I should be jumping for joy, and I’m not. I accomplished something big. Really big. And I can’t seem to celebrate, or find the satisfaction that this deserves. In fact, I don’t feel much of anything and I’m not sure why. Have I mismanaged expectations? Misjudged the significance of this accomplishment?
It’s one thing to be comfortable managing the expectations of others – family members, friends, colleagues, clients. But do you push yourself too hard? Expect the impossible? Do you set the bar too high?
And if you actually achieve what you set out to, do you take the time to enjoy it?
No, I’m not talking about perfectionism. Not exactly. This may be a second cousin, this tendency to set goals aggressively as if that were the norm, and then to constantly move the bar so you’re never fully satisfied with where you are.
Not even for an hour, much less a day.
Does any of this sound familiar?
Setting goals
I’ve always set goals and usually achieved them. “Good enough” has never been good enough; I target ambitiously, and deliver on my promises – certainly in my professional life. Failure has always been unacceptable. I get things done, and I feel great after. At least, I used to.
During twenty years in a corporate career, if there was a price to pay – lost sleep, too little time for a personal life – I paid it, and absorbed it. Youth allows for that. And my self-esteem was riding on accomplishment. Every accomplishment.
While a no holds barred approach makes for success in the workplace, unfortunately, it doesn’t always yield the same results in life. What I wanted for myself – as a writer or as a woman – has not come in the way that professional success once did.
Personal success
I married late. I feel fortunate to have two healthy children. While the marriage ended and life has brought a wave of challenges since, I consider my parenting job a success story – so far. Hardly perfect, mind you (that doesn’t exist), but the joy I’ve shared with my sons is something I wouldn’t trade for anything in the world.
Measuring personal success in other ways – as a writer, as a woman – I find that I fall short. Yes, I’ve achieved some wins as a writer that came in unexpected ways – without financial compensation I might have liked, but achievements nonetheless. Yet they seem minor. Insignificant even. As for relationships, I learned that I could love again, but solo parenting has taken precedence. Consequently, I may have missed my window when it comes to a flourishing social life.
Still – there are successes in these past years. And to my surprise, I can’t seem to focus on the wins or enjoy them. Is it because I’m still fighting for survival? Or is it the way I set the bar?
Setting the bar too high?
I’ve written about the checklist, and my satisfaction when ticking things off. I’ve written about success my way, which has much to do with my parenting.
I’ve also written about the headaches of my storage challenges and current organization project – cleaning closets, emptying boxes, sifting through endless stacks of papers and photographs.
What I haven’t explicitly stated is that I’ve been at it for months. The work of lifting, bending, moving furnishings, emptying containers and standing for hours on end has taken a toll – physically and emotionally. But it’s been a necessary journey. A helpful one in many ways. And this process of putting my house in order is the essential precursor to shoring things up financially in order to seek scholarships for my college-bound son.
With an August 1st deadline looming, one night last week I hit the 2/3 milestone. I should have been thrilled, but I wasn’t. I went to sleep, resolved to keep pushing the next morning.
Hitting the jackpot
So. August 1st has come and gone. I hit my goal – everything I had targeted as “completion.” Yet when it was done – nearly four months of work in total – instead of elation, I felt nothing.
I watched a little television and went to bed. “I’ll feel great tomorrow,” I told myself. It’s been three days. Still nothing.
I hit the jackpot – my jackpot – by making my goal. My house is torn apart (it will take time to put things back together), and all I can think of are the next “musts” to be accomplished. Not only did I set the bar high, but once meeting my objective, I seem to have moved the finish line, or thrown myself into another race without so much as a breath. I begin to realize I’ve been doing this all my life.
Defining success
I believe this tendency to not smell the roses is very American. I also believe it’s a woman’s issue, tied to something in the way we are raised and the sentiment that nothing we do is ever good enough.
Of course there’s more I want to achieve – as a parent, as a writer, as a woman. But as a writer and a woman, so much of what I will “achieve” has to do with an ability to be. And that’s something I have difficulty with. Less so in France, and less so when I am involved romantically. But I am here, in the US, and continuing my life solo for now.
And I’m wondering why I seem to have no capacity for appreciating what I’ve accomplished.
- Do you set the bar too high?
- Do you move it, just when you near your finishing line?
- Do you take the time to enjoy your accomplishments?
- Are women less likely to reward themselves for a job well done?
This is me. I never reward myself–just move on to the next project. When it was dividing the Christmas ornaments after the divorce–I did that and once I had given the share to The Ex I went on to another project, painting a room. Never mind that it took hours of emotional work…I just decided I wasn’t done with the purging until I finished the next task. I always feel that way. I’m never really done–just on to another project.
Don’t you feel like it would do you some good to be able to say “OK – it was hard and I did it” – to reward yourself? I don’t think men have this problem. At least, not the men I’ve known. And mothers seem to have it in spades.
Oh God, yes. I do this all the time. I think Gretchen Rubin has a term for this-the “arrival fallacy”–i.e. the belief that once you hit your goal the clouds will miraculously part and you’ll feel great about yourselves. Instead, we don’t. I sometimes even feel a bit empty after I finish something, even tho I’ve been consumed with anxiety right up until the last minute before it’s done.
Sigh.
Good for you though. Raising a glass to you here in London!
Delia Lloyd
http://www.realdelia.com
Thank you, Delia. I’m sipping milk and on to the next thing (of course). Maybe this evening I should pour myself a glass of “real” wine, and savor it over my fave weekly art reality tv show. (So you still do this, even in European surroundings? But do you know men who do this to the same extent that women do?)
This is so true and I used to plow through without taking any breaks let alone a celebratory ritual. It helps that it’s summertime and the pace is slow. I often wonder what the point of pausing is when there’s so much more work to do. But this is a terrible and unhealthy approach because there will always be more work to do.
Having a playful and fun-loving child has helped me a great deal in changing this work style. When my projects are at home, it seems I take more breaks than do actual work, but things still get done, or perhaps I’m more efficient with my time. What I need to remind myself is to enjoy the process — it’s still hit and miss for me but I think awareness and willingness are half the battle.
Congratulations on accomplishing something big!
I am The Exception, it seems. Perhaps it is that I am more process than goal orientated? For me the accomplishments are those things experienced along the way – so yes I get things done and yes there is always more to do but they are just points on the map… the interesting parts are the lines between the points… the success of it being able to live in the moments I suppose. The hard part for me – so I suppose this would be a treat and something that I need to work on – is finding time to truly breathe along the way. Not just breathe, but the deep breaths… I get caught in my head or in events or in what is happening that I have difficulty finding the time to just… breathe.
And yes, I am a frustrating person to work with as I am always envisioning how to make it work better or creating new ways to develop this and that or to look at the challenge in all different directions… it is the process – not the goal! 😉
What a fascinating response, and you may well be The Exception (*smile*).
I am also process oriented, in a professional context, when working with a team. I want their experience to be a good one, and thus the focus on their enjoyment, their contributions, and so on. But if I am working as an individual contributor in a professional context, I’m about getting the job done on time and on budget. Period.
There are two exceptions, for me. One is writing. I never consider anything “good enough” (okay; that’s not an exception), and I also love-hate-love the process. I write nonstop in part because writing feels like breathing. The second exception is relationship, which I tend to enjoy as I’m in it, without hurrying or any goal in mind.
Now about those deep breaths – or even shallow ones. How do you get your mind around that? To actually do it?
I too do this all the time but there have been many times in my life where I did give it my all, I did sacrifice, and didn’t get recognition or compensation…Past frustrations seem to be holding me back from celebration. But I also need to get to the point where I can recognize my own efforts and struggles and accomplishments.
Congratulations to your son!
NASM: This is a great point – I also need to get to the point where I can recognize my own efforts and struggles and accomplishments.
Shouldn’t we recognize the efforts and struggles for the lessons we gain? Isn’t this what we teach our kids? Somewhere along the line we stop doing for ourselves. I don’t know why.
Presence and just being are indeed the locus of happiness, but we make such a big deal about it precisely because it is generally so difficult to achieve that in our culture in particular.
Perhaps it is when we accomplish things in the service of our deeper Self that we feel that elusive feeling of right path in the here and now in contrast to the ongoing war between the agenda-setting ego that thinks it knows what it wants and the deeper Self that essentially has what it wants. When the conscious self adjusts productively to the workings of the deeper Self, even our suffering seems instructive.
To me it sounds like you are on the cusp of an even bigger accomplishment, one much harder to describe but much better feeling.
Sending good wishes and the hope that you can feel proud of yourself for your hard work, and also compassionate about your disappointment.
I think my problem falls into the expecting to do too much. I have the infamous to-do list that is too long and have been told such by many people whose opinions I value. I do celebrate the done items but it is never all done.
And I thought I was hard on myself… You are completely brutal.
I’m sorry your accomplishment didn’t bring the sense of happiness that you’d hoped for. Did you at least feel relief? Or that some weight had been lifted? Would it help if you created a little carrot for yourself at the end of each stick? Such as, “Once I finish all this cleaning out by August 1 I will treat myself to X?
I am constantly amazed by all that you take on. You are impressive on many levels and deserve to believe so yourself. Maybe *that* should be one of your goals!
Do you know what I find truly ironic about this? That you’re beating yourself up for not rewarding yourself. I mean, does that not say just how deeply rooted this is, or what?
I’m in the midst of a project myself. And though the hardest part is complete, I still see all that needs to be done. You may have completed that part, but you also stated that it’s a precursor to hopefully, a bigger accomplishment. Maybe when that next step is completed, you’ll feel it more. Maybe you won’t. My point is, don’t beat yourself up about THAT.
Well the good news (April and Gale) – when the bar is set high, it’s easier to limbo beneath it. 😉
I have to remind myself to set the bar at a reasonable height. When it comes to certain areas I have crazy expectations that are impossible to fill.
I find that when I have those moments of “I should feel great … but I don’t” after accomplishing something, part of me is trying to make that success stand in for something else I want to achieve but haven’t yet. This is not to say that your organizational milestone is not to be celebrated for what it is! It’s huge (and I imagine, literally, voluminous).
*Attempts to do a cartwheel in your honor and fails miserably. Laughs at self.*
But longing — for whatever it is we’re trying not to remember we want because it’s not within immediate grasp (a self-protective move) — still makes itself known. I suspect, based on my own tendencies to “move the finish line” and based on the desires you name in your last paragraph, that that might be part of the puzzle. It’s not that you don’t have the capacity to appreciate what you’ve achieved. It’s just confusing when the part of you that longs for something more views the achievement simultaneously, with its own take on that success. It’s not reasonable for that part of you to feel satisfied, if this particular success isn’t what it was looking for, no?
That’s when I tell that part of me to shut up for five minutes so I can throw myself a mental party (even if it feels forced). Sometimes it works.
I am too hard on myself. I make goals in my writing as well as in my personal life, but sometimes I lack the discipline of my former lawyer life. In that life, I had to meet deadlines because others were depending on me and my work product translated into better revenue for the client. Now, I find setting personal goals are much harder because the only person I have to answer to is myself. And when I don’t meet my goals, I set up a vicious cycle for myself…
Rudri, I find it interesting that you also seem to feel a difference when others are depending you (as in your role as lawyer), versus meeting commitments for yourself.
I know part of why I pushed so hard on this multi-month project is because my kids are depending on me for certain things, and this was a precursor to even more that needs to get done. It’s partly about me, and significantly about them. The fact that they are depending on me is key.
I know what you mean about that vicious cycle. Especially because parenting reinforces tendencies to put your family before yourself. Something I think many women pay for in the long run with our health.
Yes, I do the same thing.
I used to think my numbness was due to delayed reactions. Now I wonder if I made the effort to focus on every little accomplishment in my mind, then would I become more aware of my successes and therefore transition into unconsciously celebrating those accomplishments?
It may not feel natural, but maybe we need to force ourselves.
Mrs. Mayhem – I wonder if we weren’t going at such a crazy pace, if we’d be able to pause long enough to see what we’ve done, rather than everything (continually) still to be done. Yes, maybe we need to force ourselves.