How Achieving a Masters Helped Me See Why I Felt so Flat
It seems to me that when a lot of people think of success, they think of an end point. So, if it’s a marathon, it’s getting to the finishing line, ideally with all your toenails and in your shortest time. If it’s your career, it’s achieving a management position by retirement, ideally director or above with an income far higher than your current.
When I think of success in those terms, it depresses me a little. I would even go as far as to say I find it a bit bleak.
Think about it, you spend your whole like looking to achieve a specific thing which perhaps you’ll get and perhaps you won’t. But then what? Seriously, tell me. What?
Have you ever had that feeling where you have wanted something so badly but once you have it you just felt flat?
You should be happy. You should be excited. You should feel like you have levelled up and with it should experience a new-found contentment. But you don’t feel anything like contentment and so the guilt and self-judgement kicks in. Why can’t I be happy? What’s wrong with me? Why is it never enough?
My best example of this was when I achieved a distinction at masters.
I hadn’t planned on pushing so hard, I was happy just skipping through the whole thing. My reasoning being I was only sitting the class so I could start my APC (the qualification to become a chartered surveyor). It was hard, time consuming and not really a subject I was particularly interested in. So simply having the degree was plenty.
Then one day my tutor said to me, you know if you keep this up there’s a chance you’ll get a first. What?! Seriously?! I had missed a first at my undergrad by a couple of points and it had really bothered me. I thought, I wish I hadn’t tried as hard and instead just relaxed and accepted a middling 2:1, what a waste of pub time. I really didn’t want to be just shy of the top again.
I threw myself at it. It worked. And I got my distinction.
So what then?
Well, nothing.
Two years of studying around a full-time job.
Two years of making sure I was in the office for 7am to use the computer till work started at 9am, cracking straight back on at 5.30pm, hitting it hard, home in time to cook dinner and then back on it again once the washing up was done.
Two years of juggling a frustrated and bored partner who was livid that I even had the audacity to go back to uni in the first place.
Two years of curling up in a ball on the bed, sobbing because I didn’t understand the essay question, let alone have time to get to the campus library to research it to a decent standard AND write a succinct 5,000 words on it.
It was long, man. It was long and hard won.
So after the letter came through telling me I had achieved my goal, after I had been out for meals and drinks to celebrate, after I had worn that stupid little hat and the stupid cloak which made me look 4 foot tall and 16 stone to collect my scroll, I sat on the bed and thought ‘what now?’ and there was nothing.
I felt so, so flat.
The truth is I had put all my eggs into the ‘success basket’ of achieving that distinction. It was a singular point in a very long, complicated and messy journey.
Other achievements in this scenario included but were not limited to:
Having the guts to go back to uni when I felt rather stupid
Being trusted and championed enough by my boss to be put on the course in the first place
Learning new things weekly
Having an excuse to get out of the house when I otherwise struggled to
Having an excuse to meet new people, some of which are still in my life now, when I otherwise struggled to
Having something to get my teeth into, to keep myself busy and preoccupied when life was otherwise dull, hard and sad
And, possibly most exciting of all, NEW STATIONERY!!! (yeahhh bbooooiiii!!!)
If I think of these things, not only is there more layers to my success than the grade, but I suddenly feel them all over again; it makes my achievements fresh. So not only have I removed the element that makes my win singular, linear and flat – I have re-lived the high many, many years later.
Playing with the definition of success is something I feel very strongly about.
I talk about success with my clients regularly and I am always working on it myself. It is such a powerful thing; what may appear to be a simple view is actually a whole host of complicated beliefs, feelings and drivers, all meshed together in the back of your head.
Shifting your idea of winning from a linear, reactionary state to something which you might feel, think and see regularly and often will help you feel that little pang of goodness more often, and take away that flat fall that comes after the crescendo.
