Why You Keep Missing Your Aim?
When I was in tenth grade, I was planning an astonishing and unperceivable academic comeback. The need for an academic comeback came after my major disappointment in the ninth grade’s board result. I was in the planning phase, I still remember that day, moving from one corner of the living room to another. It was here when I heard it for the first time, then experienced it, and heard it from others. “The more you aim at success, the more you chase success, the more it goes away.” At that moment, I was startled to hear this. Obviously, for me, who was planning his “the best academic comeback,” it was kind of demotivating. Anyway, the young Sharf ignored it. Later, I got an academic comeback. But, it felt like someone has engraved those words in the walls of my mind. Every time a sound or thought was generated, it reverberated those words. I kept on moving, and the echoes calmed down. Later, in my undergraduate programme, when I missed my targeted GPA by 0.02 points, the echoes made their way again. When I read Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl, the words took me by the collar and thrashed a lot. After the treatment, I gave my attention to them. Why is it so? Why is someone deprived of success because he ran after it? The more you aim at success, the more you are deprived of it because it is the system that plays the part in bringing success, success is ensued, and we narrow down our happiness and growth for success.
It is all about the system
When in 2022, I read Atomic Habits, I stumbled at one point. James Clear mentioned that we all think about winning, but there is only one winner. It is because he has the perfect system. And, ever since, I have always focused on the system part. What is the system? What did he mean by having a good system? Well, as per him, goals are there for planning progress and systems are there to make the progress happen. We often think and decide to change our results, but we do not think about changing the system that causes those results. Well, here, it is related to the fact that instead of focusing on your success, one should focus on one’s system that will derive and cause that success. I want success. For me, success is getting a 4 GPA. Every day, I reminded myself of it. But, at the end of the semester, the only 4 GPA I see is the one on my class fellows' transcript. Why is it not on my transcript? That idiot never thought of it. It was me who thought of it every day. Then success does not happen by thinking. It can not happen by working hard, too. What good will you achieve from working hard on sharpening the pencils, if you do not have an idea of what to do with them? One should have a clear goal, and one should work hard, but one should also devise a system on which one has to work hard. It is what he meant by saying that the system is important. For instance, a student who wants to attain a 4 GPA, for him, the system is jotting down the lecture, having adequate revisions of the chapters, getting extra material to supplement the knowledge, and giving tests. It is this system that ensures success. If he follows it with discipline and consistency with hard work, then success will happen. Therefore, instead of focusing on success, one should devise and refine his system of achieving that success. Without a proper system, you will again and again miss the target.
Success is to be ensued
Victor Frankl later mentioned that success like happiness must be ensued rather than pursued. Ensue means an event that occurs as a result. The ensued part is directly related to the aforementioned part. Success is a result. What good will one achieve in focusing on a result? One should focus on the system, the bad points in it, and what needs to be improved instead of focusing on success. For instance, Roman is a bicyclist. He loves to bicycle. He wants to win a race. The race will be held next Sunday. The total distance of the race is 290 km. Roman badly wants to win the race. It is his goal. It is his success. But, Roman does not practise a lot. His maximum is 50 kilometres. The condition of his bike is not good. On the other hand, Shargadzeh bought a new bicycle. The previous one was not fit for a race. He practised a lot. His maximum is 310 kilometres. Now, both of them wish for success. But Shargadzeh won the championship. It happened because he focused on his strengths and weaknesses, his bicycle conditions, his practice, and several other contributing factors. Not like Roman whose main focus was on success but not on his system. A good system gives good results. The good results occur after hard work, discipline, perfect system, etc. and the results that occur afterward an event means ensued. Isn’t it? In the same way, if a student wants to attain success which is ensued he has to work on himself and his system. He has to note down the lecture, has to give all the tests, has to maintain good attendance, has to follow his system strictly, and many more. I guess it is enough of the fictional examples. I should quote my example. The main reason for failure in that semester was my sheer focus on success. Instead of making a system to ensure good GPAs, I followed a hit-and-trial method, etc. When things started to go down, instead of devising a system and following it, I started focusing on success. Whereas the weakness remained there and it caused the problem in the end. It did not matter how determined I was to change it, the weakness did its part because I did not refine it. At a point, where I should focus on my system and weaknesses, I was focusing on the end product. Then it was meant to happen this way. Therefore, success is ensued and one should focus on the system and contributing factors instead of it.
Confining your happiness to success
The three-time Super Bowl winner, Bill Walsh, once said a legendary statement. “The score takes care of itself.” It means one should focus on oneself not on the score, the scores take care of themselves. Results and successes are not made to be taken care of. A batsman does his best in the nets and delivers his best on the crease. His sheer practise, hard work, and discipline enable him to deliver his best on the crease. Therefore, he does not care about results. Because results occur from a system and a good system gives good results. He has refined himself to the extent that he is sure of good results. We often associate our happiness and growth with success. For instance, a batsman believes that if he does not score a century, then he is not a good batsman. He starts focusing on the results, which is a mistake, then instead of making a good system he focuses on the results, and in the end, he confines his happiness in the accomplishment of the results. If he wins, he is a good batsman, and if he doesn't, then he is a failure. The same was for me. In the academic comeback of my undergraduate programme, I associated everything with a successful academic comeback. When everything was associated with it, then those emotions took over me, who have scared the bravest on Earth. When a person confines his happiness on success, then anxiety, fear, bad thoughts, etc. everything comes. The thought of winning is already making him bad and these emotions add salt to injury. In the end, the person loses his mind, fails, and gives up. It all happens because for him happiness is in success. He associates himself with a product. Instead of confining one’s happiness with success, one should focus on himself, his strengths, and all the other things which we have mentioned beforehand. If, somehow, the person succeeds, he becomes happy. His happiness lasts at that point and again he meets sadness. Therefore, one often misses his targets because he confines his happiness to success which results in nervousness and all other things. When combined, it becomes difficult for a person to focus on himself, etc. he focuses on success and instead of fighting the odds, fights another war.
The more you focus on the aim, the more it misses. Because we are starting the wrong way. The aim gives us direction. To get to it, we need a system. Focusing on an end product will not help us. What helps us are our actions, hard work, discipline, self-reflection, etc. When one thinks about the end product, he narrows down his happiness, and thus, he is overwhelmed by other emotions. It all leads to failure.
