“Just do it”, a key slogan made famous by the sports company Nike. This phrase tells us as consumers to go out and achieve goals of success. For some of us, it is wealth and fame but I believe we also need health and love. Success can be defined differently by each individual’s definition of the term. In-order to see success we simply have to have our own scale system that is measurable. In the short essay “Measuring Success” by Renee Loth, talks about how we can obtain success and happiness by creating a grid system that measures equal amounts of work and life.
This method is measured by the way you live your life by through motivation, the will to sacrifice, and most importantly, the road taken for your achievements. Motivation has become a key to success for many people. It applies on the persons inner drive and the focus to accomplish their goals. As Loth says, “When I was young and romanticizing about success, I like a particular Joni Mitchell lyric ‘My struggle for higher achievement and my search for love don’t seem to cease’ the trouble with struggling and searching is that it keeps us in a permanent state of wanting-always reaching for more.
The drive to succeed keeps us focused on the future, to the detriment of life in the moment” (Loth, 238). From this excerpt given by Loth, she conveys to us that we all have our own ways of motivation. Even if it’s a song lyric or a piece of donut, we always have that extra oomph to keep us going. Our society is convinced that our success is the determining factor in our life for happiness. Like the author, I agree in her statements about our future, my motivation for success is my own future. I constantly work and focus on the present in-order to have a successful future.
Motivation can also be seen in a different form, fame from peers. Like the author states in her short essay; “but when I got home from the live broadcast, my answering machine had maxed-out on messages”. For many, fame can be a huge motivational tool. It can be attributed simply by people recognizing you on the street or in this case leaving voice messages on your telephone. A key idea that sticks out in my mind is that nothing that is easy in life is worth having. It’s is the things that take hard work and enduring struggles that add to the fulfillment of success.
Sacrifice is another key agent in the contribution to accomplishment in peoples lives. It’s something that all of us have to go through to achieve happiness. We simply give up things such as sleep, family, friends and much more. The author gives us a better understanding with the following quote, “Some think the more nights and weekends they spend at the office, the more successful they must be. For others, success is directly proportional to time off” (Loth, 237-238). People are starting to not have time for themselves because of the sacrifices that they are making.
These sacrifices not only applies to the person but to their own families. This can be viewed in both positive and negative lights depending on the persons view. When some people make sacrifices, they acquire a sense of entitlement for their accomplishments. Another quote given by Loth is that, “ if we stick with our chosen fields long enough, we sometimes have an opportunity to meet our heroes, people we thought wildly successful when we were young” (Loth, 237) will challenge us to make sacrifices so we can give our selves the opportunity to succeed.
The point to sacrifices is to achieve a goal at the end. It may be long term or it may be a month or two but because we make these sacrifice, we want a strong, living future. These people try to get ahead in their business through sacrifice to spend more time at work so they can achieve their goals. Achievement is the act of accomplishing or finishing a task, goal and work or it can simply be anything a person wants to attain in a process of tasks.
As Loth explains “I never took into account the joy of creation; the approbation of one’s peer; the energy of collaboration; or the sheer satisfaction of a job well done” (Loth, 237) this was used to convey to the audience that achievement does not really simply mean just the ending result. The author give us these four main points as parts of achievement which we don’t generally think of when we hear the word. We usually just think that the end-result is all were consider to be worthy of the title achievement, but it’s also everything in the process of accomplishing these goals.
This says to us readers to look beyond the normal idea of the word achievement but to look along road leading up to finished product. I generally feel that creating a new idea brings a feeling of happiness. Also, the support from others and with the critique of our peers gives us a sense of entitlement in our process. This helps us as an individual to grow and give meaning to our projects. Measuring success can be defined in many different ways. This is because there is a vast number of people with their own perceptions of things. Even though there is a different way in defining success, there is a measurable process in which it will help us.
In order for us to understand success, we simply have to account for three main points. We have to tie together our motivations, the sacrifices we make, and everything that leads up to accomplishing achievements. Success isn’t as easy as of a task that most people think because there is so many different ways to view the term. It takes a lot from a person to actually give it their all to succeed. These processes are what guides us to a good future. Knowing that we are the ones creating our success provides motivation to accomplish our goals.
