7 Tips for Coping with Success: Yours and Other’s

Happy New Year! This year, we hope for success in our plans -losing that extra inch on your waist, winning an election or award, getting a new home, getting a promotion, learning a new skill, or making a significant lifestyle change. How you cope with success matters. Our capacity to enjoy our achievements cannot be presumed: many have achieved their ambitions and yet fall in the struggle with the enormity of their achievement. You only have to read true biographies of famous people to know this rather silent element of success. It also helps to know how to cope with the success of others around you, since it is quite possible that while you may not get what you want, others will. So, here are 7 tips apiece on coping with success:

COPING WITH YOUR SUCCESS

1.   Take stock of what you have achieved and how: Success in my view is possible in two ways: through one’s efforts with the help of others to achieve a known viable goal without compromising one’s standards or principles. If you manage that, that is an astounding feat in a world where there is another way to success – by sabotaging others’ efforts, compromising your standards or breaching norms meant for the common good, or pure luck. If you manage to achieve your goals, take stock of what you have done. It is so easy to get caught up in the excitement and euphoria of celebrations that one forgets one’s hard work or the help rendered by others. Taking stock also helps your mind record your success as a positive event, a good memory for future moments when things look impossible.

2.   Say thank you: Thank yourself for sticking through the difficult moments. Apart from the big parties, have a personal celebration - a moment to reward and give yourself credit for what you have done. It is important to congratulate yourself when you overcome limitations, fears and push backs. Say thank you to those who have helped you on your journey. Say thank you to God if your belief is in God. It is so easy to forget gratitude. A thank you is more than being polite, it gives credit where credit is due. It closes the circle of want which you opened when you first made your plans. Gratitude completes the circle of success.

3.   Enjoy the moment mindfully: There are so many ways to enjoy oneself. Unfortunately, some of these ways mean you will start habits or a lifestyle that only leads to that downward spiral mentioned earlier. Success means visibility and that can place one in a lone, vulnerable spot. It helps you if you can recall exactly how wonderful a day or event was many years later than if the moment is only a blur you struggle to remember. Whether it’s a promotion, a graduation, a project completed, a retirement, a win, an award, whatever it is, mark the moment fully compos mentis.

4.   Know and accept that not everyone is happy for you: Your success may mean failure to another person; it is a fact of life. Someone else including people very close to you can see your achievement as a loss for them. It does help to be kind and not gloat but it is not for you to feel guilty for being successful. Be decent but don’t get distracted. Stay focused.

5.   Own your accomplishments: The so-called impostor syndrome is real but please work on getting rid of it where your success is merited. What is worse is when those around you play down your achievement or urge you to hide your accomplishment even where your skills or capabilities are so much needed. With careful thought you can work out when to put yourself forward and when to hold back, either way, it is vital that you don’t devalue yourself or your achievement. Step back if you must but do so because it is the strategic or safest thing to do. Be that as it may, it is your success. Own it.

6.   Make a note of your achievements: Yes, a real note, as in write it down. Put it in your resume or your curriculum vitae (CV) when it is applicable. If you keep journals or private autobiographical notes, include it there. Your achievement is more than a historical fact; it is a truth about you. It is a reminder of where you were and how far you have come.

7.   Be generous: Sharing your knowledge or other benefit of your success is one of the most fulfilling things you can do. To be able to help someone else on their life journey (with or without their gratitude) is a noble endeavor. Pass on your wisdom but do so to those who want to learn. Apart from helping the young or those who need it, it is wasteful and you will be accused of arrogance if you decide to invest in people who do not want to be helped.

COPING WITH OTHER PEOPLE’S SUCCESS

1.   Accept the other person’s success: To accept another person’s success does not mean that you pretend you are happy or that you submit yourself to humiliation if the other person inflicts this on you. All that is required is for you to acknowledge that reality. Living in an alternative false universe where that other person has not succeeded or where you comfort yourself by insisting the other person gained their success corruptly or will fail soon, is self-inflicted agony. It can mean potential mental and emotional problems for you as you keep trying to evade the facts.

2.   Stop envy in its tracks: It is human nature one could argue, to be sad when you lose. It is certainly not healthy for you or fair to the successful person however when your feeling is one of sadness, of envy, at another person’s success. It is even healthy to cry as far as I’m concerned, when you lose. Yet, that should be enough. There are more things which you can achieve if you got on with perfecting your own plans rather than getting stuck chewing over another person’s success.

3.   Discover other paths: You have your own talents and skills. Life is a journey of discovery. If you are pursuing the same thing, a promotion for instance, another person’s success can be a helpful pointer to your personal limitations (we all have them) and those things you should not waste too much time pursuing. A focus on improving on what you can actually do will be more productive on the long run. The world seems to be an infinite arena for successes and yours may be in something else – Find out!

4.   Evaluate your plans for success: Do you know why you have not been successful? Or have you adopted a blameless approach where the world is engaged in a conspiracy against you? Granted, others may sabotage your plans but everything? Not likely. Study the environment and determine whether it is an environment that enables your success. For instance, if you wish to be successful, being around people who have little ambition for change is not the greatest environment to discuss your plans. Make adjustments to your goals and your plans for achieving them.

5.   Beware incitement: It seems there is always someone who readily incites us to challenge or undermine other people’s successes. You know, that person who tells you how much better you are than the person who has won the project, or who invites you to denigrate the recipient of an award you always wanted. Inciting you to preoccupy yourself with overturning or sneering at another person’s success keeps you from the more important task of learning from it. Lose friends and people that incite you.

6.   Sabotage is a prison for yourself -avoid it: An Igbo proverb says that one who wishes to pin someone down to the ground must stay down himself to achieve his objective. It is the same with sabotage. You stay down yourself and nothing is changed; the other person is still successful. Rethink any enticement to block other people’s paths. At the end of life’s journey, it will reflect as an unfruitful and one of the most foolish and time wasting of endeavors.

7.   Make a fresh start: So, you have not got what you wanted or you have watched someone else get what they wanted and that has put you in a not-so-great mood. Well, even that is a good place to put an end to one set of goals and plans and to make another. If you have taken stock, you will learn your strengths and weaknesses. You can then pursue other opportunities and start afresh. That after all, is the great gift of life – every day is a new opportunity. Start anew.

A new year is new beginnings. I wish you the very best of 2021 and success in your goals and plans! Happy New Year!