you and it will go a long way in supporting me as a writer.

You can also buy me a ‘coffee’ if you’d like.

They might hurt now but eventually will make you a better person.

medium.com