How some achievement can feel disappointing for former athletes.
Ever had a moment when you arrived at some kind of achievement, and found yourself feeling less than excited about it? Maybe your sales group hit a goal or the team you coach won a big game. Maybe you won an award for a club that you belong to, or your recreational sports team won a tournament. Everyone around you is celebrating the moment, and yet in the privacy of your thoughts, you can barely muster a ‘meh’ in reply. Sure, you play the role and join in with the group’s celebration, but it’s just not the same as it was when you were competing. It’s a strange feeling, but don’t worry. You aren’t alone.
Of the many complicated things we confront when our years of competing are over, this is one of the more difficult to overcome, and yet it is also one of the most common. Understanding the roots of this disconnect all starts with the distinction between success and fulfillment. We have looked at this concept in other areas of Competitor Shift, and yet it deserves deeper consideration.
Understanding this experience begins with establishing a working definition of these two ideas. When we refer to ‘Success’, we are talking about attaining some form of status or achievement as measured by society as a whole. The measuring stick lies in the collective minds of the people by whom we are surrounded. We either become something or do something that some portion of society values. It could be a job promotion, a recognition, or the attainment of some form of status. It could be the result of reaching some goal that some people admire. There are thousands of different examples of ways in which we can be viewed as being successful by others.
Fulfillment, on the other hand, is achievement turned inward. The verb ‘to fulfill’ something means literally to finish something. In the context of human emotions, we consider ourselves to be fulfilled when we finish something that is of great value to us personally. We reach a goal that we have set for ourselves within, based upon our personal values or priorities. The achievement is grounded in something that is important to us. We can also feel fulfilled when we are engaged in something that is of value to us. More than a single accomplishment, we can find ourselves in a fulfilling career or activity. The act itself is fulfilling because it represents a core value or priority we have within us.
So then, to the distinction. When we finish something that is considered as valuable to the larger mind of society, or at least some part of it, we are perceived as having been a success. People around us recognize the accomplishment for us. Maybe it’s a job promotion or an honor – it doesn’t matter in what part of life, or the specifics of who perceives it – we have done or become something of value to others, or valued by others. It does not rely on how WE actually feel about it. Fulfillment, on the other hand, comes from doing something that we personally see as valuable or meaningful. We come away from the experience feeling enriched and satisfied. The perception of others is not a part of what makes it important. It is important to us.
In short, success is achievement measured by others. Fulfillment is achievement we measure from within. This distinction is the starting point to moving past the discomfort.
To clarify, this does not mean that something can’t be BOTH successful AND fulfilling. Quite the opposite. If we strive to do something that is important to us on a personal level, AND is perceived by society as being valuable, we can feel fulfilled and successful at the same time. For example, if money is something that we truly value as a measurement of our happiness, and we can agree that society sees wealthy people as a success, a person can feel both fulfilled and successful if they earn a considerable amount of money.
The connection to competitive sports here becomes more apparent now. We competed, at some level, because doing so was important to us. It met some need we had, or spoke to some value within us. Needs and values are a highly personal matter, and we all have different ones. Still, fulfilling needs brings us right back to that word again – fulfillment. By finding the resolution of that need within competitive sports, we fulfilled some sort of need. We experienced an internal kind of satisfaction, an achievement that was measured by something in or minds or in our hearts. Competitive sports can be a very fulfilling experience.
Naturally, we can also be seen as successful because of our sport as well. Athletes are of value to many people in our society, and advancing to higher levels of sport can easily be seen as a form of success. In having that experience, we learn to bond together the ideas of success and fulfillment. Athletic success can be very fulfilling. We grow up equating them. We come almost to expect them to occur simultaneously.
They do not.
In the larger world, there are ample opportunities to experience one without the other. We learn that we can experience fulfillment without the trappings of success in a wide variety of places in our lives, from hobbies to employment to personal relationships. The same is true of success. We can rise up through our chosen profession or remain in an unhealthy personal relationship, and so be seen as successful; though maybe not fulfilled. Success does not guarantee fulfillment, nor is fulfillment widely defined as success.
This is not to say that all competitive athletes are both successful and fulfilled. They are not. Many athletes find the end of their competitive careers when their sport is no longer fulfilling to them, or maybe they realize that it never really was. Perhaps their drive to compete did not come from within, but was sparked by someone else in their lives who was important to them. People compete with drive that resides in their own minds, but others are pushed to compete by people in their lives to whom their validation is important. The things that bring us to compete are as varied as are those of us who compete.
Still, the distinctions exit both in competition and in life. Success without fulfillment occurs when we measure the value of our lives according to a scale that exists outside of our own minds, values, experiences, and ultimately our hearts. It is possible to achieve things that may not be satisfying to us on a personal level. Each of us has to carve our own paths in life – if fulfillment is something that is important to us, it begins by pursuing things about which we care deeply. Even if it’s not important to everyone else. If we are looking for fulfillment, it begins inside of our own minds and hearts.