Strive

Chapter 2The completion myth

Before I get into the nuts and bolts of how you can effectively strive, I need to clear up a misconception about goals and achievement and the completion myth. What I mean by that is the misconception that in the process of working towards a goal, aspiration or vision, you experience the most amount of satisfaction when you finally achieve the end result.

Let me explain. Typically, we set a goal (complete a marathon), aspiration (be a compassionate and calm parent) or vision for our life (I want to run my own successful small business), and from there our focus becomes arriving at the goal, aspiration or vision, seeing the striving part as the section we have to tolerate and suffer through. As summed up in the following figure, we are conditioned to think we will love the achieving part and at best endure the striving section.

In contrast to this strongly held view, my team’s research showed that people felt most alive and stimulated in the striving period leading up to the goal. Completing the goal did produce a period of elation, but this was followed by a flat spot of indifference, disappointment and often sadness, during which people are grieving that they are no longer in the striving phase. The completion of the goal has taken the striving away and an emptiness ensues.

If I had a dollar for every person I have worked with who said ‘Wow I ...