Less self-disciplined pursuit-breaking the "Success is the catalyst for failure" spell

Why won't some successful people or organizations become automaticallyVerySuccess? An important explanation of this problem is the "objective-specific paradox", which can be summarized into four stages:

Phase 1: when we have a clear goal, it will make us succeed.

Phase 2: When we succeed, we will be given more choices and opportunities.

Phase 3: when we have more options and opportunities, these opportunities will distract us from our efforts.

Phase 4: when our efforts are dispersed, the clear objectives of our initial success will be damaged.

So it's strange. If you sum up this conclusion, it will be:Success is a catalyst for failure.

This conclusion is not uncommon. We can see this phenomenon in companies that were once hot but eventually shut down on Wall Street. In How the Mighty Fall, Jim Collins explores this phenomenon and finds that there is a key reason for these failures: "blindly pursue more ". Companies and their careers are always blindly pursued and ultimately failed.

First, let's explain a successful example of avoiding blind pursuit: Enric Sala was a professor at a famous Institute and he thought his career was not as high as he wanted. So he left the academia and went to work for "National Geographic. When he succeeds in a new field, some new opportunities from Washington make him feel confused again, and his success hinders his progress. A few years later, he once again changed his career direction and truly pursued what he wanted: he became a National Geographic Explorer (also a marine ecosystem scientist ), dive in the most remote location with a large amount of time and use his expertise in science and communication to influence global policy. The price he finally paid for his ideal job was: "No" to many of the opportunities he met ".

How can we avoid the "goal-specific paradox" like Enric and stick to our rising momentum? There are three suggestions:

First, use more extreme standards

I want to see when we use a broad set of standards ("maybe when will I wear it in the future ?") What will happen to our wardrobe? It is full of clothes that are rarely worn. If we ask ourselves when we buy clothes, "Do I really like this dress ?" Then we can eliminate such disorder and have more space to have better things. This method can also be used in our career choices.

To implement more rigorous standards, we can look at the complicated search engines in our brains. Exercise: if we search for "a good opportunity" in our minds, what will happen to the search results? I believe we will find several pages of things we have thought about and done. Search for the question of "what are my talents" and "what is important to the world? Generally, such search results won't have too many pages, but this is the key point of the exercise: We don't need to find a lot of good things to do, what we need to find is the highest point we can contribute.

Enric is one of the few who find their favorite jobs that match their talents and make significant contributions to the world. The highest point of his contribution is to protect the original marine environment and help build a national park.

Second, ask yourself, "What is indispensable ?"

Ask yourself "What is indispensable" and clear all ideas except indispensable. When we give ourselves the power to clear things that are not important, we begin to change, like finding the key to unlock the next level of our lives. To succeed, start with clearing:

Examine your own life. People tend to be confused. If we don't do it ourselves, our tables will not be in disorder. Similarly, our lives become chaotic because of our long-term accumulated ideas. Almost none of our pursuits and efforts have a definite deadline. Once they accept these objective ideas, they will exist in our lives without a deadline. In fact, we should find out which ideas are really important in our hearts, pursue them, and discard the rest.

Before you add new pursuits, finish the old ones. This simple rule ensures that you do not do anything without value or give up what you are doing.

Third, pay attention to the Endowment Effect (Endowment Effect)

The inherent Fu effect is also known as "loss aversion" or "separation aversion", which means that once we have it, we tend to give higher comments to things. In a study related to Kahneman, Knetsch, and Thaler, the research team randomly assigned half of the consumers (such as coffee cups) in the experiment, the other half is divided into pens of the same value as the coffee cup. According to the traditional economic theory, half of the people holding coffee cups and half of the people with pens should exchange items. However, the experimental results show that the actual number of transactions is much less than the theory. Because of the ownership of items, people do not want to exchange their own things with others. This is the Endowment Effect. Let's take your own real life as an example. When you want to give away an old book you haven't read for many years on the shelf, do you suddenly think that this book is too heavy in your mind?

In response to the Endowment Effect, Tom Stafford proposed a solution to help us clarify our goals: "I don't pay much attention to this issue ", ask, "if I don't have it, how much will I pay to get it?" In the face of career opportunities, we should not ask "How much I pay attention to this opportunity" but ask "How much I will sacrifice to get this opportunity if I don't get it ?"

If success is a catalyst for failure because success leads to "blindly pursuing more", then the simple antidote is "pursuing less self-discipline ". This is not a random denial, but a purposeful, careful, and strategic elimination of those unimportant things that will be born out of the box. This is not only part of the annual planning meeting, but should also be continued, simplified and focused. This will not only free you from the waste of time, but also give you the willingness to reject some seemingly great opportunities. Few people will have the courage to use such principles to live, but this may be the difference between successful people and very successful people and organizations.

Article from 36kr