Living a good enough life: being more comfortable with achievements

[shootingstar]

Would you agree, not always exhorting yourself to be the best, etc.etc. in life?

Here is a different take on life and life's achievements:

The solution is not about lowering standards, he says. It’s about adjusting the way we think. “High standards are very different from wanting or expecting the best all the time,” he says.

And the same is true for how we should think about our personal accomplishments. “Having very high standards of achievement – working hard, persevering, not being satisfied with what is merely acceptable – no doubt spurs people to achieve things that they would otherwise not achieve,” Prof. Schwartz says. “But there’s a crucial difference between shooting for perfection, realizing you can’t achieve it and yet still being satisfied with your accomplishments and shooting for perfection, thinking you can and should achieve it and thereby living a life of misery and perpetual disappointment.”

I can't see that type of laid back approach could be for everything in one's life -but for me, it's only pushing the best of myself only for certain areas of my life.

The rest I just let others do their thing.
I just go bike and go home.

[Reesha]

That's a great point. One thing that I've always been good at is gauging my happiness to stress ratio. I hold myself to high standards but only so far as working toward these standards will bring me happiness. Once I feel stress, or misery, I start to reflect on how best to change things to bring my life back into balance.

[Brandi]

I have learned that things only have to perfect for me really. And what I see as not perfect some people do. I agree Reesha about the stress part. If I start feeling to much stress I back off.
I had a dad that made me once (or twice) scrub a walkway and a wall and said I had to get it clean enough to eat off of. Actually everything he had me do had to be perfect. even though I never came close and always disappointed him. But lucky for me as an adult and finally figuring it out. He was wrong and I am perfect in my own perfect way! Which is not perfect but I am way happy with that!
Does that make since?

[Tri Girl]

I get this!
At my age (late 30's) many of my friends/peers are still trying to climb the ladder in their careers. I'm trying to figure out how to climb back down the ladder and do as little work as possible yet still make money.

I do my very best at work and try to turn out the best work I can. I also watch the stress-o-meter. If things aren't fun and are causing too much stress- I don't do it anymore (well, not work because I love my job- but in other areas of life).

Life is too short. I always think about my father who worked SO hard his whole life, then died at 54, right before retirement. All that stress and hard work and he didn't get to enjoy life at a slower pace.
I want to enjoy life as much as possible, while still saving for retirement, still working at paying off the house, but still playing and doing the things I love as much as I possibly can. We only get one shot at this, and I'm OK with being on my deathbed and not having won Teacher of the Year, or having 3 degrees or being a CEO. I'm good with having taught thousands of kids and trying to have been a chippy, pleasant, kind-hearted person.

[Reesha]

I threw my friend's quote into my signature, but she just gave a great TED talk at TEDxTraverseCity on a very similar topic. T and I worked at boarding school together from 2006-2008 and we worked HARD. We always found time to sneak off together to blow off some stress by doing yoga, or spinning, or walking. We both loved the job, but it was a bit too high-stress and really took a lot of energy out of us. That spring, she tiptoed around the idea of buying a sailboat, moving onto it and simplifying her life down to raw essentials. Compared to my lifestyle, hers is incredibly simple, while I understand that others take it even further than she does. Still, she went all in on her boat and her new lifestyle and it has really worked out for her. Because of her blog, she was invited to give her TED talk. I think some women here would really enjoy it! Check it out:

http://tedxtraversecity.com/videos

Hers is "My American Dream" by Teresa Carey

[shootingstar]

Life is too short. I always think about my father who worked SO hard his whole life, then died at 54, right before retirement. All that stress and hard work and he didn't get to enjoy life at a slower pace.
I want to enjoy life as much as possible, while still saving for retirement, still working at paying off the house, but still playing and doing the things I love as much as I possibly can. We only get one shot at this, and I'm OK with being on my deathbed and not having won Teacher of the Year, or having 3 degrees or being a CEO. I'm good with having taught thousands of kids and trying to have been a chippy, pleasant, kind-hearted person.

+1 TriGirl!

[solobiker]

I get this!
At my age (late 30's) many of my friends/peers are still trying to climb the ladder in their careers. I'm trying to figure out how to climb back down the ladder and do as little work as possible yet still make money.

I do my very best at work and try to turn out the best work I can. I also watch the stress-o-meter. If things aren't fun and are causing too much stress- I don't do it anymore (well, not work because I love my job- but in other areas of life).

Life is too short. I always think about my father who worked SO hard his whole life, then died at 54, right before retirement. All that stress and hard work and he didn't get to enjoy life at a slower pace.
I want to enjoy life as much as possible, while still saving for retirement, still working at paying off the house, but still playing and doing the things I love as much as I possibly can. We only get one shot at this, and I'm OK with being on my deathbed and not having won Teacher of the Year, or having 3 degrees or being a CEO. I'm good with having taught thousands of kids and trying to have been a chippy, pleasant, kind-hearted person.

+1 I agree. I'm in my early 40s took an upper management position thinking it was the thing to do to advance my career. Talk about total stress and misery. I lasted in that position for about 1.5 years then decided to step down. Could not be happier...once my day is done at work it is done....no more fielding calls at night or on weekends. In my field I have seen a lot of people work their lives away only to end up in a nursing home in the end.

I now live life to what I feel is the fullest for me and I can laugh at myself. Like you Trigirl...except with older people I am happy with knowing I have helped well over couple hundred people rehab back to home after surgery, strokes, pneumonia...etc. Have a great day/night everyone

[roadie gal]

I used to think that I had to excel at everything. Instead of just being a good doc I had to be an administrator as well. I tried being in charge of EMS in the city I was working in. I failed at that. I just wasn't interested in putting in the time, and I hated it. I still wince when I think about it. Then I tried working at a teaching hospital. But my heart wasn't in that either. I have finally come to understand that I need to play to my strengths. I'm a good "pit doc", and I enjoy it. So that's enough.

It's taken me a long time to realize that appearance (as in being important or in charge) is less important than substance (being good at what I do and being happy about it). I'm a much calmer and more content person for knowing that.

Now I'm looking toward what, if anything, I want to do when I retire, which will hopefully be in the next 3-5 years. I may just allow myself to do nothing.

[limewave]

I'm a goal-oriented person . . . so I naturally tend to set "high-standards of achievement" for myself. Many times I know, going into it, that the "high-level" I set for myself is just beyond what I think is a realistic goal.

I have not experienced that deep, disappointing, feeling when I don't achieve a goal. I guess I have that more laid-back approach to life.

I know people that view me as being "overly-driven" and "extremely competitive." They find me very intimidating. I think that is an inaccurate description of who I am because I don't agonize over "defeat." Nor do I obsess about winning. To me, racing, training, setting goals is fun! Setting a goal for yourself and accomplishing it is an amazing feeling! I am constantly amazed at what our bodies-our spirits-can endure and achieve!

IMHO: I think setting a goal of "winning" is a terrible goal to set for yourself! You never know who is going to show up for a race or what unknown is going to happen. Goals surrounding fitness levels, nutrition, running pace, etc are much more achievable and satisfying.

[Pax]

People have described me as "effortlessly competent", so while I don't seem to work very hard I get a lot done and make positive changes in the workplace. All this has done is create a life with a series of "professions" where I start out entry level and end up promoted much higher that I ever wanted to be.

My current job is working in a university library as a civil servant, in the four years I've been here I've gone from a part time assistant to a senior level manager who supervises 40 people... and I don't care about my job in the slightest. I don't hate it, I just don't care about it. I don't want to be a boss anymore and I don't want to work indoors all day and never see the sun.

My SO and I are debt free (except for a tiny mortgage payment) as of this month. Her job is ending in the Fall but we can live on part time salaries, we both prefer time off to making money; so we're taking a serious look at our options.

[shootingstar]

I used to think that I had to excel at everything. Instead of just being a good doc I had to be an administrator as well. I tried being in charge of EMS in the city I was working in. I failed at that. I just wasn't interested in putting in the time, and I hated it. I still wince when I think about it. Then I tried working at a teaching hospital. But my heart wasn't in that either. I have finally come to understand that I need to play to my strengths. I'm a good "pit doc", and I enjoy it. So that's enough.

It's taken me a long time to realize that appearance (as in being important or in charge) is less important than substance (being good at what I do and being happy about it). I'm a much calmer and more content person for knowing that.

Several years ago, doctor-sister turned down an offer to manage the EMS division at her hospital. She just didn't want to deal with administrative side. She also has 2 young children (2nd one is 2 yrs. old) and is an older mother at 42 by starting her family later in life. She is working part-time, her hubby works full-time...as a cook.

So you can guess that they aren't living a high life, but she saved sufficient money when she had no children. I think she' trying to cope partially because she knows she lacks the energy compared to 15 yrs. ago..

So she truly is bucking the trend among some doctors with type AAA personalities.

[Velocivixen]

I got my Master's degree and started the work ladder shortly thereafter. Went through a couple of different careers, then got married to someone who said I didn't have to work. It was a very difficult transition (not working for money) because my image of myself was so wrapped up in what I did for a living, how much money I made and my material possessions. I have come to the conclusion that there is such a thing as "good enough". Things don't have to be perfect, but good enough is just fine. This attitude allows me to live relatively stress free and cut myself some slack. In the meantime, I've had time to do all sorts out interesting and out of my comfort zone volunteering, try out & keep or discard hobbies/interests, and essentially work to "find myself" in middle age.

[wannaduacentury]

It's taken me a long time to realize that appearance (as in being important or in charge) is less important than substance (being good at what I do and being happy about it). I'm a much calmer and more content person for knowing that.

I agree with this. Although I've had a few supervisory positions, I've never really cared about being in charge per se. I'm working on my B.A. in History(non-trad and I'm 38) and I work in libraries(MLS afterwards) so I can hopefully combine the two at some point. I'd like to have some more money, but it's not really my goal, being happily employed at something I'd really enjoy that allows me time to enjoy life too. That's what I aim for. Jennifer

[Crankin]

I was fairly competitive in my teaching career, but when I found a job I loved, I found that I had learned so much, that most of my work was not that much of an effort for me. People thought I was supremely competent, but it was really more my positive attitude, my belief that all kids could learn, and being organized. I loved supervising and mentoring new teachers, but when i had earned all of the credits/coursework for my certificate of advanced graduate studies in educational leadership, I decided I didn't want to be a principal and it is very hard to find a curriculum job. I never did the internship or got the degree. This was right around the time I had been cycling for about 1-2 years and my priorities were changing. When I quit my job in 2007, I found it very hard to shed my professional identity and hence, the going back to school. I found I love working independently as a therapist, making my own schedule, as opposed to having to make every decision with a team of at least 3 other people.
I'm content. I do miss making the $, though. Even though DH makes plenty for us to live on, I always felt that I could support myself nicely and it felt like psychological freedom. It's hard to explain. The jobs I'm applying for now are less than my 20 something kids make.

[emily_in_nc]

. I'm content. I do miss making the $, though. Even though DH makes plenty for us to live on, I always felt that I could support myself nicely and it felt like psychological freedom. It's hard to explain. The jobs I'm applying for now are less than my 20 something kids make.

It's really sad that so many jobs that can make a significant difference in people's lives (like therapist, social worker, and the like) are so poorly paid compared to many jobs that don't mean diddly (sports professional, stock broker...) in the larger scheme of things. You should be very proud of what you are doing. You are blessed to not have to sell your soul doing something just for the money...you can afford to do something that is truly important. Brava!