Don't Take Your Successes For Granted

One of the most incomplete, but wildly popular, sayings is that "experience is learning from your mistakes". 

First of all, let's dissect that statement. The term experience in the given context is defined as having acquired a certain degree in a practical skill as a result of repeated exposure (hands on or through observation) to the corresponding events. If experience implies learning, then the true measure of experience is defined by your successes in participation, not your failures. 

The only thing a failure will teach you is what not to repeat again. It is true that certain failures will create situations that force you to be resourceful and test you, some subsequently leading to success. But ultimately, you learn from your successes with respect to what works. 

As children, we know this to be true from a young age. From the time a child crawls, walks, uses a spoon, etc.; that child recognizes the feeling of success and repeats those successes in their continuous process of learning. 

As we get older, our goals and achievements become more complex and multifaceted. Some of these include purchasing a house, making the right investment, raising a child and advancing a career. The more items we have to cover in order to achieve success in any given goal, the more likely it is we will experience failure at some point on our way to achieving that goal. This, I suppose, is the reason why the aforementioned saying about mistakes being the source of our experience is so prevalent.

However, the greatest mistake many adults repeat is failing to learn from success. The reason for this is when we fail, we are forced to assess our failure and figure out where we went wrong, ultimately setting us on a more correct path to success. However, when we succeed, there is no pressing need to assess our success in order to figure out where we made the right choices and where other factors were in play despite mistakes. 

From personal experience, almost a decade ago, a potential promotion in an industry I love dearly fell into my lap. It is a position I earned specific graduate education for, accumulated the right industry background, and seemingly made the right impression with the company staff. Up until that point in my career, every single promotion that I had applied for, I received. It seemed so natural, that I could do no wrong, or so I thought. But despite having all the right credentials, scoring desirably on the personality assessment, and acing the interview; I did not get the job.

The job went to an external Software Development professional candidate who had no experience in the given industry. I was completely blindsided. After running through all the variations in my mind of how this could happen, the blame game, and pondering my future; I decided to research all the information on this matter I could get from my colleagues.

I discovered there were several factors that led to me being excluded from consideration for the given role. 

First, the organization I worked in acquired a reputation for promoting younger staff with limited experience to higher level positions, which made the parent company question the organization's choices. This made it less likely for me to be chosen for the role, as the local managers wanted to make a better impression with this particular hire.  

Second, I acquired the perception for being demanding of my co-workers. At the time I did not have a wife, kids or a house. I could immerse myself in work, and push as much of my energy as I could during the working hours. The adverse perception from my colleagues was that I would be as demanding of them in a more administrative role. This provided resistance from some of my colleagues, when asked by Human Resources how would I fare in this particular role.

Lastly, I was highly valued by all the department heads and my direct manager in a purely technical role. I was seen as a valuable technical resource with no viable replacement in the event of a promotion. Neither the upper management nor my direct manager wanted any part of having to replace me in the vacated position. This factor, contributed the heaviest towards this failure. 

Ultimately, I realized that in all my prior promotions and job offers, I succeeded. This never made me go through the same analytic process that I had to go through at this point in time. As a result, I always thought that my approach to getting the next job was without fault. Nothing could have been further from the truth. The mistake that I kept on making, despite the string of successes, was to focus on myself and project the person I thought the organization needed.

In reality, in order to get any job, I needed to focus on the organization, the role, and the specific profile needs of that role, in order to make sure I project the match the organization is looking for. I have been applying that principle ever since.

Most importantly, I learned not to take my successes for granted. I have learned to carefully scrutinize my successes, just as much as my failures, in order to separate where I was right and where I was lucky despite being wrong. 

I would advise everyone to learn from your successes. Go over the details of each and every step. You'll be surprised how much you can learn from them, when you stop taking your successes for granted. 

We are survivors!

In a year filled with widespread violence and destruction, if you have lived past midnight of 2016, you are a survivor!

Make no light of that statement. Please realize that those of us who live in the western world have a functioning government and law enforcement that protects us. These may be imperfect, and at times faulty, but they still function a lot better than in many other parts of this world.

We are not subjected to massacres at the hands of Islamic State, Boko Haram or the Houthi Rebels. We do not have to face the civil war and flee our homeland like the people of Syria. We do not have to live in fear of being gunned down while watching our favorite rock concert or being ran over by a truck while celebrating a holiday. We also do not have to attempt to live our lives under the rocket fire of Hamas, accepting these attacks as a daily routine.

Please understand that while the three hundred or so "celebrity" deaths in the past year may be painful to us because some of us identify with generational popular culture, these deaths are a part of life. Especially when you consider the cause of death in each case. Outside of several tragic accidents, like the Anton Yelchin (who was ran over by his own Jeep), majority of these deaths took people of age who either died of natural causes or accelerated their natural cause deaths through drug abuse, alcohol abuse and consequences of mental illness. Do not get hung up on these deaths, but instead use these as a reality check that drug and substance abuse are still huge contributors to early demise. Also, seek professional help for loved ones who are going through mental illness.

As we all head out into the new and hopeful 2017, remember that you all have a responsibility to yourselves to make your lives matter. Make sure that come the end of 2017, you have a list of what you have accomplished as a testament to the celebration of a year in your life well lived. 

Look at the past year and take note of the things that went well for you and the things for which you'd like to see a better result. Then, make a plan and stick to it. You can do it, as this is a new year and all the negativity of the past year is null and void.

Live your lives to the fullest - don't be just a survivor!