What Not to Do For or After Success
Success comes at a price. It requires effort, dedication, persistence, discipline and much more. What are you willing to sacrifice for success? Are you ready to put in 14 hours of hard work every day? Are you ready to stick to your goals, give up on your pride, and persist through as many setbacks as required to obtain success? There are many things that are worth giving up in order to obtain success. But there many others that are not.
By the same token, once you achieve success, you may be tempted to change your ways to conform to the expectations of your newly found success. But some of these changes may cost more than the benefits and joys of being a successful person.
In this article we try to list some of the things that are not worth doing in order to obtain or to maintain success. This is not mean to be a comprehensive list, but should capture a good number of thoughts around what not to do for or after success. If you have other thoughts on this subject, please share them with the readers in the comments section.
Sacrificing the Family
Family should come first. It is not worth sacrificing the integrity and happiness of the family in order to obtain or maintain personal success.
Being Unethical
Unethical success is an oxymoron. Don’t compromise ethical behavior in order to gain short-term success. Without ethics, success is short lived.
Breaking the Law
This is one step beyond being unethical. Breaking the law will not bring long-term success.
Betraying Your Friends
Friends are worth more than success. What good is success if you end-up lonely without anyone to share you success with?
Deteriorating Your Health
Can you truly enjoy success if you don’t have your health? Trading your health to obtain success is not a very smart decision.
Compromising Your Integrity
If you need to lie, cheat or deceive people in order to obtain success, is it worth it? What good is success if you don’t like what you see when you look in the mirror?
Letting Success Get to Your Head
Don’t let success change who you are. If suddenly you start treating people with disdain and disrespect because of your successful position, stop and reevaluate if this is who you wanted to become.
Forgetting Where You Came From
Along the same lines, you should never forget where you came from just because of your conquered or desired success.
Giving up on Happiness
If you are not happy with your life, despite of your perceived success, is it all worth it?
Alienating Your Faith
If your success related behaviors are incongruent with your faith and beliefs, are you truly successful, or are you just living in a superficial world?
The list can go on and on. As simple as some of these thoughts may seem, you would be surprised by how many people fail to recognize them when pursuing success. Success can be sweet, but if you compromise and alienate you values, beliefs, family and friends you may end up with a terrible after-taste. Always take the high road and you will enjoy the sweetness of success in the long run.
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Comment by Kristian Hahndel on 2007-07-23:
hey great blog.
I have been personally involved in human development for many years and i certainly agree with you that success come with a price.
But this scarifice is small compared to the results one can attain. Also success should not dominate your life as love is the most important in my own opinion. I really enjoyed this post and i believe many people will benefit from this. I love to share my own personal experiences with you in my blog over here if your interested.
Comment by Pamela on 2007-07-23:
“Sacrificing the family” is really common these days. We’ve seen a lot of children who don’t have good relationship with their parents because they seldom see each other. It shows that their parents spend more time with their work than their family.
Comment by Dave on 2007-07-24:
I agree. Those things on the list are common changes that people do for the sake of success. Every one of them is certainly not worth the sacrifice.
Comment by Helen on 2007-07-26:
I agree with the list. People often find it hard to resist the temptations of power.If it means doing things more often and staying the way they are, their lives will be affected in different ways.
Comment by Ken on 2009-03-28:
There is no question that success comes at a price. But there is no reason to compromise your integrity or alienate your friends and family. Do what you love and love what you do.