You Can’t Achieve Your Way to Satisfaction: Here’s How to Get There Instead

24 Aug by Sarah Susanka

Do we need to redefine the meaning of success?

In the world we live in, there is so much emphasis on achievement, on the things you can point to, that it sometimes seems as though we’re trying to achieve our way to satisfaction. Even in the spiritual world we say, “I’ve got this certification, I’ve studied with this teacher, etc.” But all that accumulation and achieving is not where it’s at. The real success—we can use the word “success,” but even the word connotes a kind of getting on top of a mountain, and it’s really not that—the real success is about learning how to just be.

I often use the metaphor of being at the center of a hurricane. Rumi calls it the hurricane of experience. We’re in this incredible vortex of things that constantly pull us out of ourselves. But to be able to come to that center where, no matter what is happening, you are at peace within it, that’s what you could say is true success. It’s to realize our full potential—to become a truly mature human.

But it’s not easy. It takes years of practice to learn that all your ideas about what’s wrong with this moment are just your monkey mind going crazy arguing with itself in the mirror. It takes years to accept that what’s happening is simply what’s happening—no more, no less.

Can we still set goals and hope to accomplish something?

Sure. I call them intentions, and it can be helpful to write them down and label them as things that you’d like to live into someday. But you’re not in charge of making them happen. If you try to make them happen, it’s almost guaranteed that they won’t. Write them down, put them away, and forget about them. You’ll be surprised that some of them—maybe not all, but definitely some—will start to manifest, often in ways very different than what you would have imagined.

How do we know what to plan or when to take action on our goals?

I’m an architect, which you’d think would be full of precision and planning. And while at one level that’s certainly the case, at another, a client arrives in the office for a first meeting, and everything that comes after that, in order to create a house, is a natural outgrowth of that first step.

So there is only one thing you need to do, whether that’s building a house or cultivating your life: take the first step. Once something is moving then all kinds of things start to happen because of that first step. When you engage with a builder or a teacher or anyone else, there is a process that happens. We’re not in control of it, even if we like to think we are. Just take the first step and see what happens.

What is an example of taking the first step?

I had always wanted to write, and finally I couldn’t not do it anymore. There was no room in my life for it, but one day I simply knew without question that I had to do it. It wasn’t optional.

As an architect my time was very scheduled, so I did the only thing that I knew how to do to make time: I treated myself like one of my new clients. I gave myself a project number and slotted myself into my own calendar. I didn’t know what would happen, and I felt like I was breaking every rule in the book. It was honestly one of the scariest things I’ve ever done because my projections about what would happen were so dire—my partners would fire me, my existing clients would be angry, etc. But of course none of those things happened—in fact, quite the opposite. I was supported beyond my wildest imaginings.

But in order to learn this, I had to go toward that thing that so scared me—making time for myself. I had to start to think about time differently—to find the calm in the middle of the hurricane—and because of that one step, first one book started to take shape, and over time a whole series of books that have changed not only my own life, but the lives of millions. That doesn’t happen through planning. It happens because you pursue what you love, wholeheartedly, without worrying about where it’s going, and by confronting what is telling you it’s impossible. For me that was being too busy, and having no time. It looked that way, but it simply wasn’t true.

The moment you are unequivocally committed then things start to shift. You don’t know where you’ll end up, but the journey has begun.

Note: This article was adapted from a 2018 interview with writer and editor Jenn Brown. 

Wondering how you can find true success in your own life? Join me for the Introductory Not So Big Life Workshop. See below for details and more information.