You'll Never Be As Successful As You Want To Be | Hacker News Reader

You'll Never Be As Successful As You Want To Be

bennesvig.com

41 pointsbennesvig12 comments

>>No one really wants to help you unless there is something in it for them or it fits into their larger plan.<<

Some good points, but I've found this one to be wildly untrue. Almost universally, I've found really successful people want to help other people become really successful. Like his other points, you'll have to initiate and ask for their help, but I've never met anyone successful who isn't willing to give to just about anyone.

Whats in it for them? Largely based on experiences, one way to get successful people on your side and helping you - ask them for advice. But more importantly, follow through and actually do something with it. And then keep them updated.

Most people won't take action, and doing something is a very easy way to separate yourself from everyone else.

Exactly. But those people don't want to help you until you start asking them for something and do something to separate yourself from the crowd.

Steve Jobs agrees

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkTf0LmDqKI

Science seems to agree with you [1]. The human race is so successful because from almost birth on, humans are collaborating. Some patterns can be seen where small children are much more willing to collaborate and after success to share the result of work with others than apes with similar individual problem solving capabilities.

[1] http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&...

... unless you start making demands?

while I agree with the article. title of this submission is very misleading!

Sure, you'll never be successful - whatever your definition of success - if you don't do anything about it.

But I think there's an even more important point about never being as successful as one wants. When you set up a finish line, eventually you will start approaching it, as soon as you are near it that finish line doesn't seem so enticing anymore.

In fact what you thought of as "successful" a while ago will seem rather mundane and boring once you get near enough to actually reach it. So you move the finish line forward - to what you now consider to be successful.

Many of us probably do this, at least most of us here on HN, because we like to push ourselves. We like to edge on and on and figure out where the actual limits are, not where our self-set limits are.

Which is great, it makes you awesome in the eyes of many, problem is, you can't ever be happy this way. There's always more that you want.

So how do you solve _that_ problem?

The usual boring response on that, but which I found always more true every day, is that you've got to enjoy the path forward to actually be happy. When looking back to my life, I think the moments I were going forward were the happy times - the ones backward were a bit harder.

You've got to decouple your happiness sentiment from your overall self-worth. People's happiness doesn't grow much once they've got 50000$ a year a famous study said. But one's self-worth still grows when millions of $ are adding. Once you've conscious of the difference between the two, you start decoupling a bit your happiness from your success. Of course, you can't totally, but letting things a bit loose helps your health, stress, and life quality. Trying too much is dangerous.

Last, don't forget life isn't undimensional (god would that be boring if so). Beside the success you define, there are friends, love, entertainment elsewhere. It's not a path, rather a space where you can go to many many directions additionally to the success strategy you define for yourself.

Oh I'm not talking about money at all. I find money to be simply a side-product of things I want to do that I consider successful.

But, for example, I want to publish a book. I know for a fact as soon as I publish it, I will be all mad at myself because it isn't a bestseller. Once a book becomes a bestseller, I'll be mad at myself that why haven't I written two bestsellers yet?

When I have two bestsellers I'll be upset that why didn't I put more deep meaning in them and wrote trash.

Or to take an example I've already got the "achievement unlocked" on. My blog gets ten times more monthly traffic than it did a few months ago, but I get really upset with myself why I no longer seem to be able to produce regular-ish spikes like I used to? Or that one post that got insane traffic, why can't I write something as good/popular anymore?

Things like that. I'm the kind of person that honestly enjoys the journey, but I just always want more more more.

As for money, eh, I'll be happy when I can simply not worry about that. Money isn't something to be happy about, money is a tool to do cool things with.

You ask the question as if you don't know the answer, even tho you have stated it quite clearly (and it's common adage):

    Happy is he who is content with his lot.

Easy to say, much harder to do. The question isn't so much what but more along the lines of how ;)

The emotional management is a big part of what Buddhism, and many other philosophies, focus on. Eg consider the following two situations:

1. You approach your goal, you're excited and happy that you made it, and once you're done you're happy when you set a new goal. Even if you don't achieve your goals, you're happy throughout the whole process.

2. As you nearly complete a goal, you feel like it's not as big a deal, and you're mad about the fact that you're not at a further goal.

There's no simple, 5 minute fix to these problems-but emotional management is something that can be learned and highly worth investigating.

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