THE CORNER OFFICE: Redefining Success and Failure

Listen, I don't have time for this. I haven't even had my coffee yet. Photo by Pavel Herceg on Unsplash

I remember thinking as a kid that success meant working in a corner office.

It meant getting dressed up everyday to go to work, being a boss (#likeaboss), making important decisions, and of course, lots of money. (Show me the money!)

I coveted the sort of life that Patrick Bateman had in American Psycho (minus the killing and stuff...). Perfect. Everything is precise and expertly timed. Nothing is out of place.

Because perfection guarantees happiness, doesn't it?

I learned the hard way that maintaining the facade of perfection is exhausting.

At my last job, I was a corporate events manager. I flew all over the world for the conferences I organized, meeting with high-powered executives. I existed only to work.

And I worked hard; I would often get to work at 5:30 AM and put in overtime on the weekends. I had to be 'on' all the time, and that included having my "look" pulled together: hair / makeup / wardrobe / accessories. 

I didn't roll out of bed looking like this. #corporatelife Image Credit: Author

Maintaining the illusion of perfection took so much time and energy.

My job included regular travel, and during my last six-months, I was on a plane every month. I barely had time to unpack and do laundry before I had to pack everything up again.

The last conference I organized was a week-long event in Chicago, where I worked while I had a sinus infection. I couldn't take time off because I was the event's manager; there was no back-up person. (Cost cutting, you understand.) I was running on fumes and by the time I left that job, I was burnt-out.

I was living the ladder-climbing life; it was beyond exhausting.

It made me realize that I personally cannot keep-up that pace. I don't want to live the corporate life; addicted to my own busyness and false sense of importance, operating in a highly charged state of fight-or-flight.

Far too busy for fun. Photo by charlesdeluvio on Unsplash

What do you do when you realize you don't want the corner office?

What if you know that you are in fact, smart and ambitious enough to get it - if you wanted it - but that you really don't want it?

What if you know yourself enough to know that the amount of work and responsibility required to get that corner office would mean trading your precious life energy for something that ultimately doesn't matter?

Success and failure are things we have to define for ourselves because they're arbitrary and relative.

Am I a success?

According to what?

Am I a failure?

Compared to who?

If you feel like you're failing, change the yardstick.

If you don't compare yourself to anyone expect your yesterday self, you might actually be knocking it out of the park!

Success or failure are about how you choose to define them.

Just because many people agree that success looks a certain way (aka - the media and modern society), doesn't mean you have to agree with them. (Just because they've all been drinking the same Kool-Aid, doesn't mean they're right.)

In order to redefine what success and failure are, you need to ask yourself: When is enough, enough?

When is it ok to pull the bell and ask to get off the train of more?

"This is my stop. Thanks all the same, but I have enough, I am enough, so I'm getting off now."

What's the difference between choosing a peaceful life with less, and being an underachiever?

I can't tell you, because that's something you have to decide for yourself.

But I will say this: just because you can do more doesn't mean you should do more. 

You're not a robot; you're not supposed to tap-out your potential outputs every single day in order to climb some arbitrary ladder.

And if that makes you an underachiever, then I ask... according to who?

Success and failure are arbitrary and relative; make sure you choose a yardstick that matters to YOU.

This is a good stick, right? Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash

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You might be asking yourself "How does this topic relate to recovery from binge-eating?" What I found is that - for me - finding new ways of thinking about life and its challenges helped me to stop stress-eating, and has been a very big part of my ability to stop binge-eating.

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