If you haven’t read my first article about how to define your own success, I recommend reading it. In that post, I discuss the steps you can take to define success at work for yourself. In this post, we’ll go in-depth about how to apply these steps to your work.
As mentioned in my previous post, the first step to defining your own success is identifying the external influences that might share your notion of success. The obvious ones here are your coworkers. These are the people you’re working closely with, so it makes sense that they’re going to influence you.
Step 1: Identify External Influences
Whether you collaborate with your coworkers every day or simply do your work in their vicinity, they will probably influence your perception of success in the workplace. Think about who you work with and how you view them.
Example: The New Salesperson
You just got hired at a new company and started working as a sales representative for a start-up. You sit right next to Sarah, a senior sales representative who is always closing big deals and bringing in lots of revenue. Sarah has worked at the company for seven years and is well-respected. You admire her success in making sales.
Your admiration might lead you to equate success with big sales. But you just joined the team and are still working on building your client base; you’re a long way off closing a big deal. If you set your marker for success as making a big sale, this can have negative consequences on your self-esteem as an employee. I made the same mistake when I worked as a software engineer.
My personal experiences with external influences
When I first started, my coworkers would often leave a lot of comments on my code, leaving me feeling embarrassed and ashamed about the comments. I began to tie my self-worth to the quality of my code, and the comments would make me feel bad about myself.
My metric for success was to receive as few comments as possible on my code. This meant coding in a style that others would see fit, and taking in every suggestion they made as law. To avoid feeling embarrassed during my code reviews, I created this metric because I wanted my team’s approval.
I placed value in their opinion of my work because my work was an extension of myself. If my work wasn’t up to par, then I didn’t see myself as a valuable team member. You see how things can quickly spiral?
Example: The New Salesperson
Let’s go back to our example of working in sales. You’ve equated success with making big sales because you sit next to Sarah, who constantly does this. It’s likely you won’t be making any big sales soon because you’ve just started. As a result, you might end up feeling like a failure, forgetting that Sarah has been at the company way longer and has a lot more experience.
Over time, if you maintain the notion that success means making big sales, you won’t feel any good about the smaller sales you’re making. You may start feeling that the role is not a good fit for you, or that you’re not providing value to your team.
Remove yourself from the influences
That’s why it’s important to identify who around you is influencing your idea of success. Once you do that, you can remove yourself from their sphere of influence and say, “Yes, they’re successful in their own way, but that doesn’t have to define success at work for me.” The goal isn’t to ignore your coworkers’ success — but to understand how their achievements may be influencing your own definition of it.
So what’s the next step after that? As I mentioned in my last blog about defining success for yourself, you’ll want to determine what success is not.
Step 2: Determine what success is not
This was something I wished I had done when I started as a software engineer. I would have told myself, “Success doesn’t mean not having any comments on your code.” That makes total sense to me now, looking back, but at the time, it wasn’t obvious to me.
Not having anyone comment on my code could mean my coworkers don’t care enough about me to advise on improvements. That’s definitely something I didn’t want.
Thinking about it now, writing code to avoid receiving comments was a silly goal. I was allowing other people’s opinions to dictate what success meant for me. A better way to define success at work for myself would have been this: “Success is understanding why my team is making those comments, and learning how to write better code.”
Reframe the narrative
If I had adopted that as my metric of success, then instead of feeling ashamed at all the comments on my work, I could feel grateful instead. I could feel grateful that my team cared enough about me to provide their suggestions and help get my code to a better place.
Then I could engage in a dialogue with them, ask questions, and learn more about how I could improve. Notice the change in atmosphere once I change how I view success.
I went from shame and embarrassment to gratitude and a willingness to learn. This shift in mindset made my work experience more positive and productive.
Step 3: Decide what’s important for you
Going back to our sales example, what should you do in that situation? After determining what success isn’t (making big sales), you can start thinking what’s important for you. You realize comparing yourself to Sarah isn’t helpful. Instead, we can ask ourself:
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What do I want to accomplish right now?
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What skills do I want to develop?
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What progress can I reasonably expect from myself?
If you want to make big sales eventually, it sounds like it’s important to learn the skills needed to become a skilled salesperson.
Success for you might mean:
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Growing your client base
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Making two successful sales in your second week
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Learning how to create compelling sales pitches
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Becoming more confident on client calls
The idea is to put yourself at the forefront, and not let others dictate your idea of success. When you set personal, achievable goals like these, you create a success metric that’s aligned with your current reality, not someone else’s accomplishments.
Hopefully, this post gave you some insights on how to define success at work for yourself. As always, let me know in the comments if this helped you and feel free to contact me if you have any questions!
